Mimar Sinan, chief architect of the Ottoman Empire, oversaw more than 300 major structures under three sultans and lived to nearly 100, yet his origins remain disputed. Born Joseph around 1490 in a small Anatolian village, he helped his stonemason father until 1512, when the devshirme levy took him to the capital, converted him to Islam, and trained him as a Janissary. He fought at Belgrade in 1521 and Mohács in 1526, specialized in artillery and siege warfare, built and armed three galleys to move an army across Lake Van, and bridged the Prut River in days. In 1539 his former commander became Grand Vizier and made him architect of the Abode of Felicity, the empire’s chief of public works.

His first radical design was the Şehzade Mosque, built for Sultan Suleiman’s son Mehmed, who died of smallpox at 22, using four half domes to carry a central dome. The Süleymaniye complex, which he called his qualification stage, followed in seven years with hospitals, schools, and kitchens, and alongside it he built the 55 kilometer Kırkçeşme water system with 35 aqueducts. In his 80s he began the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, his self-declared masterpiece, dropping half domes for eight piers on an octagon and matching or slightly exceeding the dome of the Hagia Sophia. He died in 1588 and lies in a modest tomb he designed near Suleiman and Hurrem.

• The 1935 exhumation in which researchers measured Sinan’s skull to claim his ethnic heritage
• How watching cannon fire break fortress walls taught him where stone fails
• Why cascading half domes let him thin the walls and flood mosque interiors with light
• The Selimiye’s four tall, slender minarets and single unified interior with no subsidiary rooms
• His students’ work on the Blue Mosque and the Stari Most bridge, and his influence on the Taj Mahal’s builders