I must have more pictures of this mosque than I show here, I hope to collect them and add them here. The first badge so to say dates from an evening walk in June 2009, you see the mosque as viewed from the Galata Bridge and then enter the central courtyard, next the mosque.

It dates from 1663 or rather, then finally a mosque was completed that was commissioned in 1597 by the Valide Sultan (Queen Mother) Safiye, mother of Sultan Mehmet III. Davut Ağa was the original architect, pupil of Sinan. However, he died in 1599, and was replaced by Dalgıç Ahmet Çvuş who supervised the Construction until 1603, when Mehmet died and his mother could not have the work completed. The mosque stood waiting for further work for half a century, and in 1660 the area was struck by fire, that ruined the mosque further than it already was. Later Mehmet IV’s mother Valide Sultan Turhan Hadice saw the blackened remains and decided to rebuild it as an act of piety. Mustafa Ağa was the architect then and on November 6 1663 the mosque was consecrated in a ceremony presided over by the Sultan and his mother. The Strolling through Istanbul guide from which I quote indicates it is a variation of the basic plan of the Haghia Sophia, but the New Mosque is cruciform, with semidomes along both axes and smaller domes at each of the four corners.

It may be nice to also see the sultan's private quarters adjacent to the mosque at another gallery.