Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum

Housed in the sixteenth-century palace of İbrahim Pasha on the edge of the Hippodrome, this museum holds one of the world's most important collections of Islamic art. Its galleries display antique carpets, illuminated Qurans, calligraphy, metalwork, ceramics and woodwork from the early Islamic centuries to the late Ottoman era. The palace, built for the grand vizier of Suleiman the Magnificent, is among the grandest surviving private Ottoman residences. An ethnographic section recreates domestic and nomadic Anatolian interiors.