Blue Mosque

The Blue Mosque is lovely inside and I had to change into appropriate coverage before entering. Once we entered the vast dome it is very impressive albeit very touristy with people on phones and even eating I found this inappropriate as it is should be a place to pray and reflect not sit, chat and eat.

The Blue Mosque is an historical mosque in Istanbul and is known as the Blue Mosque because of blue tiles surrounding the walls of interior design.

Mosque was built between 1609 and 1616 years, during the rule of Ahmed it is just like many other mosques, it also comprises a tomb of the founder, a madrasa and a hospice.

The Mosque has five main domes, six minarets, and eight secondary domes. The design is the culmination of two centuries of Ottoman mosque development. It incorporates some Byzantine Christian elements of Hagia Sophia with traditional Islamic architecture and is considered to be the last great mosque of the classical period. In the middle it has a big fountain. On the upper side it has a big chain. The upper area is made up of 20,000 ceramic tiles each having 60 tulip designs. In the lower area it has 200 stained glass.

The Interior features the prayer area and the main dome.

The tiles at lower levels are traditional in design, while at gallery level their design becomes flamboyant with representations of flowers, fruit and cypresses. The price to be paid for each tile was fixed by the sultan's decree, while tile prices in general increased over time. As a result, the quality of the tiles used in the building decreased gradually.

The upper levels are dominated by blue paint. More than 200 stained glass windows with intricate designs admit natural light, today assisted by chandeliers. On the chandeliers, ostrich eggs are found that were meant to avoid cobwebs inside the mosque by repelling spiders and the decorations include verses from the Quran. The floors are covered with carpets, which are donated by the faithful and are replaced regularly. Each semi-dome has 14 windows and the central dome 28. The coloured glass for the windows was a gift of the Signoria of Venice to the sultan. Most of these coloured windows have by now been replaced by modern versions with little or no artistic merit.

The most important element in the interior of the mosque is the mihrab, which is made of finely carved and sculptured marble, with a stalactite niche and a double inscriptive panel above it. It is surrounded by many windows. The adjacent walls are sheathed in ceramic tiles. To the right of the mihrab is the richly decorated pulpit, where the imam stands when he is delivering his sermon at the time of noon prayer on Fridays or on holy days. The mosque has been designed so that even when it is at its most crowded, everyone in the mosque can see and hear the imam.

The great tablets on the walls are inscribed with the names of the caliphs and verses from the Quran.

The courtyard is about as large as the mosque itself and is surrounded by a continuous vaulted arcade . The central hexagonal fountain is small relative to the courtyard. The monumental but narrow gateway to the courtyard stands out architecturally from the arcade. Its semi-dome has a fine stalactite structure, crowned by a small ribbed dome.

Four minarets stand at the corners of the Blue Mosque. Each of these fluted, pencil-shaped minarets has three balconies with stalactite corbels, while the two others at the end of the forecourt only have two balconies.Read more