Six Minarets on the Seyhan

Hester Callow · 12 August 2026

The Sabancı Merkez Camii is enormous, modern, and the thing you will see first from almost anywhere in the centre.

Scale

It seats a very large congregation and it was built to. Finished at the end of the 1990s, it is one of the biggest mosques in Turkey and it does not pretend otherwise.

The six minarets are the detail people notice, and the building sits directly on the river so it is visible from the bridge, the park and half the city centre. Background is on its Wikipedia entry.

Going In

It is a working mosque and visitors are welcome outside prayer times. Cover shoulders and knees, women cover their hair, shoes come off at the door and there is somewhere to leave them.

Go quietly, do not photograph people praying, and if you arrive at prayer time simply wait outside in the park for twenty minutes. Nobody will mind you being there.

The Older Ones

The big mosque is the landmark, but the Ulu Camii in the old quarter is the more interesting building: much older, much smaller, and built from banded stone in a style that belongs to this region rather than to Istanbul.

If you only have time for one, the large one is the spectacle and the old one is the history.