Eyüp Sultan Baths

Eyüp Sultan Baths is a historic Ottoman hammam in the sacred Eyüp Sultan neighborhood at the head of the Golden Horn in Istanbul — the most revered Islamic pilgrimage site in Turkey, where the tomb of Eyüp el-Ensari, the companion (sahabe) of the Prophet Muhammad who died during the first Arab siege of Constantinople in 674 CE, has attracted Muslim pilgrims and the devout since its discovery by Aksemsettin during Fatih Sultan Mehmed's conquest of Constantinople in 1453. The Eyüp Sultan Mosque complex and surrounding neighborhood constitute Istanbul's most spiritually significant Islamic district, and the provision of a hammam adjacent to the pilgrimage site served the ritual purification needs of the many pilgrims and worshippers who visited the mosque and tomb of the Prophet's companion — the hammam as an integral component of the religious landscape of Islamic pilgrimage and devotion. Eyüp Sultan Baths provides the classical Ottoman bathing ritual in the most spiritually charged neighborhood in Istanbul, where the act of ritual cleansing carries an additional dimension of religious meaning derived from the proximity of the tomb of one of the Prophet's closest companions.