Around Beyazit and Sehzadebas - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 194

expended his fortune to build a pious foundation which included a
mosque, hamam, primary school, imaret and kervansaray, where the
poor could be assured of food and shelter for as long as they were in
need. All of these benefactions have now disappeared, although the
pious poor of modern Stamboul still come to pay their reverence at
Şeyh Vefa's tomb.
LIBRARY OF ATİF EFENDİ
Just beyond Şeyh Vefa's türbe, on the same side of the street, we come
to the library of Atif Efendi. Of all the Ottoman public libraries in
the city this is the most charming and original. Built in 1741-2 and
constructed of stone and brick, it is baroque and consists of two
parts, a block of houses for the library staf and the library itself. The
former faces the street and its upper storey projects en cremaillère,
that is in five zigzags supported on corbels. Three small doors lead to
the lodgings while a large gate in the middle opens into a courtyard
or garden, on the other side of which stands the library. This consists
of an entrance lobby, a room for book storage, and a large reading-
room of astonishing shape. This oblong area, cradle-vaulted like the
other rooms, is surrounded at one end by a series of five deep bays
arranged like a fan. A triple arcade supported on two columns divides
the two parts of the room; on the exterior this fan-like arrangement
presents seven faces. Near the entrance to the reading-room the entire
vakfiye, or deed of foundation, of the establishment is inscribed on a
marble plaque. The library of Atif Efendi is altogether a fantastic and
delightful building!
KİLİSE CAMİİ (CHURCH OF ST. THEODORE)
If we take the street just opposite the library entrance, Tirendaz Sokağı
(the Street of the Archer), we come immediately to a little Byzantine
church with a prettily fluted brick minaret. Converted into a mosque
soon after the Conquest, it is called Kilise Camii, literally Church
Mosque, a linguistic amalgamation of Christianity and Islam. It was
identified by Gyllius as the Church of St. Theodore, but nothing is
known of its history. The inner narthex and the church itself, which is
of the four-column type, are to be dated some time between the tenth