Sinan ibni Abdülmennan, after nineteen years of distinguished service as a Janissary in the Ottoman Army of Süleyman the Magnificent, went on to a long career as architect, during which the large number of his works won for him the name of a builder and artist of genius whose name is writ large in the history of world architecture. Being a Janissary, Sinan was taken in his childhood or youth as a levy into the military corps. The registers of children taken in these levies were by the Aga of the Janissaries but they have not survived, having either been burned or perhaps destroyed along with everything else pertaining to the Janissaries, during the Vak’a-i Hayriye, the abolition of the Corps in the time of Mahmud II. For this reason, neither the dale of Sinan’s birth, nor his Christian name, nor those of his parents are known.
Although we have no certain knowledge of the architect Sinan’s childhood, there are some clues. In the Tezkiret ül-Ebniye (“Book of imperial Buildings”) and the Tezkiret ül-Bünyan (“Book of Buildings”) written down by his close friend the poet Nakkaş Mustafa Sa’i at Sinan’s dictation, in the Tuhfet ül-Mi'marin (“Masterpieces of Architecture”) compiled by Aşarî on the basis of Sa’i’s works, and in Sinan’s own deeds of bequest, we encounter certain facts which shed light on the matter. For example, in the verse part of the Risale-i Tezkiret ül-Ebniye, we read: “I was of the levy of Selim, the Son of Bayazid Khan, the Lord of the Universe..”[2] and in the prose part, “I came as recruit in the time of the sovereignty of the august successor to the deceased Sword of the Sovereignty of Islam Sultan Bayazid Khan (on whom be God’s mercy!)”[3]. These statements indicate that Sinan was selected as recruit in the time of Sultan Selim I (i.e. between 1512 and 1520). Bearing in mind that the term of service in the provinces of the recruited children was between three and eight years[4] and that as cadets (acemi oğlan) was seven or eight years[5], we must conclude that Sinan was recruited immediately after the accession of Selim I, completed his provincial and cadet terms in the minumum possible time, and was appointed to the military service.
The period of Sinan's sendee in the provinces and as cadet lasted at the most nine years between 1512 and 1521. During these years, which coincided with the reign of Yavuz Sultan Selim (Selim I), the Persian and Egyptian campaigns were carried on and the battles of Chalderan (1514), Merc-i Dâbık (1516), Hân Yûnus (1516) and Ridania (1517) took place. The losses among the janissaries during these campaigns were considerable. For this reason, the rate of promotions among the conscripts from provincial service to the cadet corps and from the cadet corps to the janissary corps had to be hastened. Sinan too passed through these stages within at most nine years and entered the imperial service. In 1521 he took part as a janissary in the imperial campaign against Belgrade[7].
As we learn from the Risale-i Tezkiret ül-Ebniye, Sinan later took part successively in the campaigns of Mohacs, Vienna, Iraq, Corfu and Apulia[8]. Between the Rhodes and Mohacs campaigns (1523-1526) he was an atlı segbân[9]; after the Mohacs campaign he was appointed yayabaşı[10] and zemberekcibaşı[11] and after the return from the Iraq campaign he was promoted a Haseki[12].
The campaigns in which Sinan participated on the one hand assured his rise within the ranks of the Janissaries and on the other gave him opportunities to visit the cities of greatest importance to his future development as an architect. It would not be far-fetched to assume that an architect of Sinan’s genius would examine the old monuments along the campaign routes, would evaluate them, and store away in his mind all the information which came to him for use in his future work. For the assignment of Sinan as an architect at a point during his military career w'as not a mere coincidence. Sinan had conceived the idea of becoming an architect long before his appointment as Chief Architect in 1538[13] and, as I shall show below, his architectural work goes back at least eight years earlier.
The Haseki Hürrem Mosque in Istanbul is cited as the first architectural work built by Sinan. The date of this mosque is 945 A.H. (1538/1539). It is certain that the year 1538 was a turning point in Sinan’s architectural career. To replace the deceased Chief Architect Acem Ali, Sinan in 1538 was appointed Chief Architect to the Ottoman Court (Reis-i Mi’marân-ı Dergâh-ı Âli) ; he proved his excellence as an architect with the construction of the Mosque of Hürrcm Sultan begun the next year, 1539, and within the short space of four years after this he designed the Şehzade Mosque and demonstrated at its completion in 1548 that he belongs among the greatest architects of all time.
It is clear that Sinan was an architectural genius. But one must not forget that even the greatest talent cannot produce works all by himself and that excellence in achievement depends on good and sound training and experience. We know that Sinan during his period as a cadet and a janissary worked on construction jobs and was trained as a master carpenter. The people registered in the original cadet corps were regularly employed on state construction works, on the caiques, and on the boats that brought wood to Istanbul[14]. Bearing in mind his later career as an architect, it would not be out of place to assert that Sinan was employed during his years in the cadet corps on construction work. As a matter of fact, he states in the words of Sa’i: “The pride of craftsmanship was given me / By him who also taught me carpentry”[15], and thus implies that he learned the craft of carpentry from a master. This couplet from the versified section of the Risale-i Tezkiret ül-Ebniye, which relates the story of Sinan’s life, comes before the lines that tell of his promotion to the janissaries and his participation in the Rhodes and Belgrade Campaigns and since the Risale is entirely chronological in arrangement, we can conclude that Sinan acquired his mastery of the art of carpentry while a member of the cadet corps.
Sinan’s concern with the art of building continued during his service as a janissary. That his appointment as Imperial Chief Architect was not without reason and that his ability and mastery of his craft had been personally observed by Sultan Süleyman in 1538 are shown by an incident on the Moldavian Campaign. This campaign began on July 8. The Ottoman army reached the Danube via Edirne and Dobruca in July, crossed the Danube and by the middle August reached the river Pruth. On arrival at the river it was seen that because of the swampy land on which the bridge had been built, it had collapsed. For the army to cross to the other bank a bridge had to be made in a great hurry. This duty was given to Sinan on the intervention of the Second Vizier Damad Lûtfi Pasha. Lûtfi Pasha is said to have declared to the Sultan, “Your Majesty, the construction of the bridge can be realized thanks to the ability of your slave known as Subaşı Sinan. He is a highly experienced architect and a universal expert”[16].
Sinan erected the bridge over the slippery ground in thirteen days, and the Ottoman army crossed the bridge on August 31 to continue the campaign. Here an important point is to be noticed. Lûtfi Pasha in introducing Sinan to the Sultan used the phrase “mi’mar-ı kârdândır” that is, an architect qualified by experience as an expert. For Sinan to be thus the object of Lûtfi Pasha’s consideration would imply, it seems, that before 1538 he had shown his mastery of the profession, had been accepted as an expert, and thus that Sinan already during his years as janissary had produced some works.
One possibility is that Sinan had erected a building for Lûtfi Pasha before 1538. In the Tezkiret ül-Ebniye there occurs only one building made in the name of Lûtfi Pasha: “The Bath of the Late Lûtfi Pasha in Yenibağçe (13-12).” This building does not exist today, and the date of its construction is likewise not known. However, we can state that this bath was built between 1536 and 1541. That is to say, between the years 1533 and 1536 Lûtfi Pasha was governorgeneral, respectively, in Karaman, Anatolia, and, for a short time, Rumelia. Thus he could not have been in Istanbul. In 1538 he was made Second Vizier and in 1539 on the death of Ayas Mehmet Pasha, he replaced him as Grand Vizier. His term of office lasted less than two years: after becoming Grand Vizier he married Shah Sultan, daughter of Sultan Selim I and because he raised his hand against her, Süleyman dismissed him and he spent the twenty-two remaining years of his life on his country estate at Dimetoka occupied with scholarship (he wrrote an Ottoman History and an Âsafnâme - “Book of the Grand Vizier”). It is not at all likely that the bath in Istanbul was built after his dismissal from office and retirement to Dimetoka. The years 1537 and 1538 seem unsuitable both for Lûtfi Pasha and for Sinan, for both of them took part first in the Corfu and Apulia campaigns and immediately afterwards in the Moldavia campaign. Thus, the bath must have been built either in 1536 or between 1539 and 1541. It is more reasonable to suppose that Lûtfi Pasha’s building was built while he was Grand Vizier. However, it is also not improbable to consider that the Pasha’s reference to Sinan as “a highly experienced architect and universal expert” indicates that he had won the trust and favor of Lûtfi Pasha in 1536 by building the bath for him. Still another possibility is that Lûtfi Pasha came to know and acknowledge a building or buildings that Sinan had built for someone else. In order to investigate this matter in detail, let us return to Sinan’s years in the Janissary Corps.
From every point of view it is clear that the mosque and tomb of Sultan Selim I in Istanbul, listed in the first line of the Tuhfet ül-Mi’marin but not mentioned in either the Tezkiret ül-Ebniye or the Tezkiret ül-Bünyan[17], cannot have been built by Sinan. Sultan Selim I died on September 22, 1520 while traveling from Istanbul to Edirne; his body was brought to Istanbul on September 30th and buried the following day in the district later called Sultan Selim. Süleyman had a tomb built where the body was buried and beside it a mosque in the name of his father. The foundations of the mosque were laid on May 17, 1521,[18] and on the next day the Sultan left on his first imperial campaign. This was the Belgrade campaign. Belgrade was taken on August 29, 1521, the army returned to Istanbul on January 29, 1523 and found the Sultan Selim Mosque completed.
We know that Sinan also participated in these two campaigns of Sultan Süleyman. If he was in Istanbul between the two campaigns, it would have been possible for him to have worked on the construction between October 20, 1521 and June 16, 1522, but that he directed the construction of the mosque and its tomb as an architect is virtually impossible. Morever, it is clear from the following passage in the preface to this same Tuhfet ül-Mi’marin that the Sultan Selim Mosque and Tomb are not Sinan’s work: "... up to this time, of the buildings erected during the period of the reigns of the three most glorious sovereigns, namely their excellencies Sultan Süleyman Khan and Sultan Selim Khan the Second, and Sultan Murad Khan, only the noble building which Sultan Selim Khan (May God’s blessed mercy be upon him!) after his accession in accustomed felicity, established for his father the Sultan Selim Khan the First of blessed memory, was not begun entirely by this slave[19]”.
It is also essential to determine whether or not the Mustafa Pasha Complex in Gebze was built by Sinan. The medrese (school) and imaret (public kitchen) of this complex, which are registered in the first chapter of the Tuhfet ül-Mi'marin at line 31 as the sacred mosque of the Governor of Egypt Mustafa Pasha at Gebze and its medrese and imaret and tomb[20] is separately included in the same work in a section set aside for buildings of this type[21]. The mosque, medrese, and imaret are also registered in the Tezkiret ül-Ebniye[22]- and the Tezkiret ül-Bünyan, but the tomb is not mentioned in either document. And in the Adsız Risale (anonymous treatise) a public bath built by Sinan in Gebze is referred to as the “Hamam-i Geğbüze[23]”.
The Çoban Mustafa Pasha Complex is an important example of classical Ottoman architecture, with its imaret, tekke (monastery) and caravanserai made up of rows of domed spaces and the medrese with its courtyard surrounding the mosque and tomb in the center. However, there being no inscriptions it is not definitely known when the various buildings of the complex were constructed. Are the mosque, tomb, school and kitchen mentioned in the Tezkeres Sinan’s work? If not, did Sinan repair these buildings constructed previously, and —as in the case of the Ahi Çelebi or the Bali Pasha mosques— appropriate them to himself? In order to shed light on the problem, let us briefly review the facts of Çoban Mustafa Pasha’s life and investigate the time in which the buildings of the complex which bears his name were or might have been built.
Çoban Mustafa Pasha was Governor-General of Anatolia in 1517. In 1521 he married the sister of Sultan Süleyman, Hafisa Sultan, and was promoted to be Second Vizier. At the end of 1522 he was appointed Governor-General of Egypt, but at the insistence of his wife who could not leave Istanbul, after five months he was relieved of the Governorship of Egypt and given permission to return to Istanbul. Remaining in Istanbul from this time until 1529, Çoban Mustafa Pasha, now a relative of the imperial family by marriage, died at the beginning of the Vienna campaign.
According to these facts, the complex at Gebze might possibly have been planned in 1521, when Mustafa Pasha was Second Vizier and married into the royal family, and actual construction begun either in 1521 or 1522. Another possibility is that the Pasha might have embarked on this great enterprise after returning from Egypt in 1523. It is reasonable to suppose that the construction was begun between 1521 and 1523 and continued up to the time of Çoban Mustafa’s death in 1529; however, it is not possible that during these years Sinan could have designed and constructed the Çoban Mustafa Pasha Complex.
Here the question arises, was the entire complex of buildings completed during the years 1523-1529 ? Or were some of the buildings begun during these years and completed while other buildings included in the complex were built later? Since neither the caravanserai nor the monastery appear in any of the Tezkeres, it can be assumed that Sinan had nothing to do with these buildings. We know from the inscription above its door that the mosque was completed in 1523/24[24], and find the same date on the inscription of the medrese[25]. Consequently, it would not be possible for Sinan to have built either of these buildings[26]; for as I have already pointed out, Sinan was participating in the Imperial Campaigns of Belgrade and Rhodes in the years 1521-1524. He could have worked on the construction betwen October 20, 1521 and June 16, 1522, but it would be more logical to conclude that the mention in the Tezkeres of the Çoban Mustafa Pasha mosque and medrese refers to Sinan’s restoration of these buildings at a later date.
As for the remaining two buildings of the complex, it is more difficult to date them with accuracy because neither is inscribed. One possibility is that the tomb was built after Çoban Mustafa Pasha’s death in 1529. Mustafa Pasha died in his eighties at the beginning of the Vienna campaign in which Sinan took part. For this reason, if the tomb was built soon after the Pasha’s death, then it was erected while Sinan was away from Istanbul. A second possibility is that the tomb was constructed in the early 1520’s along with the other buildings of the complex.
Where the founder’s tomb is built on the kibla side of his mosque, such as the tombs of Bayazid II or Selim I, built before Sinan, or tombs like those of Şehzade Mehmed, Süleyman the Magnificent or Kılıç Ali Pasha, built by Sinan, or the eighteenth-century tomb of Sultan Mehmed II (the Conqucrcr), we find that the tomb’s entrance is not located on the kibla axis of the mosque but at right angles to it. For this reason, it seems impossible to me that the tomb of Çoban Mustafa Pasha was built either together with or subsequent to the construction of the mosque. As a matter of fact, the axis of the kibla being turned 56 degrees to the east of south results in the mosque being aligned on a previously-established axis which is wrong by 34 degrees[27]. The evidence explained above leads me to believe that the tomb of Çoban Mustafa Pasha was built before the mosque, that the tomb was planned together with the caravanserai, that the mosque and medrese were later added to the complex, and that since the construction of the mosque and medrese were completed in 1523/24, the caravanserai and tomb must have been built during the reign of Selim I (1512-1520).
On the other hand, it is not impossible that the imaret, which is registered in all the Tezkeres, was built in the early 1530’s. If this be the case, Hafisa Sultan, who died in 1538, could have commissioned Sinan to build it; for existing documents clearly indicate that Sinan began his architectural career during this period.
The first building that we know Sinan built in Istanbul is the Üçbaş Mescid in Karagümrük. Above the courtyard gate of the little mosque, constructed together with an L-shaped medrese beside it, is an inscription in Arabic which gives in a chronogram the date A.H. 937 (1530/1531). The chronogram of the inscription at the Muhsine Hatun Mescid at Kumkapi gives the date A.H. 939 (1532/ 1533)· It is clear from the text of an inscription concerning repairs dated A.H. 1134 (1722) and which was transferred to the Ayvansaraylı Hüseyin Efendi’s mosque and contains as the actual date of its construction as A.H. 940 (1533/1534) that the Kasim Pasha Mosque, now no longer standing[28], was also one of Sinan’s earliest works.
These two small mosques (mescid), one mosque, and one medrese built between 1530 and 1534 were later renovated and lost their sixteenth century character. However, we learn from Evliya Çelebi that the Kasım Pasha Mosque, rebuilt in the nineteenth century a brick dome, was originally “an old one-story mosque with a wooden dome over a four-cornered wall[29]”. The Muhsine Hatun Mescid, renovated in the nineteenth century and deprived of its original appearance, and the Üçbaş Mescid, repaired in recent years but which, except for its porch (son cemaat yeri) which has been closed in, retains more or less its sixteenth century architectural character, are flimsy buildings. The Üçbaş Medrese, with its porch mounted on wooden columns in front of the cells and its wooden roof covered with üles above a stone main outer wall, is also an example of this same simple type of architecture. It is essentially reasonable that most of Sinan’s early works should be supported by wooden timbers, for Sinan’s apprenticeship in the building profession was way of carpentry. He showed his capacities and skül in the field of carpentry, and it is natural that later, as well as the foundation walls, he began to make the roofs and porches also of brick or stone. In 1535 and 1536 when he was again in Istanbul, after returning from the 1534 Baghdad campaign, he turned his hand to building entirely of brick and stone, and it is possible that in these years he built the Lûtfi Pasha Baths and the public kitchen of the Çoban Mustafa Pasha Complex.
It is also agreed that during those same years (1536-1537) Sinan built in Aleppo the Hüsrcviye Külliye[30]. This complex built for Deli (crazy) Hüsrev Pasha, consists of a single-domed mosque and two medreses. Although there is a reference in the first section of the Tuhfet ül-Mi’marin to the “Cami-i Hüsrev Pasha der Haleb, Medrese I,” [31] they are not mentioned in the medreses section of the same work nor in the Tezkirel ül-Ebniye or the Tezkiret ül-Bünyan and thus it is doubtful that they are Sinan’s work. Looked at from the point of view of their arrangement and character, it would be wrong to attribute these buildings to Sinan. On the other hand, it is clear that the mosque does owe something to Sinan.
Hüsrev Pasha[32], elder brother of Lala Mustafa Pasha and a relative of Sokullu Mehmed Pasha, was Governor of Damascus from 1534 to 1538. In 1539 he was transferred to the governorship of Rumelia and later was Governor of Egypt. In 1541 when the Grand Vizier Lûtfi Pasha was dismissed from office and Süleyman Pasha took over the post, Hüsrev Pasha was promoted to Second Vizier. In 1544 as a result of an incident in the Divan he was dismissed from this post and sent into retirement. Unable to bear this situation, he committed suicide by a hunger strike in early 1545 (952 A.H.)
It is possible that Hüsrev Pasha’s Mosque in Aleppo was built during the years 1534-1538 while he was governor of Damascus. However, it is very unlikely that Sinan went to Aleppo during those years to build the Hüsrev Pasha Mosque. The Ottoman army on its return from the Baghdad campaign in 1535 was bületed in Aleppo from November to December 2. We know that Sinan took part in this imperial campaign. For this reason, it is conceivable that he stayed in Aleppo during these eight days and was consulted by Hüsrev Pasha about the mosque which the latter had already decided to have built. But it would be unwise to assume that Sinan stayed in Aleppo in order to construct the Hüsrev Pasha Mosque when the army departed for Istanbul. It is more logical to consider that the mosque was planned by Sinan in Istanbul during the years from 1541 to 1544 while Hüsrev Pasha was Second Vizier and built by an apprentice of Sinan sent to Aleppo for the purpose. It is clear from the facts that the main structural walls are too low in relation to the dome and that the proportions are awkward and from the poor quality of the workmanship that the Hüsrev Pasha Mosque cannot have been personally supervised by Sinan. Moreover, the only inscription to be found on the entire complex bears not the date 1536/ 1537 but 1546 (953 A.H.). That is, the construction was finished shortly after Hüsrev Pasha’s death.
Upon his appointment in 1538 as Chief Imperial Architect, Sinan’s military career came to an end, and from then until his death in 1588 he pursued without interruption his career as an architect. To measure Sinan’s greatness it is not enough merely to enumerate the works he produced over a period of nearly sixty years. Sinan transcended and overcame the last elements of Anatolian Seljuk architecture as they had developed in fourteenth and fifteenth century Ottoman architecture and applying rational principles to the existing architecture, he founded the classical Ottoman architectural style. He has gone down in history not only as an architectural genius but also as a superb administrator and an inspiring teacher. The architectural organization he established and the architectural style he created continued to be followed in an orderly fashion for a century and a half after his death and lost its dominance only when the fashion of imitating European art and architecture began to grow in the Tulip Period. The buildings of Sinan and those of his successors who for a hundred and fifty years kept his influence alive are still living in Istanbul, Edirne and wherever the Ottomans went.