Around Beyazit and Sehzadebas - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 189

on the exterior, though two marble panels on either side of the
entrance portal, carved with elaborate floral and arabesque designs
in low relief, are unusual and lovely. Inside, it is another bosk of the
paradisical garden, but with a very diferent colour scheme: white,
intense blue, turquoise and scarlet. Here the walls to the top of the
lower tier of windows are of marble with a surbase of lower tiles.
Between the two rows of windows there are two continuous friezes of
calligraphy, white on dark blue, divided by a deep band of interlaced
polygons in scarlet on a white ground. The efect is astonishing but
beautiful, and there is nothing quite like it in existence. The upper
windows are divided by superb floral panels predominantly turquoise
picked out in scarlet. All the tiles are absolutely perfect in technique,
the Armenian bole standing out boldly in relief and displaying its
scarlet colour at its most intense: notice the spots of it in the curliques
of the calligraphy, like liquid drops of blood.
This türbe, too, has almost an embarras de richesses : between the
lower windows are cupboards with carved wooden doors; open
these and you will find the interiors also lined with tiles. These were
evidently added later, for some of them, one suspects, are from the
Tekfur Saray kilns, but very good examples of the work. The two
cupboards on either side of the door have tiles with an unusual and
attractive Chinese cloud pattern; the other have the more ordinary
floral designs. The dome, too, preserves its original painting, with
elaborate arabesques and flowers on a terra-cotta ground; it is rather
heavy and more cluttered than that of the Şehzade, but far finer than
any modern imitation. Ibrahim Paşa's cenotaph is the usual wooden
box, but beyond it are two tiny tombs for his son and daughter, of
gaily painted marble.
There are two other türbes in the garden, those of Hatice Sultan,
daughter of Murat III, and of Fatma Sultan, granddaughter of Prince
Mehmet, but these are unadorned. There is, however, one more
remarkable türbe to be visited, but it is outside the garden just opposite
the south door of the mosque by the entrance to the outer precinct. It
is that of Destari Mustafa Paşa, dated by its inscription to A.H. 1020
(A.D. 1611). This has now been restored and is open to the public.
It has the unusual form of a rectangle, like two other türbes built by