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This is how the walls look on the inside.
The piers are pushed into the walls
leaving space that is open, unified and evenly lit.
However, Sinan could not treat the fourth side in this way.
This side had the entrance and the facade
and he wouldn't have wanted to destroy its symmetry with buttresses.
His solution was to make the fourth wall thicker than the others
but to mask this extra thickness with a gallery,
creating a space for women.
He also added a series of small domes in the new space he had created.
The interior of the mosque is filled with light.
In part this is due to the large number of windows
which are used in the building.
But it's also a factor of the architecture itself,
the structure.
The structure is simplified.
This allows more of the light to penetrate into the interior.
Sinan's interest in light extends from the large scale,
from the architecture
to the small scale, to the use of decorative details.
He used the finest quality Isnic tiles throughout the building
and in important places such as we see here
in the tiles which are used around the mirab.
The white background of the Isnic tiles
allows the vibrant colours of the flowers
to stand out in even greater relief.
The clear glaze which covers the tiles
allows light to be reflected back into the room.
In using light in this way, Sinan is creating something new
within his architectural and cultural tradition,
a tradition whose origins were not exclusively Islamic.