Originally a great Justinian church, Aya Sofya (Church of the Divine Wisdom) is now a mosque surrounded by a rose garden. The building encompasses ruins of three different structures. A mosaic floor and a mural of Jesus, Mary and John the Baptist survive from the original church.
Destroyed by an earthquake in 1065, it was later rebuilt with the mosaics set into the walls. The Ottomans converted it to a mosque, but a 16th-century fire again destroyed it. Reconstruction supervised by the great Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan (1489–1588) added İznik tiles to the decoration.
