Hundreds of oil lamps once lit the Süleymaniye. Where did the smoke go? Up, into one room above the door. A room that was left alone.
The first stone was laid on 13 June 1550 by common dating (the month and day are debated). The mosque opened on Friday, 15 October 1557.
Inside hung hundreds of oil lamps. An air current drew their smoke up to a room above the entrance: the is odası, the soot room.
A 2009 news report, quoting unnamed officials, says restorers left it out on purpose, as the most original part of the building, soot and all. Visitors have scratched names and hometowns into its walls.
Now the part you've heard. That report and many popular pages say the soot was made into ink for calligraphers. None points to a document; the scholarly entry mentions the room and says nothing about ink. The room is real. Until someone finds the paper, the ink is a legend.
Behind the qibla wall lies Suleiman, in a tomb Sinan built within weeks of his death in 1566. Southeast of him, Hürrem Sultan (her own story). And Sinan, the architect? Just outside the complex, to the north, facing the street, in a tomb built about thirty years after the mosque was finished. He called the mosque his "journeyman work" (his own story). He rests outside its walls.
A working mosque: go between prayers. Walk the cemetery behind the qibla wall to the two tombs, then find Sinan's outside the north wall. Whether the soot room can be visited is unknown, so don't hunt for it; stand under the entrance and picture the smoke rising. Visiting rules weren't confirmed when we checked.
