Süleymaniye Mosque was built on the orders of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent by the architect Sinan in 1550-1557. The dome is 53 meters high and has a diameter of 27.5 meters, which is less in height and width than that of the Byzantine Church of St. Sophia. As with the Hagia Sophia, the main dome is supported by two half-domes. In the dome there are 32 windows. The mosque has suffered from a fire in 1660, a part of the dome collapsed during the earthquake of 1766.The mosque has four minarets, which mean that Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent is the fourth Padishah after the conquest of Istanbul, and the first two minarets, counting from the main entrance, have two balconies and two minarets after that have three balconies, which mean that he is the tenth ruler of the Ottoman dynasty. The mosque building is well lit inside - light falls from 136 windows. With the buildings of the baths, madrasahs, kitchens, libraries, hospitals and observatory, the mosque forms a complex comparable in size to a city block. Part of the architectural complex is the Süleymaniye Library, one of the largest oriental libraries, providing access to manuscripts from the 8th to 19th centuries.In the courtyard of the mosque there is a cemetery, where Suleiman himself and his beloved wife Hürrem (Roxolana) and their daughter Mihrimah rest in two adjacent mausoleums.
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