Tomb of Sultan Selim II

Selim II, a son of Süleyman I and Hürrem Sultan, was born at Topkapı Palace in 1524 and ruled from 1566 to 1574^3,6. He had the houses around Hagia Sophia cleared and the building strengthened with buttresses by Mimar Sinan, and Archnet notes that the site of his tomb was prepared during these works^3,5. According to the chronicler Peçevi, cited by TDV, the tomb was begun on Selim's order in 981 AH (1573-74), but the sultan died in December 1574, before it was finished^2,3. He was first buried in a tent pitched on the site, together with five of his sons, strangled on the night that the accession of his son Murad III was proclaimed^2,3,4.

The building was finished in 984 AH (1576-77), under Murad III, and Selim's body was moved inside^2,5. It became a family mausoleum: TDV, Archnet and the ministry list Selim's consort Nurbanu Sultan, three daughters, the five princes and children of Murad III, whom Archnet and the ministry number at 21 sons and 13 daughters^2,5,6. The ministry counts 41 cenotaphs, while Archnet writes of 44 family members buried besides Selim^5,6. The tombs of Murad III and Mehmed III were later built on either side^5,8. TDV records repairs in the 1950s, in 1982-1987 and partly in 1996, and a restoration begun in 2006; according to a report by the Anadolu news agency in April 2025, a ministry statement listed the tomb's restoration as completed^2,9.

Sinan gave the tomb a square outer shell with broadly chamfered corners, enclosing an octagonal gallery^2,5. It has a double dome: the outer one, on a high drum, rests on the walls, while the inner dome is carried on pointed arches springing from columns². Düzenli places it among seven Istanbul tombs built over some forty years with separate inner and outer shells and double domes, a group that begins with Süleyman I's tomb of 1568⁷. The cut-stone walls are faced with marble and have twisted colonnettes at the corners; two tiers of windows light the shell, with a third row in the drum and eight windows in the lead-covered dome^2,5,6. Before the door stands a three-bay porch with a small central dome on muqarnas, carried in front by four columns, the middle two of breccia and the outer two of marble^2,5,6.

The porch holds panels of what the ministry calls the finest 16th-century Iznik tiles⁶. The inscription over the door is itself in 16th-century underglaze tiles, and each panel beside it shows a niche whose spandrels carry white Chinese cloud bands on red, with blossoming branches in a central medallion, under a pointed lunette with a pattern built on ten-pointed stars². In the 1890s, according to the ministry, a Frenchman named Dorigny removed the left panel, supposedly to complete its missing parts; a copy made at Sèvres was put in its place, and the original is in the Louvre^2,5,6. Archnet also notes stone latticework and calligraphic panels of coloured marble in the porch⁵.

Inside, eight columns with muqarnas capitals, linked by pointed arches, form the octagon, and quarter-domes brace the corners^2,6. The walls are tiled up to the upper windows with underglaze tiles in red, dark blue, blue, turquoise, green and black on white, showing flowers, leaves and vases of flowers above a tiled skirting that imitates marble². A tile band of white thuluth script on dark blue, with verses of Surat al-Baqara according to the ministry, runs around the room; Archnet notes that missing sections were painted in during modern restorations^2,5,6. The painted dome has verse 16 of Surat al-Ra'd in its central medallion, and tile medallions on the pendentives carry the names of God, the Prophet Muhammad, the four caliphs, Hasan and Husayn². Around the cenotaphs are wall cupboards that once held the sultan's belongings, a gallery over the entrance, a plain mihrab niche and the door inlaid with mother-of-pearl^2,5.