The Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Turkish: Sultanahmet Camii), popularly known as the Blue Mosque, is an Ottoman-era historical imperial mosque located in Istanbul, Turkey. It was constructed between 1609 and 1617 during the rule of Ahmed I. It attracts a large number of tourists and is one of the most iconic and popular monuments of Ottoman architecture.
The mosque has a classical Ottoman layout with a central dome surrounded by four semi-domes over the prayer hall. It is fronted by a large courtyard and flanked by six minarets. On the inside, it is decorated with thousands of Iznik tiles and painted floral motifs in predominantly blue colours, which give the mosque its popular name. The mosque's külliye (religious complex) includes Ahmed's tomb, a madrasa, and several other buildings in various states of preservation.
The mosque was built next to the former Hippodrome and stands across from the Hagia Sophia, another popular tourist site. The Blue Mosque was included in the UNESCO World Heritage Site list in 1985 under the name of "Historic Areas of Istanbul".
History
Construction
After the Peace of Zsitvatorok, seen as a blow to Ottoman prestige, Sultan Ahmed I decided to build a large mosque in Istanbul in the hope of soliciting God's favour. He was the first sultan to build an imperial mosque since Selim II (d. 1574), as both Murad III and Mehmed III before him had not constructed their own.
The mosque was built on the southeast side of the old Byzantine Hippodrome, near the Hagia Sophia, which had been converted into a mosque, that acted as a source of inspiration for the Ottoman architects, a site of great symbolic significance that allows it to dominate the city's skyline. The mosque's location was originally occupied by the Hippodrome's bleachers and its imperial box (where the emperor sat when attending events here). During excavations in the early 20th century, some of the ancient seats were discovered in the mosque's courtyard. Given the mosque's location, size, and number of minarets, it is probable that Sultan Ahmed intended to create a monument that rivalled or surpassed the Hagia Sophia.
Prior to construction, this site was occupied by the palaces of several Ottoman viziers, including Sokollu Mehmet Pasha and Güzel Ahmet Pasha, which required a costly expropriation process. This, along with the fact that the empire was under economic stress, aroused the protests of the ulema (Islamic legal scholars), who argued that sultans should only fund the construction of an imperial mosque with spoils of conquest. Ahmed I had won no major victories and thus had to divert funds from the treasury for this expensive project. The ulema went so far as to forbid Muslims from praying at the mosque.
Despite the opposition, the sultan went ahead with the project. Construction started in 1609 and completed in 1617, when the opening ceremony was held, though the year 1616 is mentioned on some of the mosque's inscriptions. Ahmed I died around the same time or very soon afterwards in 1617. Scholar Godfrey Goodwin notes that the last accounting reports on the mosque's construction were signed by Mustafa I, Ahmed I's successor, which suggests that Ahmed I had died before the final completion of the project.
In the end, the mosque's grandeur, its luxurious decoration, and the elaborate public ceremonies that Ahmed I organized to celebrate the project appear to have swayed public opinion and overcome the initial controversy over its construction. It became one of the most popular mosques in the city. The mosque has left a major mark on the city and has given its name to the surrounding neighbourhood, now known as Sultanahmet.
Restorations and recent history
In 1883, much of the mosque interior's painted decoration was replaced by new stenciled paintwork, some of which changed the original colour scheme. A major fire in 1912 damaged or destroyed several of the outlying structures of the mosque complex, which were subsequently restored.
A major restoration of the mosque took place in the 21st century. During preparatory work in 2013, it was discovered that the mosque's northwest minaret had shifted 5 centimetres (2.0 in) over time, constituting a potential threat to its structural stability. Work to reconstruct and repair the minaret was underway in 2015. Comprehensive restoration work on the rest of the mosque began in 2018. The mosque reopened in April 2023.
Pope Benedict XVI visited the mosque on 30 November 2006 during his visit to Turkey, alongside Mustafa Çağrıcı, the Mufti of Istanbul, and Emrullah Hatipoğlu, the Imam of the Blue Mosque. It was the second papal visit in history to a Muslim place of worship.
Architecture
Overview
The design of the mosque is based on that of the earlier Şehzade Mosque designed by Mimar Sinan in the early 16th century. The prayer hall occupies an area of 64 by 72 metres (210 by 236 ft) and has a central dome measuring 23.5 metres (77 ft) in diameter. The dome is surrounded by four semi-domes, each of which is flanked by three smaller semi-domes or exedrae. Four smaller domes cover the corners of the prayer hall. On the outside, the mosque has six minarets, ablutions facilities, and a large courtyard preceding the prayer hall.
The mosque's architect, Sedefkar Mehmed Agha from Elbasan who also built the Ballie Mosque there, synthesized the ideas of his master Sinan, aiming for overwhelming size, majesty and splendor. According to the architect's official biographer, the mosque was the culmination of his career. Reflecting the classical Ottoman style of the period, the structure incorporates aspects of Byzantine architecture from the neighboring Hagia Sophia with Islamic architecture. It was the last great mosque of this classical period.
Architectural historian Doğan Kuban characterizes Mehmed Agha's style as having a more "sculptural" approach, with more attention brought on the details of the building and a willingness to break up its elements into smaller parts, whereas Sinan had placed more emphasis on rigorous spatial designs with relatively restrained decoration. Scholar Gülru Necipoğlu states that the mosque demonstrates an emerging trend towards extravagance in the structure and decoration of Ottoman buildings during this time, as evidenced by its size, its profile (including the increased number of minarets), and its lavish use of Iznik tiles. A similar lack of restraint in decoration is also found, for example, in the New Mosque (or Yeni Valide Mosque) that was completed later that same century.
While architectural historians have criticized some details of the mosque's structure and decoration when comparing it to the earlier works of Sinan, the mosque is one of the most impressive and popularly admired monuments of Ottoman architecture.
Interior
Layout and main features
The mosque's interior is dominated by its dome and cascading semi-domes. The main dome reaches a height of 43 metres (141 ft). The weight of the dome is supported by four massive cylindrical pillars. The transition between the central dome and the pillars is achieved by four long, smooth pendentives. Smaller pendentives are used for transitions between the semi-domes and their exedrae and between the hall's corner domes and the surrounding structure. The transitions between the smaller exedrae and the supporting walls or arches are covered by muqarnas (stalactite-like sculpting) made of stucco. By employing these elements, Mehmed Agha created a softer progression from the rectangular outer walls to the round central dome. A two-floor gallery, supported on columns, runs along three sides of the prayer hall, except for the southeastern (or qibla) side, where the mihrab is located. Two fountains are incorporated into the two northern pillars of the mosque, similar to the Süleymaniye Mosque's prayer hall. The floors are covered with carpets, which are donated by the faithful and are regularly replaced as they wear out.
At ground level, the focus of the prayer hall is the mihrab, which is made of finely carved marble, with a muqarnas niche and two inscription panels above it. It is surrounded by many windows. To the right of the mihrab is the richly decorated minbar, or pulpit, where the imam stands when he is delivering his sermon at the time of noon prayer on Fridays or on holy days. The minbar is crafted from elaborately carved marble, with a summit covered by a gold-covered conical cap. 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, with the exception of the areas behind the mosque's large pillars. According to Evliya Çelebi, who saw the mosque in the 17th century, a hundred Qur'ans on lecterns inlaid with mother-of-pearl, all gifted by sultans and viziers, were placed near the mihrab.
The hünkâr mahfil, or sultan's loge, is an elevated platform situated in the southeast corner of the prayer hall, where the sultan could pray. The platform has an L-shape and is supported on ten marble columns. It has its own mihrab with rich decoration, which used to include gold leaf and a jade rose. The loge is reached from the outside via an "imperial pavilion", a large L-shaped structure composed of a covered ramp leading up to two rooms where the sultan could retire to rest, along with an enclosed portico or balcony on the south side overlooking the sea. These retiring rooms became the headquarters of the Grand Vizier during the suppression of the rebellious Janissary Corps in 1826. This auxiliary structure, which is awkwardly integrated into the overall mosque design, is an innovation that appears here for the first time in Ottoman architecture. It was partly destroyed by a fire in 1912 and was subsequently restored.
Decoration
The lower walls of the mosque, especially around the galleries, are covered in Iznik tiles, a style of tilework named after their main production center, İznik (ancient Nicaea). Ahmed I had a great appreciation for these tiles and the production of tiles for his mosque occupied the entire Iznik industry during its construction. Starting in 1607, orders for tiles were sent out continuously and in 1613 the sultan even forbade the production and sale of tiles for any other purpose, so that his own commissions could be completed on time.
A total of 21,043 tiles, featuring over fifty different designs, are found inside the mosque. Some panels were designed specifically for the mosque, while others seem to have been reused from other buildings and amassed here, including lower-quality tiles added during later repairs. The finest tiles are found on the walls of the upper gallery on the north wall, though these are difficult for most visitors to see today. They constitute a virtual museum of tile design from this period, with motifs including cypress trees, flowers, and fruit in a range of colours including blue, green, red, black, and turquoise.
Nearly 75 percent of the mosque's walls, above the level of the tilework, are decorated with painted motifs. The predominant colour of this paintwork is blue, one of the reasons for the mosque's popular name, though much of it has since been replaced with modern imitations of the original 16th/17th-century style. The painted motifs generally consist of floral arabesques. Other motifs include calligraphic inscriptions, including verses from the Qur'an, originally made by the famous calligrapher Seyyid Kasim Gubari, but these too have been restored repeatedly and no longer match the original calligrapher's work.
Some opus sectile decoration is also used at floor level. The mosque also contains some original inlaid woodwork of high quality, including the doors of the courtyard entrance, which were made by the father of Evliya Çelebi.
The mosque contains some 260 windows to admit natural light. Each semi-dome has 14 windows and the central dome 28 (four of which are blind). Each smaller exedra of the semi-domes has five windows, some of which are blind. Many of the windows were made in a traditional manner with intricate designs created with small pieces of coloured glass. Some of the glass was manufactured locally for the outer windows, but most of the glass, especially the coloured glass, was imported. Some of it was a gift from the Signoria of Venice, following a request from Ahmed I in 1610. Most of these original windows have been lost and since replaced with less elaborate modern windows. The modern windows probably make the mosque's interior today brighter than the original stained glass windows would have.