Turkey's Splendid Blue Mosque

By Author: Adam Anders
Total Articles: 41
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The Blue Mosque, which is officially called the Sultanahmet Camii (the Sultan Ahmet Mosque), is perhaps the most famous site in Istanbul, Turkey, and it is surely among Turkey's most photographed views. It rises up over the Old City and overlooks the Sea of Marmara and Bosphorous Straight.

The man behind the mosque is Sultan Ahmet I, who had started construction on it in 1609.. Its design was created by Mehmet Aga, and it took 7 years to finish construction. It is made up of a bunch of domes, flanked by 6 minarets. There is a huge central dome, that stretches a while 33 meters, or 100 feet, and has a lot of smaller domes all around it They all sit atop four huge pillars which each measure 4.5 meters (15 feet) thick. These base pillars are called the "elephant's feet".

What you see inside the mosque is amazing, because the interior of the dome and arches is covered with lovely Muslim calligraphy. In addition to that, the interior walls are covered with over 20,000 blue iznik tiles. Many people have wondered why a light gray mosque is called the "Blue Mosque", but the name actually derives from the color of ...
... these tiles. The interior is also enclosed by 260 stained glass windows, and when sunlight shines through the colored light upon the blue tiles is a beautiful sight. These windows, however, are replacement windows, since the originals were destroyed in an earthquake.

Sultan Ahmet's grand project was very controversial in its day. Before that time, the only mosque on the planet with six minarets had been a mosque in Mecca, so by building a six minaret mosque the Sultan had sent the message that Istanbul was on par with Mecca. He brilliantly solved the problem by having an extra minaret added to the mosque in Mecca, allowing it to retain its image of supremacy. This calmed religious fervor.
The Blue Mosque sits at the meeting point of Europe and Western Asia. For a

href="http://printable-maps.blogspot.com/2008/08/map-physical-of-europe.html"> physical

map of Europe or a Middle East political map visit Free Printable Maps.