The Blue Mosque

Imagine yourself as a young sultan in charge of an empire spanning parts of three continents—Asia, Europe, and Africa—your ancestors brought together through conquests. You are 13 years old and are enthroned in the capital city, Istanbul. You are confronted with the legacy of great rulers before you such as Suleiman the Magnificent and Mehmet the Conqueror. And yet, you are neither a renowned warrior nor an able administrator. How do you leave your mark on the fabric of the city that your forebears coveted and conquered? You commission one of the finest mosques in the heart of the imperial city.

The Sultan Ahmet Mosque, popularly known as the Blue Mosque, was completed in 1617 just prior to the untimely death of its then 27-year-old eponymous patron, Sultan Ahmet I. The mosque dominates Istanbul’s majestic skyline with its elegant composition of ascending domes and six slender soaring minarets. Although considered one of the last classical Ottoman structures, the incorporation of new architectural and decorative elements in the mosque’s building program and its symbolic placement at the imperial center of the city point to a departure from the classical tradition innovated under the famous 16th-century master architect, Mimar Sinan.
20,000 Iznik tiles rise from the mid-sections of the mosque and dazzle the visitor with their brilliant blue, green, and turquoise hues. The shade Torquise was coined here by the French due to it's shade of blue. Faded now apparently, we couldn't get in.

The cheekiness of 6 minarets.
Such a display was previously only preserved for the Prophet’s mosque in Mecca and the sultan was criticized for thinking a bit too highly of himself
According to the most obvious urban legend, this whole issue was the result of a misunderstanding between the sultan and his architect. The sultan supposedly had asked to have altın minare (minarets in gold) and the architect understood altı minare (which means six minarets). A second, less plausible legend is that the architect decided that gold minarets were too expensive and therefore decided to make six of them.

Whatever the true story behind the six minarets is, the sultan overcame the problem by paying for a seventh minaret at the mosque in Mecca.Read more