Sinan designed his own tomb and kept it modest. It is an open tomb — a dome carried on six columns joined by pointed arches — built of küfeki stone and marble, standing at the corner of the Süleymaniye complex he had built for Süleyman the Magnificent.
In front of his sarcophagus a single slab of marble carries an inscription in thuluth by the poet Sâi, who wrote the account of Sinan's life. Three more graves stand inside the tomb: one belongs to the architect Ali Talat Bey, and the other two have not been identified.
The man buried here was chief imperial architect for forty-nine years, from 1538, under Süleyman, Selim II and Murad III. He entered the corps as a levy in the reign of Selim I and was promoted after the battle of Mohács; of everything he built, the municipality singles out the Selimiye Mosque at Edirne.
When to go
- Climate
- Across İstanbul as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 6.8 °C in January to 24.7 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (99 mm) and lightest in July (22 mm). Long-term means for 1950-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
