Blue Mosque

This is what the prayer hall in the Blue Mosque looks like if you frame the photo to avoid the thousands of people kept behind a wooden barrier. Photos by David Lansing.

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.

This photo was taken at the same time but shows the crowds.

That’s me. Sitting on the steps of the Blue Mosque. You probably think I did this on purpose. I didn’t. The thing is, when you come outside of the Blue Mosque, you have to put your shoes on. And there’s only this tiny little area with two small benches where you can sit. And they were jammed. So I walked in my stocking feet down a few steps of the mosque and sat down. And as I finished, Sidar, who was at the bottom of the steps told me to look up so he could take my picture. Which he did.

“Must you always break the rules?” he said with a grin, showing me the picture on the back of my camera.

I guess so. Even when I don’t mean to.

Photo by David Lansing.

It is still early in Istanbul. So early that Sidar and I, with nothing else to do, decide to take a walk around the Blue Mosque, just a few blocks away. There is no one there except a solitary man washing his feet at one of the outside taps on the side of the courtyard. There is something vulnerable and personal about this man washing his feet. To me it feels like watching someone unbutton a shirt and remove it. The light, the solitude, the vulnerability—I want to take a photo of the scene, even though it feels so voyeuristic.

I ask Sidar if I should go up to the man and ask if it’s okay to take his photo.

“No,” says Sidar. “Just take the photo from a distance so you don’t disturb him.”

And this is what I do.

The Blue Mosque isn’t officially open yet, but Sidar leads me to a door marked “Exit Only” and, after slipping off our shoes, we slip past the curtains into the interior of the prayer hall. The only other person inside is an old man pushing an ancient standup vacuum cleaner slowly over the dusty red carpet. The old man either doesn’t notice us or chooses to ignore us, it’s hard to say which.

“This is very rare,” Sidar whispers. “Just wait. We will come back here this afternoon and you will see. There will be thousands of people in here. So many that we will have to wait half an hour or longer just to get inside.”

But for now, the Blue Mosque is all but empty. Just us and the old man with his vacuum.