Islamic art encompasses the visual arts produced from the 7th century onward by people who lived within the territory that was inhabited by or ruled by culturally Islamic populations.[1] It is thus a very difficult art to define because it covers many lands and various peoples over some 1,400 years; it is not art specifically of a religion, or of a time, or of a place, or of a single medium like painting.[2] The huge field of Islamic architecture is the subject of a separate article, leaving fields as varied as calligraphy, painting, glass, pottery, and textile arts such as carpets and embroidery.

Ottoman miniature or Turkish miniature was an art form in the Ottoman Empire, which can be linked to the Persian miniature tradition,[1] as well as strong Chinese artistic influences. It was a part of the Ottoman book arts, together with illumination (tezhip), calligraphy (hat), marbling paper (ebru), and bookbinding (cilt). The words taswir or nakish were used to define the art of miniature painting in Ottoman Turkish. The studios the artists worked in were called Nakkashanes.

Turkish Blue Tiles

Blue Mosque in Istanbul, a World Heritage Site and example of the classical style period of Ottoman architecture, showing Byzantine influence.
Ottoman architecture is the architecture of the Ottoman Empire which emerged in Bursa and Edirne in 14th and 15th centuries. The architecture of the empire developed from the earlier Seljuk architecture and was influenced by the Byzantine architecture, Armenian architecture, Iranian[1][2] as well as Islamic Mamluk traditions after the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans.[3][4][5] For almost 400 years Byzantine architectural artifacts such as the church of Hagia Sophia served as models for many of the Ottoman mosques.[5] Overall, Ottoman architecture has been described as Byzantine architecture synthesized with architectural traditions of the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

[6]

Ottoman Turks produced and perfected several varieties of Arabic script. All the various branches of the art of calligraphy, an art greatly loved and respected by the Ottoman Turks, were flourished particularly in the city of Istanbul.

When, in the tenth century, the Turks migrated to the West from their original home in the steppes of northwest China, they came into contact in Turkestan, Afghanistan and Iran with the religion and culture of the Islamic world. The mass conversion to Islamic, which resulted from this migration, was accompanied by the abandonment of the old Uyghur alphabet they had formerly employed and the adoption of the Arabic script they were to use for nearly a thousand years until the introduction of the new Turkish alphabet in 1928. However, the inherently artistic nature of the Turks inspired them with deep love for the Arabic script, which they themselves greatly improved by the introduction of a number of changes in form.

The Art of the Ottomans after 1600 and architecture remained traditional. The court scriptorium continued to produce its established series of texts—biographies, travel accounts, genealogies, and geographies—many of which were illustrated or illuminated. The Mosque of Ahmed I in Istanbul (1609–16), also known as the “Blue Mosque” because of the interior tile scheme, continues in the vocabulary of the great architect Sinan (1539–1588).

Later in the century, a weakening Ottoman economy began to affect the arts. An influx of gold and silver from the New World caused inflation and the treasury shrunk without military victories and booty to refill the coffers. The sultans were forced to reduce the number of artists they employed in the nakkaşhane (royal scriptorium) to ten from the high of over 120 in the time of Süleyman the Magnificent (r. 1520–66), and for many years did not increase the set prices they paid for ceramics, paintings, and carpets.

At the time of its foundation in the early fourteenth century, the Osmanli or Ottoman state was one among many small principalities that emerged as a result of the disintegration of the Seljuq sultanate in Anatolia and subsequent instability caused by Mongol rule

. This embryonic Ottoman state, located on the frontiers of the Islamic world, gradually absorbed former
Byzantine
territories in Anatolia and the Balkans. In 1453, this expansion culminated in the Ottoman capture of
Constantinople
, the great capital of Eastern Christendom. With the conquest of the
Mamluk empire
in 1517, the Ottomans ruled over the most powerful state in the Islamic world. By the middle of the sixteenth century, continued military success in an area extending from Central Europe to the Indian Ocean gave the Ottomans the status of a world power.

The square Mosque with its single great dome and four slender minarets, dominates the skyline of the former Ottoman capital of Edirne. Sinan, the most famous of Ottoman architects in the 16th century, considered the complex, which includes madrasas (Islamic schools), a covered market, clock house, outer courtyard and library, to be his best work. The interior decoration using Iznik tiles from the peak period of their production testifies to an art form that remains unsurpassed in this material. The complex is considered to be the most harmonious expression ever achieved of the Ottoman külliye, a group of buildings constructed around a mosque and managed as a single institution.

Outstanding Universal Value
Brief synthesis

History
After the conquest of Istanbul by Mehmed the Conqueror at 1453, construction of the Topkapı Palace was started at the year 1460 and completed at 1478 . Palace was built upon a 700.000 squaremeters area on an Eastern Roman Acropolis located at the Istanbul Peninsula between Sea of Marmara, Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. Topkapı Palace, was the administrative, educational and art center of the Empire for nearly four hundred years since Mehmed the Conqueror until Sultan Abdulmecid who is the thirty-first Sultan. Although Palace was abandoned by the Ottoman Dynasty by moving to the Dolmabahçe Palace at middle 19th century, Topkapı Palace was protected its importance everytime.

Green Mosque (Turkish: Yeşil Cami, "Yeşil Mosque"), also known as Mosque of Mehmed I, is a part of the larger complex (a külliye) located on the east side of Bursa, Turkey, the former capital of the Ottoman Turks before they captured Constantinople in 1453. The complex consists of a mosque, türbe, madrasah, kitchen and bath.

History

Rüstem Pasha Opuković (Turkish pronunciation: [ɾysˈtem paˈʃa]; Ottoman Turkish: رستم پاشا‎; Croatian: Rustem-Paša Opuković c. 1500 – 10 July 1561) was a Croatian or Serbian-born[1] Ottoman statesman. He served as the grand vizier of sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. Rüstem Pasha is also known as Damat Rüstem Pasha (the epithet damat meaning "son-in-law" to the Ottoman dynasty) because of his marriage to one of the sultan's daughters.

Origin
Halil Inalcik believes that Ishak Pasha is created by the confusion between several Ottoman Ishak Pashas (particularly Ishak bin Abdullah and Ishak bin Ibrahim) and Ishak Bey.[2] The confusion can be illustrated with Beltaci's statement that Ishak Pasha was of Croatian or Greek origin and that he served three different sultans.[2]
Career
His first term as a grand vizier was during the reign of Mehmet II ("the Conqueror"). During this term, he transferred Turkmen people from their Anatolian city of Aksaray to newly conquered Constantinople in order to populate the city, which had lost a portion of its former population prior to the 1453 conquest. The quarter of the city where the Aksaray migrants was settled is now called Aksaray.[3]
His second term was during the reign of Beyazıt II. He died in 1497 in Thessaloniki.

The Topkapı Palace (Turkish: Topkapı Sarayı[2] or in Ottoman Turkish: طوپقاپو سرايى‎) or the Seraglio[3] is a large palace in Istanbul, Turkey, that was one of the major residences of the Ottoman sultans for almost 400 years (1465–1856) of their 624-year reign.[4]

As well as a royal residence, the palace was a setting for state occasions and royal entertainments. It is now a museum and as such a major tourist attraction. It also contains important relics of the Muslim world, including Muhammed's cloak and sword.[4] The Topkapı Palace is among the monuments contained within the "Historic Areas of Istanbul", which became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985, and is described under UNESCO's criterion iv as "the best example[s] of ensembles of palaces [...] of the Ottoman period."[5]

Dolmabahçe Palace (Turkish: Dolmabahçe Sarayı, IPA: [doɫmabahˈtʃe saɾaˈjɯ]) located in the Beşiktaş district of Istanbul, Turkey, on the European coastline of the Bosphorus strait, served as the main administrative center of the Ottoman Empire from 1856 to 1887 and 1909 to 1922 (with Yıldız Palace being used in the interim).
Location

The Süleymaniye Mosque (Turkish: Süleymaniye Camii, Turkish pronunciation: [sylejˈmaːnije]) is an Ottoman imperial mosque located on the Third Hill of Istanbul, Turkey. It is the second largest mosque in the city, and one of the best-known sights of Istanbul.
History
The Süleymaniye Mosque, built on the order of Sultan Süleyman (Süleyman the Magnificent), "was fortunate to be able to draw on the talents of the architectural genius of Mimar Sinan" (481 Traditions and Encounters: Brief Global History). The construction work began in 1550 and the mosque was finished in 1557.
This "vast religious complex called the Süleymaniye...blended Islamic and Byzantine architectural elements. It combines tall, slender minarets with large domed buildings supported by half domes in the style of the Byzantine church Hagia Sophia (which the Ottomans converted into the mosque of Aya Sofya)" (481 Traditions and Encounters: Brief Global History).