Şakirin Mosque

Mosque · ÜsküdarIstanbul,Türkiye

A rare piece of contemporary sacred architecture in an Istanbul of Ottoman mosques, its glass shell dropping light onto a chandelier hung with ninety-nine names.

Şakirin Mosque is a glass and aluminium mosque at the edge of Üsküdar's vast Karacaahmet cemetery, and its interior was the first in Turkey designed by a woman. Step in and the eye is pulled two ways. Overhead hangs an asymmetrical chandelier of glass drops, hung low like rain caught mid-fall, each bead scattering light across the floor. Ahead, the mihrab curves in turquoise, a sculptural shell rather than the usual flat niche, and the minbar beside it is moulded acrylic worked with leaves and carnations. Gold calligraphy runs across the tall windows, so you read the verses against the daylight coming through the glass, and walls of glass on three sides open the hall to the cemetery outside. It opened in 2009, raised by the Semiha Şakir Foundation in memory of İbrahim and Semiha Şakir; the name plays on the family's, Arabic for the thankful ones. The classical architect Hüsrev Tayla shaped the outer shell, and the designer Zeynep Fadıllıoğlu set Ottoman convention aside inside it. The quarter still prays here, and the doors are open between prayers.

Worth knowing

Good to know

The chandelier was aimed upstairs — Fadıllıoğlu laid out the women's gallery around a clear, unobstructed view of it, so the balcony, not the floor, holds the intended vantage.
The pulpit is a modern hand — artist Tayfun Erdoğmuş swapped the carved marble or walnut of a classical minbar for a softer moulded form; look closely for the flowers pressed into its surface.
The dome repeats in the courtyard — William Pye's domed water sculpture echoes the aluminium dome above it; wait for the water to settle and the mosque bends across its wet curve.
Shoes off, hair covered — leave your shoes at the door and cover shoulders, knees and, for women, hair; slip in between prayer times, when the hall is clear.

Things to do

1
Stand beneath the falling light
Walk to the centre of the prayer hall and look straight up. From directly under the glass-drop chandelier the beads align into a single shimmering column. Stay still a moment and watch the light shift across them as people cross the room and daylight changes through the surrounding glazed walls.
2
Cross into the old cemetery
Leave by the courtyard and step into neighbouring Karacaahmet, one of Istanbul's oldest and largest burial grounds. Walk its shaded cypress lanes among centuries of carved headstones. The jump from a glass-and-aluminium mosque into this ancient forest of graves is the sharpest contrast in the whole neighbourhood.