Yeni Cami (New Mosque)

Yeni Cami (The New Mosque) is the last great mosque in the line of the “Great Tradition” of Ottoman architecture.

The Age was that of the decline of the Gunpowder Empires of Eurasia. (And) The weakened Ottoman State were ruled by a series of strong Mother Sultans. It took two of them to build the New Mosque. The first one is Safiye Sultan… A Venetian named Sofia Bellicui Baffo, wife of Murad the Third, who is the grandson of Suleiman the Magnificient, decided to build a monument in her name when she was 47. An architect who was an apprentice of Master Sinan undertook the construction. Later the death of her son Sultan Mehmet III changed the fortunes of Safiye Sultan who had to abandon the project. When she died the site was left as it was.

Istanbul, Mesquita Nova, Pati, Josep Renalias

50 years later mother of Mehmet IV, Turhan Sultan completed the unfinished mosque. It was the center of a vakıf (foundation) and around it the institutions form a complex known as a “külliye”. Typical of larger Ottoman mosques… A public bath (hamam) and a market (çarşı) brought revenue, contributing to the upkeep of the complex. The market, called the Egyptian Market (Mısır Çarşısı) still stands today.

Yeni Cami by Abdullah Biraderler

Although past the classical age, Yeni Cami had many of the architectural traditions survived. And calling a 300 year old mosque “new” can only be accomplished in a city such as Istanbul.

References

1. İstanbul Gezi Rehberi, 1993, Murat Belge

2. John Freely’s Istanbul, 2005, John Freely