The Blue Mosque of Istanbul

The Blue Mosque was another must see place on our list and had been for many years. Blue ceramic tiles in the mosque give it its name. There are no blue tiles on the exterior of the building, at least we did not see any. The Blue Mosque was built in the early 1600's, some 1100 years after the Hagai Sophia, and is still a working mosque. Between prayer times tourists are allowed into the mosque. Everyone must remove their shoes and put them in plastic bags that you carry with you. Upon exiting the mosque you may put your shoes on again and place the plastic bags in large containers for reuse. Even though their are signs saying women must cover their heads and wear long skirts, our guide looked us over and said we were all modestly enough dressed to enter. I [Nancy] covered my head with one of my scarves. It seemed disrespectful to not do so though many women did not cover their heads. We had checked ahead of our visit to be sure that blue jeans would not offend the Turks. We were told that blue jeans were no problem regardless of whether they were worn by a man or a woman. We found this to be true and that many Turkish women wore them.

The Blue Mosque has six minarets and I believe this is the only mosque with that number. Most mosques have one minaret, some have two and others have four. But as far as I know the Blue Mosque is the only one that has six. Why does it have six? Glad you asked. The story goes that the Turkish words for gold and six are very similar, rather like pin and pen in English. When the Ottoman Sultan instructed the architect of his choice about building a new mosque he said he wanted a mosque with a gold minaret. The architect misunderstood and thought the Sultan had said, "I want a mosque with six minarets. And so it has six and it is a beautiful structure.

There is a wall around the mosque.

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