The Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum stands in Sultanahmet Square in Istanbul, across from the Blue Mosque. It occupies the palace built in 1524 for Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha, a grand vizier of Suleiman the Magnificent. The palace shows influences of 16th-century Ottoman civil architecture. It later served as barracks, an embassy palace, a register office, a Janissary band house, a sewing workshop and a prison.
The palace was repaired from 1966 to 1983, when the museum moved in. The museum began in 1914 as the Museum of Islamic Endowments in the Süleymaniye Complex.
It holds over 40,000 works, including manuscripts, 3,000 Qur'ans, calligraphy, tiles and rugs. The first floor shows traditional Turkish life and the second floor Islamic art. It closed for renovation in January 2015 and reopened that April.
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