Picture of the day #9: The blue mosque, Istanbul, Turkey

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque or Sultan Ahmet Mosque is a historic mosque located in Istanbul, Turkey. A popular tourist site, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque continues to function as a mosque today; men still kneel in prayer on the mosque's lush red carpet after the call to prayer. The Blue Mosque, as it is popularly known, was constructed between 1609 and 1616 during the rule of Ahmed I. Hand-painted blue tiles adorn the mosque’s interior walls, and at night the mosque is bathed in blue as lights frame the mosque’s five main domes, six minarets and eight secondary domes. It sits next to the Hagia Sophia, another popular tourist site.

Mosques traditionally have one, two or four minarets. That’s what makes the Blue Mosque unique as it boasts six minarets. It’s rumored that this was a misunderstanding as the Sultan had instructed his architect to make gold (altin) minarets which his architect understood as six (alti) minarets.

Picture taken with Fuijfilm X-A1