Hirami Ahmed Pasha Mosque

Former Byzantine church, now a small mescit in the Carsamba quarter of Istanbul's Fatih district. Built around 1100 as part of a monastery dedicated to John the Baptist, it is the smallest Byzantine ecclesiastical building from old Constantinople to have survived the 1453 conquest. After the fall of the city, Sultan Bayezid II granted the building to the Ottoman official Hirami Ahmed Pasha, who converted it into a mosque around 1587. The cloisonne brick-and-stone facade and the single dome on four slender piers make it a textbook example of late Byzantine architecture. To get inside, ask local residents for the imam.