The original mosque was constructed between 1463 and 1470 on the site of the Church of the Holy Apostles. Seriously damaged in the 1766 earthquake, it was rebuilt in 1771 to a different design.
It is named after the Ottoman sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, known in Turkish as Fatih Sultan Mehmed, who conquered Constantinople in 1453.
The Sahn-ı Seman Medrese, once an important center for the study of theology, law, medicine, astronomy, physics and mathematics, formed part of the Fatih Mosque. It was founded by the Turkic astronomer Ali Qushji who had been invited by Mehmed to his court in Istanbul.
The mosque complex was completely restored in 2009 and again ten years later. It reopened to worshippers in 2021.
The Fatih Mosque complex was a religious and social building of unprecedented size and complexity built in Istanbul between 1463–1470 by order of Fatih Sultan Mehmed.
It was built on the site of the former Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles, which had been in poor condition since the Fourth Crusade, and was demolished to make way for the mosque. The Church was the burial place of the Roman Emperor Constantine—before the construction of the mosque, his sarcophagus was placed in the middle of twelve other sarchophagi representing the twelve apostles, in the symbolic place of Christ.
The Fatih Mosque was the first monumental project in the Ottoman imperial architectural tradition.
It was built by the Greek architect Atik Sinan who should not be confused with the more famous Ottoman architect, Mimar Sinan.
The original complex included includes eight medreses, a library, a hospital (darüşşifa), a dervish inn (taphane), a caravanserai, a market, a hamam, a primary school (mektep ) a public kitchen (imaret) for poor and a collection of 280 shops.
Various tombs (türbes) were added at a later date. The original complex covered an almost square area of 325 metres extending along the Golden Horn side of Fevzi Paşa Caddesi.
The first mosque was badly damaged in the 1509 earthquake. After that it was repaired, but was then damaged again by earthquakes in 1557 and 1754 and repaired yet again. It was then completely destroyed by an earthquake on 22 May 1766 when the main dome collapsed and the walls were irreparably damaged.
Commissioned by Sultan Mustafa III, the current mosque (designed on a completely different plan) was built between 1767 and 1771 by the architect, Mehmet Tahir Ağa.
As with other imperial mosques in Istanbul, the Fatih Mosque was designed as a kulliye, or complex with adjacent structures to service both religious and cultural needs.
To the north and south of the mosque are the Sahn-ı Seman, eight great medreses, four on each side. These buildings are symmetrical, and each contains 18 cells for four students and a dershane. Annexes behind the medrese itself were lost to road construction. The medreses provided for about a thousand students, making it a large university for its time.
Complex
The dervish inn, outside the southeast corner of the mosque precincts, has a beautiful courtyard supported by 16 different columns of verd antique and granite, probably salvaged from the Church of the Holy Apostles.
Facing the dervish inn is the large Baroque türbe of Sultan Mahmud II’s mother, Nakşidil Sultan (1761-1817).
The graveyard beside the mosque contains the tombs (türbes) of Sultan Mehmed II and his wife Gülbahar Hatun. Both were reconstructed after the earthquake. The türbe of the Conqueror has a lavishly decorated interior and is a popular site for official ceremonies. It was customary for new sultans to visit the tomb immediately after being invested with the Sword of Osman at Eyüp Sultan Mosque. Gulbahar’s türbe is more simple, with classic lines, and may closely resemble the original.
The graveyard also contains the last resting places of many important state officials, including field marshal Gazi Osman Pasha whose tomb was designed by Kemaleddin Bey. The distinguished Ottoman scholar and university professor Halil İnalcık was buried here in 2016.
On one side of the mosque and connected to it is the domed Carullah Efendi Library which was built in 1724. One of its doors opens onto the street, while the other two open onto the inner courtyard of the mosque. The library is undergoing repairs, and the books are under protection at the Suleymaniye Library.
The caravanserai was repaired in the 1980s and combined with new shops to begin functioning as a workplace. The hospital, market, kitchens and hamam of the original complex have been lost.
