The Blue Mosque: Sultanahmet Camii Facing Hagia Sophia
Why is it significant?
Come into the courtyard and stand under its arcades, then turn to see the cascade of domes and half-domes and six slender minarets rising above you. This is Sultanahmet Camii, which the world calls the Blue Mosque, and it stands on top of the Great Palace you have been circling all along.
Key Facts
| Place | The Blue Mosque: Sultanahmet Camii Facing Hagia Sophia |
|---|---|
| Address | Sultan Ahmet, Atmeydanı Caddesi No:7, 34122 Fatih/İstanbul, Türkiye |
| Geo Coordinates | 41.00570, 28.97630 |
| Part of Walk | Constantinople Underfoot: Byzantine Istanbul Beneath Sultanahmet |
| Generated | Generated |
Come into the courtyard and stand under its arcades, then turn to see the cascade of domes and half-domes and six slender minarets rising above you. This is Sultanahmet Camii, which the world calls the Blue Mosque, and it stands on top of the Great Palace you have been circling all along.
Sultan Ahmed the First was only nineteen when work began in 1609, with his architect Sedefkâr Mehmed Ağa, a pupil of Sinan. Sedefkâr means the mother-of-pearl inlayer, because that was the craft he started in, and you can still see his patience in the inlaid doors and window shutters. It was finished in 1616, and the sultan died the following year, aged twenty-seven. His tomb stands at the corner of the complex, facing the old Hippodrome.
Why six minarets? The story goes that the sultan asked for golden minarets, altın, and the architect heard altı, six. It is almost certainly a legend, but six minarets did cause a stir, because the great mosque in Mecca had as many, and tradition says another one was added there so that Mecca would stay unrivalled.
Inside, more than twenty thousand İznik tiles, with tulips, carnations and cypress trees, and the painted decoration of the domes give the mosque its blue name. It was restored over several years and fully reopened in 2023. Remember, it is a working mosque, and five times a day the city's oldest rhythm takes over this square.
Now walk out to the gardens between the two great domes, with Hagia Sophia ahead of you and the Blue Mosque behind. The architect of this mosque was answering a church more than a thousand years older, and beneath both of them lie the cisterns, the racetrack, the harbour and the palace you have walked through today. Byzantium did not simply vanish in 1453. It went underground... and it is still holding the city up.