The large Fatih Mosque (, "Conqueror's Mosque" in English) is an Ottoman mosque off Fevzi Paşa Caddesi in the Fatih district of Istanbul, Turkey. The original mosque was constructed between 1463 and 1470 on the site of the Church of the Holy Apostles. Seriously damaged in the 1766 earthquake, it was rebuilt in 1771 to a different design. It is named after the Ottoman sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, known in Turkish as Fatih Sultan Mehmed, who conquered Constantinople in 1453. The Sahn-ı Seman Medrese, once an important center for the study of theology, law, medicine, astronomy, physics and mathematics, formed part of the Fatih Mosque. It was founded by the Turkic astronomer Ali Qushji who had been invited by Mehmed to his court in Istanbul. The mosque complex was completely restored in 2009 and again ten years later. It reopened to worshippers in 2021. History The Fatih Mosque complex was a religious and social building of unprecedented size and complexity built in Istanbul between 1463–1470 by order of Fatih Sultan Mehmed. It was built on the site of the former Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles, which had been in poor condition since the Fourth Crusade, and was demolished to make way for the mosque. The Church was the burial place of the Roman Emperor Constantine—before the construction of the mosque, his sarcophagus was placed in the middle of twelve other sarchophagi representing the twelve apostles, in the symbolic place of Christ. The Fatih Mosque was the first monumental project in the Ottoman imperial architectural tradition. It was built by the Greek architect Atik Sinan. The original complex included includes eight medreses, a library, a hospital (darüşşifa), a dervish inn (taphane), a caravanserai, a market, a hamam, a primary school (mektep ) a public kitchen (imaret) for poor and a collection of 280 shops. Various tombs (türbes) were added at a later date. The original complex covered an almost square area of extending along the Golden Horn side of Fevzi Paşa Caddesi. The first mosque was badly damaged in the 1509 earthquake. After that it was repaired, but was then damaged again by earthquakes in 1557 and 1754 and repaired yet again. It was then completely destroyed by an earthquake on 22 May 1766 when the main dome collapsed and the walls were irreparably damaged. Commissioned by Sultan Mustafa III, the current mosque (designed on a completely different plan) was