Istanbul: Building the Blue Mosque

I find it fascinating that while the Blue Mosque is so revered in the Muslim world (and, actually, is one of the most famous religious buildings in the world), when it was built by the imperial architect, Mehmet Aga, between 1609-16, it evoked great hostility. All the devout Muslims were pissed off because they thought the mosque, with its six minarets, was a sacrilegious attempt to rival the architecture of Mecca.

Ah, the things we get worked up about.

At the time Sultan Ahmet I commissioned the mosque, things weren’t going so well in the Ottoman Empire. Sulleyman the Magnificent, who had died in 1566, was followed by a rather lackluster group of sultans who seemed more interested in eating and drinking than affairs of state (one of my favorite sultans of this time: Selim the Sot, so named because of his fondness for wine. Kind of says it all, don’t you think?).

Anyway, much of Istanbul burned in a great fire in 1569 and the locals were constantly on the edge of rioting because of the corruption and nepotism in the empire, so Ahmet the First did what any sensible sultan would do in these circumstances: He build the most splendourous mosque in the world, full of arabesque domes and wonderful stained glass windows and the famous blue Iznik tiles which give the mosque its name.

And, of course, those six minarets.

It is a beautiful building. Inside and out.