where is the blue mosque located in turkey
Sultan Ahmed Mosque The Sultan Ahmed Mosque or Sultan Ahmet Mosque (Turkish: Sultan Ahmet Camii) 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. Its Külliye contains Ahmed's tomb, a madrasah and a hospice. 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.[2] It sits next to the Hagia Sophia, another popular tourist site.
Hagia Sophia Hagia Sophia (/ˈhɑːɡiə soʊˈfiːə/; from the Greek Αγία Σοφία, pronounced [aˈʝia soˈfia], "Holy Wisdom"; Latin: Sancta Sophia or Sancta Sapientia; Turkish: Ayasofya) is a former Greek Orthodox Christian patriarchal basilica (church), later an Ottoman imperial mosque and now a museum (Ayasofya Müzesi) in Istanbul, Turkey. From the date of its construction in 537 AD until 1453, it served as an Eastern Orthodox cathedral and the seat of the Patriarch of Constantinople,[1] except between 1204 and 1261, when it was converted by the Fourth Crusaders to a Roman Catholic cathedral under the Latin Empire. The building was later converted into an Ottoman mosque from 29 May 1453 until 1931. It was then secularized and opened as a museum on 1 February 1935.[2] Famous in particular for its massive dome, it is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture[3] and is said to have "changed the history of architecture".[4] It remained the world's largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years, until Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520.