Blue Mosque
Six slender minarets, twenty-thousand hand-painted İznik tiles and a cascade of domes — Sultan Ahmed's imperial masterpiece.
Built between 1609 and 1617 by architect Sedefkâr Mehmed Ağa for the young Sultan Ahmed I, the Blue Mosque was designed to rival the neighboring Hagia Sophia. Its interior takes its nickname from more than 20,000 hand-crafted İznik tiles in over fifty tulip and floral patterns, glowing turquoise, cobalt and green under 260 stained-glass windows. Its six minarets caused a scandal at the time — only Mecca's Great Mosque had six — until the sultan sent gold to add a seventh minaret in Mecca. Today it remains an active place of worship and one of the most beautiful mosques in the world.
The Blue Mosque is decorated with more than 20,000 handmade İznik tiles — so many that İznik ceramic production reportedly could not keep up with any other commission for years.