Around the Mosque of the Conqueror - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 234

was completed, 1471. In this connection it is interesting to note the
curious tale told by Evliya Çelebi in the Seyahatname, in which he says
that Fatih ordered both the architect's hands cut of, on the grounds
that his mosque did not have as great a height as Haghia Sophia.
Let us now return to the mosque itself. The original mosque built
by Atik Sinan was destroyed in the great earthquake of 22 May 1766.
Mustafa II immediately undertook its reconstruction and the present
building, on a wholly diferent plan, was completed in 1771. What
remains of the original complex is most probably the courtyard, the
main entrance portal, the mihrab, the minarets up to the first şerefe,
the south wall of the graveyard and the adjoining gate; all the other
buildings of the complex were badly damaged but were restored
presumably in their original form. What was the original form of the
mosque itself? It is of course of the greatest interest and importance to
know the original plan, for this was the first large imperial building to
be erected after the Conquest. It appears, then, that the mosque had a
very large central dome, 26 metres in diameter; that it was supported
on the east only by a semidome of the same diameter; that these
were supported by two great rectangular piers on the east and by two
enormous porphyry columns towards the west, the latter supporting
a double arcade below the tympanum walls of the great dome arches;
to north and south were side aisles each covered with three small
domes. The plan is very similar, on an enormous scale, to that of
Atik Ali Paşa Camii at Çemberlitaş, and even more so to that of the
Selimiye at Konya, which has been shown to be a small replica of it.
This plan was in certain respects a natural development of previous
Ottoman buildings. Nevertheless, those who saw and described this
mosque before it was destroyed, foreigners and Turks alike, including
Sultan Mehmet and his architect, compared Fatih Camii to Haghia
Sophia; hence it must already have shown the overpowering influence
of the Great Church.
THE MOSQUE COURTYARD
It is time to take a look at what remains of this fascinating külliye.
Approaching from the west, one finds that part of the west wall of
the precinct has been demolished, together with the small library and