Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum

Housed in the 16th-century Ibrahim Pasha Palace, the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum showcases over 40,000 artifacts spanning from the 7th to the 20th century. Its renowned collection includes carpets, calligraphy, ceramics, and ethnographic displays, offering insights into the rich cultural heritage of the Islamic world.

Planning your visit

The Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum occupies the Ibrahim Pasha Palace on the Hippodrome, a sixteenth-century stone palace built for Suleiman the Magnificent's grand vizier and boyhood friend — who was later executed on Suleiman's orders in the palace itself. Its terrace overlooks the Hippodrome and the Blue Mosque.

The carpet collection is the reason this museum matters internationally. It holds Seljuk and early Ottoman carpets of a rarity found nowhere else, including thirteenth-century fragments from Konya that are among the oldest knotted carpets to survive anywhere, and large Anatolian pieces rescued from mosques where they had lain for centuries. For anyone interested in textiles this is a major destination.

Beyond that, over 40,000 objects span the seventh to twentieth centuries: Qur'an manuscripts and calligraphy, metalwork, ceramics, woodwork and glass, plus ethnographic displays covering nomadic Turkish life with a reconstructed yurt.

It sits directly among Sultanahmet's major sites and is far quieter than any of them.

Bookable options include entry tickets with audio guides and fast-track entry. Current availability is shown below.