Many people in the world know Leonardo DA VINCI (1452-1519)the Italian artist having a great range of capabilities in addittion to painting, like anatomy, bridge building, flight, war machines, cartography, architecture, mathematics, geology, biology, natural history, music and philosophy. On the other hand in the Islamic World a parallel and at least an equally important person lived in the same period .Unfortunately even many Moslems do not have any information about “The master architect Mimar Sinan”, (1488-1588) who is also honored with a crater on Mercury named after him. Sinan’s mosques and buildings of other types offer big scope for study because while no Italian architect built more than a few domed structures, Sinan is credited with over a hundred, including twenty-five in Istanbul alone. Various sources state that Sinan was the architect of around 360 structures Examples of his architecture aside from Istanbul and Edirne, can also be seen in Syria , Jerusalem, Egypt, Tunisia, Algiers, the Balkans and Hungary, where he built mosques, bridges, fountains ,palaces, aqueducts ,libraries and schools . Sinan participated in many military campaigns ranging from Central Europe to Iran and Iraq . In his job as a military engineer he oversaw the building of fortifications, ships and bridges. He made his first biggest reputation when he constructed a bridge over the River Pruth in Moldavia in just a few days. During his extensive travels for military purposes he saw many …
