Green Mosque (Yeşil Cami)

The Green Mosque (Yeşil Cami) is the finest of Bursa's early Ottoman monuments and one of the great buildings of the Islamic world. Built between 1412 and 1419 for Sultan Mehmed I, it is named for the green-blue Iznik tiles that cover the interior — the mihrab (prayer niche) in particular is a masterwork of tilework whose deep turquoise and cobalt patterns are unlike anything produced before or since in Ottoman art.

The exterior is stone, carved with Ottoman geometric ornament, and the main entrance portal is beautifully proportioned. Inside, the mosque follows a T-shaped floor plan standard for early Ottoman mosques, with a central prayer hall flanked by side rooms where travelers and students could stay. The imperial loggia above the entrance door — where the sultan would pray unseen by the congregation — is decorated with some of the finest tiles in the building. No shoes inside; women should bring a headscarf.

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The mosque was commissioned by Sultan Mehmed I after his victory in the Ottoman civil war (1402–1413), when the empire had come close to disintegration following Timur's invasion. It was his declaration that the dynasty had survived. The mosque was never quite finished — the outer portico was completed in a later style that doesn't quite match the rest — but the interior, with its extraordinary tiled mihrab, is considered the first fully mature example of Ottoman architecture.

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