Eyüpsultan Cemetery

Eyuep Cemetery climbs the hillside above the Eyuep Sultan Mosque on the Golden Horn – one of the holiest sites in Islam outside Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. It is among the oldest Muslim cemeteries in Istanbul, expanding since the 1453 conquest of Constantinople, when a mosque was built at the grave of the Prophet's companion Abu Ayyub al-Ansari. Ottoman sultans, grand viziers, religious scholars and palace figures lie under narrow, calligraphically carved stelae topped with symbolic turban shapes. The cemetery is administered by Turkey's General Directorate of Foundations. A path – partly served today by a cable car – leads up the slope to Pierre Loti Cafe, where the 19th-century French novelist wrote with the Golden Horn at his feet. A place where active devotion, Ottoman history and one of the city's finest panoramas converge.