Friday, August 15, 2008

Blue Mosque, Istanbul



The Blue Mosque is one of the most beautiful buildings of Istanbul.The Blue Mosque was founded by Sultan Ahmet I. He ordered Architect Mehmed Aga as his architech. It is made from 1609 to 1616. The location of the mosque is opposite of the Church of Hagia Sophia as it is trying to compete with it. That is actually true because Architect Mehmed wanted to construct a bigger dome then Hagia Sophia's but he could not succeed.

There is an interesting story of the mosque; according to it, Sultan Ahmet I wanted to have a minaret made of gold which is "altin" in Turkish. The architect misunderstood him as "alti" which means "six" in English. However, when the architect was shivering as "am I going to be beheaded?", the Sultan Ahmed I liked the minarets so much. Prior to that time, no sultan had a mosque with 6 minarets.

The building is nearly a square and covered with a dome of 23.5 m.(77 feet) in diameter and 43m(140 feet) high. There are four colossal standing colums of 5m. in diameter(16.3 feet) which give the basic support to the building. The mosque has 260 windows which let the sunlight diffuse into the building quite nicely. They were filled with stained-glass in early 17C but they were restored later. The pulpit and nave is worth seeing, made of marble and original. The Imam(priest) goes on the pulpit every Friday on the sacred day of the Muslims but he never climbs to the very top as a respect to Prophet Muhammed. Everybody should turn their face to the south when praying, because Mecca( Saudi Arabia) is located in South.

Group 5
MariaCamelya
Sher Nee
Zainuszaman

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