Photos: Ucserefei Camii ceiling, Eski Camii ceiling, Selimiye Camii ceiling, Interiors of Selimiye Camii.
A primary reason of coming to Edirne was to see its architecture. In a few hours we managed to visited three unique mosques and the Bayezid II Külliye Health Museum. We first visited the Ueserefei Camii and Eski Camii, two modest-size mosques with beautiful interior decorations. Mosques are often decorated with abstract patterns and Scripture from the Qu'ran in vivid. It was forbidden to depict realistic portraits of people and animals in a mosque. The carpet floor of the mosques are often made up with many pieces of small carpets put together. Each small carpet is richly decorated with the same pattern, and each is designated for one prayer.
The third mosque we visited was Selimiye Camii, designed by Mimar Sinan in the 16th century. With its 70m minarets, fine interior arrangement, and magnificent tile decorations, the Selimiye is one of the most famous Islamic architecture in Turkey, if not in the entire Muslim world. Sinan himself considered the Selimiye his best work.
Mimar Sinan is often referred to as the most famous architect in the Ottoman Empire. As the chief royal architect for three sultans, his works ranged from mosques to many institutional buildings in the 16th century. Sinan experimented with various configuration of domes, semi-domes and galleries to form a unified dome interior lit with natural light. He also arranged the mosque and other buildings into large complexes known as külliye.
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