Yıldız Hamidi Mosque

The Hamidiye Mosque, also known as Yildiz Hamidiye Camii, stands in the Besiktas district of Istanbul on the main road up to the Yildiz Palace. Sultan Abdulhamid II had it built in 1886 by the Armenian court architect Sarkis Balyan so that Friday prayers could be held next to his residence. The building blends Ottoman tradition with European influences: a single-domed prayer hall above neo-Gothic pointed windows and a single, slim minaret with a straight shaft. Its distinctive idiom, set so close to Topkapi and Hagia Sophia, earned it a place on the UNESCO tentative list. A replica of the mosque crowns the telegraph monument on Marjeh Square in Damascus.