Sarı Selim Mosque, Payas

The Sarı Selim Mosque in Payas forms the religious heart of a large Ottoman complex commissioned in 1574 by the grand vizier Sokullu Mehmet Paşa and designed by the imperial chief architect Mimar Sinan, built at a point where the pilgrimage route to Mecca and the overland trade road linking Istanbul with Aleppo and Damascus intersected. Named for Sultan Selim II, the mosque opens onto a forecourt lined with seven domed arcades. The wider complex, finished in the same period as Sinan's celebrated Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, originally combined the mosque with a dervish lodge, a neighbourhood school, a covered market, a bathhouse, a caravanserai, guest lodgings and a public kitchen, making it a self-contained way-station for travellers and caravans on one of the empire's busiest routes. The mosque has remained in continuous use for worship since its construction, and still anchors the small coastal town today.