It is said that Istanbul is home to the most beautiful mosques of the Ottoman period. And it’s true! They are the landmarks of the old city’s skyline and its grandeur. They decorated it with their elegant cascade of domes, semi-domes, and minarets and what makes them so special is that they are all different in terms of the number of minarets that embellish them. According to the Ottoman tradition, only the sultans and the members of the imperial family could build mosques with two or more minarets. The number of minarets constituted a symbol of power and strength. A mosque built by a sultan was the centrepiece of a külliye, which was a complex of other buildings that served a variety of important social functions.