How many buildings did Mimar Sinan design? 330. Or 350. Or 374, 452, 476, 477. Nobody agrees, and the reason is the story.
From Ağırnas near Kayseri, probably a Christian family, taken to Istanbul by the devshirme levy under Selim I. Born when? Nobody wrote it down; guesses run 1488 to 1499.
He began as a soldier-engineer: Belgrade, Rhodes, Mohács, Iraq, Corfu. In 1538 he bridged the Prut in 13 days.
Chief architect from 1537 or 1539, by account, for almost fifty years.
Near the end he dictated his buildings to his friend Sâî Mustafa Çelebi. Three lists survive. They don't match. One scholar counts 477 across all three, only 312 on every list. Others: 476, 452, "at least 374", about 343, about 330. Why? Some predate him, some were altered or lost, and his office did much of the work.
He died on 17 July 1588, aged 98 to 100, and lies in a tomb of his own design just outside the Süleymaniye, which he called his "journeyman work" (its own story).
Where to meet him? Upstairs. In Hasırcılar market near the Spice Bazaar, narrow staircases climb to a mosque on a terrace above vaulted shops whose rents were meant to support it: the Rüstem Pasha Mosque, 1561–63 (the dating is debated), finished by the widow of its patron, the grand vizier Rüstem Pasha.
About 2,300 İznik tiles in roughly 80 patterns: porch, mihrab, minbar, walls. No other Sinan mosque uses so much. One scholar thinks some are 18th-century Italian or Dutch.
Find the staircase from the street and climb to the courtyard above the shops. A working mosque: go outside prayer times; hours weren't found when we checked, so read what's posted. We'd pick a weekday morning for the light.
