İskender Çelebi Mosque

This mosque in the Sümbül Efendi neighborhood of Fatih, Istanbul, was founded in the sixteenth century by a tanner named İskender Çelebi, though the precise year of construction was never recorded. It is also known locally as Ağaçkakan Camii, a name shared with a dervish lodge that once stood nearby but has since vanished without a trace. The founder's own grave lies outside the old Topkapı gate of the city walls, separate from the mosque itself. Having fallen into serious disrepair over the centuries, the building was restored between 1955 and 1957 through the efforts of residents of the surrounding neighborhood, who reopened it for worship. The mosque remains a modest, single-minaret neighborhood building rather than a grand imperial foundation, typical of the many small mosques endowed by merchants and tradesmen in Ottoman-era Istanbul.