Ottoman and Safavid Splendor

In the 1500s and 1600s two great Islamic empires stood side by side: the Ottoman Empire, with its capital at Istanbul, and the Safavid Empire of Iran. Both built on the mosque forms and decorative arts you met in Córdoba and the Alhambra and The Mosque and Its Parts, and each developed its own style.

Looking closely: the Süleymaniye Mosque

Describe. On a hill above the Golden Horn, a great central dome rises over a cascade of half domes and smaller domes, with four slender, pencil-shaped minarets at the corners of the courtyard. Analyze. Inside, the dome rests on four huge piers and is buttressed by two half domes, a plan inspired by the Byzantine church of Hagia Sophia, which the Ottomans had made a mosque after taking the city in 1453. Rows of windows in the dome and walls flood the space with light. The mosque stands at the center of a complex with schools, a hospital, a kitchen for the poor and baths. Interpret. Built for Sultan Süleyman I, it showed the empire's power and its care for its people. Its architect, Mimar Sinan (about 1490 to 1588), served as chief imperial architect for about fifty years.

Iznik tiles. The town of Iznik made fine quartz-based ceramics and tiles for the Ottoman court, painted in cobalt blue, turquoise and green and, from the 1550s, a bright tomato red raised slightly above the surface. Tulips, carnations and leafy vines covered the walls of mosques and palaces.

Isfahan and the Shah Mosque

In 1598 Shah Abbas I moved the Safavid capital to Isfahan and laid out a vast new square, Naqsh-e Jahan, with a palace, a bazaar and two mosques around it. The Shah Mosque, at the south end, is covered inside and out in glazed tile, mostly blue. To work fast, its builders used haft rangi ("seven-color") tiles, square tiles each painted with part of a pattern, instead of slow mosaic of cut pieces. In the entrance, muqarnas, honeycomb-like vaulting, breaks the light into hundreds of small facets.