At almost any hour of the day or night in Istanbul you can find crowds of people in Sultanahmet Square. It’s the heart of the old city and (not coincidentally) the place where all the tourists go. There are lots of things to see there from nearly all the periods of Istanbul’s history. But two spectacular buildings dominate the area: the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia.
Hagia Sophia – the name means ‘Holy Wisdom’ – was originally a Christian church, built by the emperor Justinian I. Work on it began in 532 and finished five years later. It was a massive structure in every way. About fifty years later, an earthquake occurred, and they had to rebuild the entire dome. The building remained a church for nearly a thousand years, until the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453. Almost immediately Mehmet, the conquering sultan, converted it into a mosque. All the Christian symbols were removed or covered up. A minbar and mihrab were added inside, and (eventually) four minarets outside. It remained a mosque until the early 20th century when Atatürk converted it into a museum. It remained a museum until just two years ago. At that time the current president of Turkey converted it back into a mosque.
We both knew it was a famous building, one of the masterpieces of Byzantine architecture. Elements of Islamic art and design now sit alongside the original Byzantine features. Yet whether church or mosque, the structure is immensely impressive. The actual height of the central dome is 182 feet (55.6 metres). Yet when you’re standing inside, the interior space seems to go on forever. Our last visit took place at night, and the place is no less impressive and beautiful than in the day. There are, however, fewer people there at night, though in Istanbul this in no way means that you are alone!
Across from Hagia Sophia is the Blue Mosque, officially known as the Sultanahmet Mosque. Its design, like the design of all mosques, derives from Hagia Sophia, and so the two buildings make lovely complements when seen together from a distance. Sultan Ahmed had the mosque built in 1609 and it took seven years to complete. In an obviously symbolic move, he built the mosque where the Sacred Palace once stood, which served as the seat of the Byzantine emperors.
At the present time the mosque is under restoration. When we first visited about a month ago, everything was covered over, but on our visit last week we were happy to discover that they have completed work on the central dome. Although you still see scaffolding everywhere, you can at least now why the big deal. The mosque has more than 20,000 hand-painted ceramic tiles, and in the upper storeys, beautiful stained-glass panels. The colour blue dominates the upper reaches of the mosque and gives it its nickname. With all of the restoration going on, it’s hard to get a sense of most of the interior space, but you can still see how impressive the dome itself is, rising to a height of 141 feet (43 metres).
So there you have it: two beautiful religious structures facing each other, each a witness to many centuries of Istanbul history and culture. Each one is a thrilling experience in a city that we’ve found so far to be full of thrilling experiences! (Stay tuned for more of our favourite mosques…)
