Zeynep Sultan Mosque

The Zeynep Sultan Mosque is an Ottoman mosque in Istanbul, standing on Alemdar Caddesi opposite Gülhane Park, close to the Hagia Sophia. It was built in 1769 for Zeynep Sultan, a daughter of Sultan Ahmed III, to designs by the architect Mehmed Tahir Ağa, who also designed the Ayazma Mosque. The building is a single-domed mosque in the Baroque taste of its day, and its plan and materials recall Byzantine churches, a choice the Turkish article attributes to the character of its site. The walls are laid in alternating courses of cut stone and brick, and the lead-covered dome rests on load-bearing walls. The cemetery beside it holds the grave of the Ottoman military hero Alemdar Mustafa Pasha and that of Melek Mehmed Pasha, a grand vizier and the second husband of Zeynep Sultan. A former school building behind the mosque still serves as a primary school. The mosque was restored in 1958 and again in 1983, and has been closed for restoration since 2014.