Blue Mosque

The rival

The sultan probably meant to rival or surpass Hagia Sophia

Sultan Ahmed I decided to build a large mosque in Istanbul after the Peace of Zsitvatorok, seen as a blow to Ottoman prestige. It stands on the southeast side of the old Byzantine Hippodrome, across from the Hagia Sophia. Construction started in 1609 and was completed in 1617.

The protest

The cost drew protests, and the ulema forbade prayer there

The site was occupied by the palaces of several Ottoman viziers, which required a costly expropriation process. The ulema argued that sultans should only fund an imperial mosque with spoils of conquest. Ahmed I had won no major victories. The ulema went so far as to forbid Muslims from praying at the mosque.

Six minarets

The six minarets come with a folk story about a misheard word

The mosque has a central dome surrounded by four semi-domes, and six minarets. According to folklore, an architect misheard the Sultan's request for gold minarets as a request for six, a feature supposedly then unique to the mosque of the Ka'aba in Mecca. The legend says the Sultan then ordered a seventh minaret there.

The interior

The dome is 43 metres high and rests on four massive pillars

The main dome reaches a height of 43 metres and is supported by four massive cylindrical pillars. The mosque contains some 260 windows to admit natural light. Thousands of Iznik tiles and painted floral motifs, in predominantly blue colours, give the mosque its popular name.

43 metresheight of the main dome

Restoration

A fire in 1912 and a minaret that had shifted led to repairs

A major fire in 1912 damaged several of the outlying structures of the mosque complex. In 2013 it was discovered that the northwest minaret had shifted 5 centimetres over time. Comprehensive restoration work on the rest of the mosque began in 2018, and it reopened in April 2023.