Гробница султана Сулеймана I

Süleyman I, known in Turkish as Kanuni ('the Lawgiver'), ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1520 to 1566^2,4. Sinan built the Süleymaniye complex for him in 1550-1557, and UNESCO cites the complex with its imperial tombs as one of the supreme examples of Ottoman religious ensembles¹. The walled cemetery behind the mosque's qibla wall had already received the tomb of his wife Hürrem Sultan, who died in 1558^3,5,7. Süleyman died during the siege of Szigetvár in Hungary on the night of 6-7 September 1566⁴. His death was kept secret: the body was embalmed and brought back with the army, and the news was announced only when the new sultan, Selim II, reached Belgrade⁴.

Back in Istanbul, the funeral took place at the Süleymaniye Mosque on 23 November 1566, and after the prayer led by the chief mufti (şeyhülislam) Ebussuud Efendi he was buried beside the mosque⁴. TDV says Sinan built the tomb a few weeks after the death; Yavuz Sezer dates it to 1566-1568, noting that the plot had been reserved for it in advance^3,5. Archnet names Süleyman's son and successor, Selim II, as its patron¹⁴. According to Sezer, the endowment deed assigned Qur'an reciters to the tombs of Süleyman and Hürrem⁵. His daughter Mihrimah Sultan was buried beside him in 1578, and the tomb later received two sultans: Süleyman II in 1691, laid to his right, and Ahmed II in 1695^9,10,11.

The tomb follows the octagonal plan of earlier sultans' tombs, but a portico of columns and arches, sheltered by a sloping roof, wraps around its lower part, a feature that TDV says sets it apart from other sultans' tombs^3,6. Archnet describes the two tombs in the walled cemetery as domed octagons, Süleyman's being the more elaborate⁷. Above the portico each face has a group of three windows under an arch with coloured keystones, crowned by a heavy cornice; TDV sees here the most careful and colourful stonework of the period³. The Iznik tile panels under the portico use the new emerald green introduced around 1565⁸.

Scholars connect the design with two older domed octagons^5,6. Following Gülru Necipoğlu, Sezer and Mårtelius compare the ambulatory around a taller domed centre, the double-shell dome and the crystals in the inner dome with the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, a fitting model for a sultan named after Solomon^5,6. Doğan Kuban stresses instead its likeness to the late Roman mausoleum of Diocletian at Split, where a domed octagon also rises above an outer colonnade^5,6. Mårtelius also notes that a fragment of the Kaaba was set into the tomb, a practice found in Ottoman mosques since the Eski Cami in Edirne⁶.

Inside, eight columns placed in front of the octagonal walls carry arches, a dense structure for so small a space, under a double-shell dome whose inner face is richly painted³. Sezer notes crystals set into the inner dome, and six-pointed stars known as the Seal of Süleyman on the windows⁵. Tiles of the classical period and coloured stonework add to the decoration, and TDV counts the door leaves, inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory, among the few such examples of their period³. The tomb holds the graves of Süleyman I, Süleyman II and Ahmed II, and TDV places Mihrimah Sultan's grave beside her father's^4,9,10,11.