It’s not something I’ve never heard before. Among people who have been to Istanbul, there is one single building that leaves the deepest impression. And more often than not, that building isn’t the Hagia Sophia — it’s the one standing right across from it. That building is the Blue Mosque.

Hello! My name is Oğulcan ÖZDİL. I will be your guide during your visit to the Blue Mosque.

Travelling Istanbul is an exciting journey. I wish I could be someone foreign to this city — rediscovering it as if I wasn’t born and raised here. One thing I’m certain of: I would definitely tell my friends and family about the glorious views of the Blue Mosque the moment I returned home. It has such an incredible impact. The blend of little details on this majestic building makes it truly unique.

You don’t need a ticket to get in. You will proceed from the right-hand side of the outer courtyard towards the gate where visitors enter. You will then undergo a dress code check in accordance with the visitor regulations. If you require a headscarf or long clothing, you can obtain these here.

So let’s take a little trip through history together, and take a look at the story of how the Blue Mosque became part of Istanbul’s portrait.

To understand the Sultanahmet Mosque, you must first get to know the person who commissioned it. Sultan Ahmed I was born in Manisa in 1590. When his father, Sultan Mehmed III, died in December 1603, Ahmed ascended the Ottoman throne at the age of fourteen. He would reign until his death in 1617—a reign lasting just twenty-seven years, yet one that would leave behind an immense legacy.

Now, you might wonder: why did a young sultan in the middle of wars — with Iran to the east, Austria to the west, and rebellions throughout Anatolia — decide to build a grand mosque? The answer lies in his character.

Ahmed I was deeply, genuinely pious. He sent gold chandeliers to the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina. When the rain spout on the roof of the Kaaba wore out, he had a new one cast in pure gold and sent it to Mecca. He even had the covering of the Kaaba produced in Istanbul for the very first time; previously it had always been made in Egypt. He carried a symbol of the Prophet’s footprint in his own plume.

This wasn’t political performance. For Ahmed I, building a mosque beside the ancient Hippodrome — on the very site where Eastern Roman emperors once ruled — was an act of devotion. And it was personal. Historical accounts tell us that he personally participated in the excavation of the foundations, working with a golden pickaxe until he perspired, and even carried soil in his own robe as a blessing.

As for why this particular location was chosen: the land sat directly adjacent to Topkapı Palace, in the heart of the old city. It was the former Hippodrome — the ancient Roman stadium for chariot races. The site already carried centuries of history, and Ahmed I would add one more chapter to it.

To secure the land, his chief representative — the imperial Chief Eunuch, Hacı Mustafa Ağa — purchased properties in the area, including a grand mansion that had belonged to Ayşe Sultan, the granddaughter of the famous Grand Vizier Rüstem Pasha. That purchase, for thirty thousand gold coins, was completed in July 1609. Construction began almost immediately. Ahmed I died in November 1617, just months after the mosque’s opening ceremony. He was twenty-seven years old.

The mosque was commissioned around 1609 and opened for worship in 1616. The full complex — including its theological school, hospital, soup kitchen, shops, and mausoleum — was completed by 1620.

Now, a few things that often surprise visitors:

The name “Blue Mosque” doesn’t appear anywhere on the building itself. It’s a nickname that came later, inspired by the thousands of blue and white İznik tiles covering its interior walls. The mosque’s proper name is the Sultan Ahmed Mosque.

The construction took seven years, five months, and six days — and was completed under the oversight of three different Grand Viziers.

The opening ceremony held on 9 June 1617 was magnificent: an imperial tent was raised in the courtyard, a banquet was held for state officials, and roughly a thousand ceremonial robes were distributed to dignitaries. Gifts were also sent to Mecca and Medina.

And here’s a detail many people get wrong: the mosque wasn’t solely decorated with 17th-century tiles. Research has confirmed that tiles produced in the 16th century — from stockpiles — were also used inside. The Blue Mosque is actually considered an important reference point for understanding tile usage in mosques of that era.

One more notable first: the mosque introduced the imperial pavilion — a private space attached to the building where the sultan could rest before and after prayer. This feature, never seen before in Ottoman architecture, would go on to become standard in later imperial mosques.

Every great building has a great mind behind it. For the Blue Mosque, that mind belonged to Sedefkâr Mehmed Ağa — the chief imperial architect of the period.

Mehmed Ağa was brought to Istanbul as a recruitment from the Balkans around 1562, during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. He is believed to have come from Elbasan in present-day Albania, though some accounts point to Tetovo.

He was trained in the workshops of Famous Ottoman Architect Sinan — arguably the greatest architect in Ottoman history — and absorbed everything that master had to offer. Before becoming Chief Architect, Mehmed Ağa spent eight years as superintendent of the imperial waterworks, a role that gave him deep practical knowledge of large-scale infrastructure.

He was appointed Chief Architect in October 1606 and the Sultan Ahmed Mosque would become the crown jewel of his career.

His contemporary, the writer Câfer Çelebi, described him in these terms: gentle, humble, devout, strong in character — someone who concealed his talents rather than boasted of them. He was also known for his mastery of mother-of-pearl inlay work — sedef in Turkish — which is where his honorific “Sedefkâr” comes from, meaning “the mother-of-pearl craftsman.”

In designing the Blue Mosque, Mehmed Ağa drew directly on Sinan’s legacy — and pushed it further.

Stand back and look at the silhouette. As one approaches the courtyard of this mosque—one of the most meticulously designed compositions in Ottoman architecture— notices that it rises above the level of the inner courtyard’s floor.

The porticoed courtyard in front of the mosque is almost as large as the prayer hall itself. It’s enclosed on three sides by covered galleries supported by columns with sophisticated capitals — stalactite-like carved stone decorations. At the center sits a hexagonal fountain pool beneath its own dome. This was designed for the visual and auditory pleasure of the space — not for ritual ablution.

The monumental entrance gate on the north side is particularly striking: a decorated hood rises above the doorway, topped by a high-drummed dome. The paving in front of the entrance features a geometric composition in colored stone inlay.

The mosque has six minarets — a detail that caused quite a stir when it was built. Until that point, only the mosque at Mecca had six. Legend has it that the sultan asked for ‘altın’, meaning golden minarets in Turkish, but the architect heard ‘altı’, which means six, instead. Whether true or not, a seventh minaret was eventually added to the mosque in Mecca to maintain its precedence.

The four taller minarets stand at the corners of the prayer hall; each has three balconies. The two shorter ones stand at the corners of the courtyard, each with two balconies. Together, their sixteen balconies create a rhythmic, upward-reaching silhouette.

Inside, the structure is built around a central dome with an internal diameter of about 22 meters. That dome rests on four massive piers — nicknamed the “elephant legs” by visitors because of their sheer girth — each about five meters in diameter.

From the main dome, the space expands outward through four half-domes, which in turn open into smaller curved bays called exedras. This cascading system of domes creates an interior that feels vast and weightless at the same time.

Mehmed Ağa was working directly within the tradition which Sinan had pioneered at the Şehzade Mosque. But where Sinan used two exedras in each direction, Mehmed Ağa pushed to three — achieving what is considered the most ideal open interior in this architectural scheme.

Inside, the galleries wrap around three sides of the prayer hall at the upper level, supported on pointed arches and columns. The massive piers are articulated with vertical flutings to soften their bulk — and on the north side, each pier contains a small marble fountain.

Windows are arranged in six rows, allowing light to filter in from multiple angles throughout the day. The effect — especially in morning light — is extraordinary.

Over 21,000 tiles cover the lower walls of the interior — and more than fifty distinct compositions are found among them. They were produced primarily in İznik and Kütahya, the two great ceramic centers of the Ottoman world.

The colors are the soul of the space: cobalt blue, turquoise, white, green — and the famous “coral red” that İznik potters achieved through a secret slip technique. Look closely at the floral patterns: tulips, carnations, hyacinths, and serrated leaf pattern twist across the tiles in endlessly varied arrangements.

The tiles on the northern gallery walls are particularly fine, and considered among the best surviving examples from this period. It’s also worth knowing that quality varied: as the 17th century progressed, both İznik and Kütahya workshops struggled economically, and some tiles in the mosque show this decline in workmanship — making the earlier, higher-quality tiles all the more remarkable by comparison.

Above the third row of windows, the walls transition from tile to painted plaster. The original decorations — featuring rich vegetal patterns in red and light blue — were plastered over in 1883 and replaced with simplified copies. Restoration work beginning in 1976 uncovered fragments of the originals, and efforts were made to restore as much as possible. What you see today is a combination: some original work, some later restoration.

The mosque’s inscriptions were written by the calligrapher Seyyid Kasım, also known as Gubârî — a master of his craft.

The main dome carries the “Verse of Light” from the Quran: “Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth…” It’s among the most visually powerful inscriptions in any mosque anywhere.

On the pendentives — the curved triangular sections supporting the dome — large medallions carry phrases: “He is the Everlasting. There is no god but Him.”

Above the mihrab, verses from the Chapter of Aal-e-Imran describe the story of the Virgin Mary — a passage chosen to emphasize piety, devotion, and divine provision.

The imperial gallery, reserved for the sultan, features a tile inscription frieze in script — gold gilding on turquoise — one of the rarest surviving examples of this technique.

The mihrab — the niche indicating the direction of prayer — is carved in marble with a decorated hood and elegant colonnettes. Simple in design but precise in execution, it’s framed by tall marble columns that rise to decorative finials above.

The minbar — or the pulpit from which the Friday sermon is delivered — is marble with gold gilding, and its side panels display rumi motifs on flowing branches. The pavilion atop the minbar sits on an octagonal drum with a conical roof, carried on four slender columns with diamond-shaped capitals.

The wooden preaching platform is also remarkable: its middle panels are inlaid with mother-of-pearl in geometric patterns — a direct expression of Sedefkâr Mehmed Ağa’s own personal craft.

The window shutters on the mihrab wall and the three main entrance doors are among the finest examples of Ottoman woodwork: inlaid with mother-of-pearl, tortoiseshell, ivory, and silver in geometric compositions. The bronze doors of the porticoed courtyard — especially the one on the central axis — show equally fine metalwork: panels built from ten-pointed star geometries, with embossed vegetal decoration inside each shape.

The Blue Mosque is a place I love to show my guests during my career as a professional tour guide. Given that such a magnificent place of worship is free to visit, there was a need for a free guide.

As a tour guide, I still take just as much pleasure in bringing my guests here with the same excitement as I did on the very first day. With the confidence that comes from knowing my past, my present, and where I’m headed. You can also access the other free audio guides I’ve made available to you, such as this app, via my website. If you find the app useful, please do share it with your friends and family.

There you have it — the story of the Blue Mosque. A building born from one young sultan’s devotion, shaped by one master architect’s vision, decorated by the finest craftsmen of the Ottoman world, and visited ever since by people from every corner of the earth.

I am Oğulcan ÖZDİL. See you next time. Farewell.