Blue Mosque~ A Beautiful, Beautiful must see!

by timistravels on February 10, 2013

12/28/12

We decided that today was as good as any to take a tour of the Blue Mosque. We had several photos of it from the outside and had learned some interesting things about the Mosque. Technically it is called Sultan Ahmed Mosque, but is more commonly called the Blue Mosque because of the tens of thousand blue tiles that are on the inside walls.

It was built from 1609-1616 and was built to compete with Aya Sophia, which is 1000 years older; it was to be bigger and more beautiful. It is a beautiful building with 260 windows, many made of beautiful stained glass, and a huge prayer space in the middle. The original windows are no longer in tact, but came from Venice. To enter you are required to take off your shoes and women are asked to cover their head with a borrowed scarf or one of their own.

There is NOT an admissions fee, but you can make a donation upon leaving the building, which to us was a no brainer, I hope that many future generations get to see this beautiful building.]

One story we heard from a local merchant that was trying to get us to go to his carpet shop was that there are 6 minuets, more than any other mosque in the world. One other one has 7, but most don’t come close to 6. The story he told us was that the Sultan wanted this beautiful mosque, again to be more outstanding that Aya Sophia. The word Gold and Six are very similar in the Turkish language and somehow when saying build the mosque with lots of gold got turned into six minuets. Not sure if we got the story right but it was a ‘good’ story!