The Blue Mosque of Istanbul

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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 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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Photos

Blue Mosque
Our frist good view from a street near our hotel.

Carpet in the Blue Mosque
During prayer services you put your feet in the darker colored places.

Blue Mosque windows
Part of one of the chandeliers can be seen in the bottom of the photograpy.

One of Four Huge Columns
Our guide said the columns have a diameter of about 5 meters.

Blue Mosque Interior
Shot through a large chandelier.

Sign Over the Main Entrance
Actually, this is where we exited.

Comments

[elvan]

tne name of blue mosque
The original name of the mosque is " Sultan Ahmet", not Blue Mosque. Sultan means ruler, padishah and Ahmet is the name of the sultan. So its very normal that you haven't see blue ceramic tiles.

[Saif]

kilic ali pasa camii
Dear i would like to know if you advice me who did supply the mosque carpet to kilic ali pasa camii in istanbol. Your reply is very much appreciated. Regards Saif