Yeşil Türbe (Grüne Türbe)

Mehmed I (Çelebi Mehmed), a son of Bayezid I, ruled from 1413 to 1421 and restored Ottoman power after Timur's victory over his father at Ankara in 1402^4,5. In Bursa he founded the complex later named Yeşil (Green) after the tiles of its mosque, tomb and madrasa; TDV lists a mosque, madrasa, public kitchen (imaret), tomb and khans⁴. The mosque was begun in 1414 and finished in December 1419⁴. According to TDV, craftsmen from Tabriz, brought back by Ottoman scholars and artists returning after Timur's death in 1405, helped plan the mosque and made its tiles⁴. ICOMOS notes that the complex is said to symbolise the rebirth of Ottoman rule after the defeat of 1402³.

Mehmed I died at Edirne in 1421 and was buried in this tomb, which TDV dates to the same year^5,6. Bursa's monument inventory in the UNESCO nomination says that Hacı İvaz Pasha built it on Mehmed I's order, while Archnet names his son and successor Murad II as patron^2,7. Kültür Portalı adds that it was finished forty days before the sultan's death⁶. The 1855 earthquake damaged the entrance, which was repaired in 1864, and Archnet says the outer tiles are replacements for those lost in that earthquake^6,7. Osman Hamdi Bey painted the interior in 'Prayer in the Green Tomb' (1882)². After a full restoration the tomb reopened to visitors in 2009⁴.

The tomb stands on a small hill directly opposite the Yeşil Mosque⁴. It is an octagon on a base of küfeki stone, and its high drum and its dome, set on 'Turkish triangles', raise it to 25.5 m; TDV calls it the tallest of Ottoman tombs⁴. The nomination file gives a ground area of 328 m² and describes the dome as pointed². Each face is framed in white marble and carries a pointed blind arch; except on the north and south faces it holds a large rectangular window below and a pointed window with a plaster grille above⁶. Tile borders outline the frames and windows, turquoise tiles face the other surfaces, and the window lunettes carry Qur'anic verses and hadiths on a dark blue ground^2,6.

The entrance portal, re-plastered with horasan mortar in 1864, frames a carved wooden door of the kündekâri type^2,6. The door bears the names of Mehmed I and Hacı İvaz Pasha and the signature 'Amel-i Hacı Ali b. Ahmed-i Tebrizi', naming the master of the complex's woodwork⁴. The nomination file names Ali bin İlyas Ali, Mehmed el-Mecnun and Ali bin Hacı Ahmed of Tabriz as the decorators of the tomb². Patricia Blessing argues that the tilework of the mosque and tomb engages both with the Seljuk architecture of Anatolia and with the Persianate culture of post-Mongol Iran and Central Asia⁸.

Inside, hexagonal turquoise tiles framed by two borders line the walls to a height of about 3 m². The lunettes of the windows carry hadiths, and large sunburst medallions (şemse) with pendants fill the spaces between the windows⁴. On the qibla wall the tile mihrab has a muqarnas hood set in a wide frame of tilework, and the mosaic inside its niche shows roses, carnations and hyacinths⁷. In the centre stands Mehmed I's cenotaph, covered entirely in relief tiles in yellow, dark blue and white, which TDV describes as without parallel^4,7. Around it are the cenotaphs of his sons Mahmud and Yusuf, his daughters Selçuk Hatun, Hafsa, Ayşe and Sitti Hatun, and their nurse^6,7. These only mark the graves: the burials lie in a barrel-vaulted crypt below, divided into five sections according to the nomination file^2,4. Archnet notes that the chandelier and the coloured glass windows are later additions⁷.