Sokollu Mehmed Pasha I Mosque

The Sokollu Mehmed Pasha Mosque in Kadırga is the best İznik tile interior in Istanbul, and hardly anyone goes.

The grand vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha and his wife İsmihan Sultan, a daughter of Selim II, commissioned it jointly; it was completed in AH 979 — 1571 or 1572. Sinan designed it, at the height of his powers and on a difficult site.

It stands in Kadırga, down the slope from Sultanahmet toward the Marmara, in a residential quarter with no tourist infrastructure at all.

Tile, and four fragments of the Kaaba.

The İznik tilework carries blue, red and green floral designs with calligraphic panels in white thuluth on a blue ground. Unlike the Blue Mosque, where 21,043 tiles are spread across a huge hall, here the decoration is concentrated in a small space and holds together as a scheme.

Set above the main entrance is a fragment of the Black Stone of the Kaaba, with further pieces above the minbar and the mihrab — an extraordinary thing to find in a vizier's mosque and the reason this building had unusual standing.

The dome is 13 m across and 22.8 m high, with four small semi-domes in the corners. Sinan solved the steep site by fronting the mosque with a two-storey courtyard: shops below to earn the foundation's revenue, and above them a medrese of small rooms each with a window, a fireplace and a niche.

Forty-five minutes, of which most is spent close to the walls.

The hall is small and the reason to be in it is the tilework, which does not reward a walk through. The two-storey courtyard and the medrese take fifteen minutes more.

Kadırga is fifteen minutes downhill from Sultanahmet and the same climb back. Combine it with the Little Hagia Sophia, which is on the same slope.

Mid-morning or mid-afternoon, outside prayer times, on a bright day.

Tile needs light. The hall is small and its windows are not large, and on a grey afternoon the colours that make this building worth the walk simply do not come up.

It sees almost no tourist traffic at any season, which is the other reason to come. Friday around noon is the closure to avoid.

Free. It is a working mosque and admission costs nothing.

The medrese in the upper courtyard is in its own use and is not part of a visit; the shops beneath it are shops.

Nothing here is ticketed and there is no visitor desk, which in a residential quarter means there is also nobody to ask if the door is locked.

Kadırga, in Fatih, downhill from Sultanahmet toward the Sea of Marmara.

It is a fifteen-minute walk down from the Blue Mosque through residential streets, and the same climb back. The T1 tram at Sultanahmet is the nearest stop; there is nothing closer.

One contactless card covers tram, metro, funicular, bus and ferry, and it is the only ticket most visitors need.

Shoulders and knees covered, headscarf for women, shoes off at the threshold. Coverings are usually available at the door.

Visitor access closes during the five daily prayers and Friday around noon is the busiest hour of the week. Prayer times shift through the year.

Photography of people at prayer is not acceptable.

This is a neighbourhood mosque in a residential quarter, not a monument on a route. There is no visitor arrangement and no one on duty for tourists; if the door is shut outside prayer, waiting is the only option.

The streets down from Sultanahmet are steep and poorly lit after dark.

This is a tile photograph, and it is a light problem. The hall is small and dim, the tiles are glazed, and a flash produces a bright rectangle and nothing else.

Work with the window light: mid-morning on a bright day gives the blues and reds their colour. A fast lens is worth more here than any other equipment.

The calligraphic panels in white thuluth on blue are the details that photograph best, and the Kaaba fragments over the entrance, minbar and mihrab are small and easy to miss entirely.

Outside, the two-storey courtyard from below shows Sinan's solution to the slope better than any description does.

Not during prayer, and not pointed at people praying.