The Blue Mosque is an 18th-century Shia mosque in Yerevan, Armenia. It was commissioned by Huseyn Ali Khan, the khan of Erivan. It is one of the oldest extant structures in central Yerevan and the most significant structure from the city's Iranian period. It was the largest of the eight mosques of Yerevan in the 19th century and is today the only active mosque in Armenia.
The mosque was secularized in the 1920s and housed the History Museum of Yerevan for more than five decades. Following Armenia's independence, the mosque was renovated with the support from the Iranian government and again started operating as a mosque, serving the Iranians residing in Yerevan.
The mosque was built in 1765–1766 (AH 1179)[a] by Hussein (Hoseyn) Ali Khan, the ruler of the Erivan Khanate under the Afsharid dynasty of Persia,[3][1] as the city's main Friday mosque.[8] The mosque underwent substantial redecoration with tiles around 1887-88 (AH 1305), under Russian administration.[7] The mosque underwent another reconstruction in 1907–1910.[12]
The mosque was the largest of the eight mosques operating in Yerevan when the Russians captured it in 1827.[8][5][8]
H. F. B. Lynch, who visited Erivan in 1890s, wrote: "There is nothing very remarkable in the architecture of the mosque; but the floral paintings which adorn the ceiling of a companion and smaller edifice on the north side of the court are of very high merit."[13] Luigi Villari, an Italian diplomat and historian, gave a detailed description of the mosque in his 1906 book titled Fire and Sword in the Caucasus. He wrote that the "great mosque called the Gok Djami [...] is a good deal more than a mosque; it is a long quadrangle containing several places of worship and a number of cells, schools, and offices of the Moslem religious administration. It is not very ancient [...] but it is handsome."[6] The Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) described the mosque as the "finest building in the city."[14] The minaret of the mosque, standing at 24 metres (79 ft) was the tallest structure in 19th century Yerevan.
The Blue Mosque is the only active mosque in Armenia,[23][24] which has a small Muslim population (between 812[25] and 1,000 or 0.03% of the total population).[26]
Since restoration, it has become a religious and cultural center for the Iranians residing in Armenia and Iranian tourists visiting Armenia.[23] In 2003 the journalist Thomas de Waal noted that the only regular worshippers at the mosque were "the dozen or so diplomats from the Iranian Embassy."[27] Less than a decade later, in 2009, ArmeniaNow wrote that of the up to 2,000 Iranians residing in Yerevan as many as 500 periodically attend the mosque on Thursdays.[28] The Iranian cultural center inside the mosque complex attracts young Armenians seeking to learn Persian.[29] The Persian library of over 8,000 items, named after the poet Hafez, was opened inside the complex in October 2014.
The mosque is listed by the Armenian government as a monument of national significance.[1] It is "one of the oldest buildings in central Yerevan"[3] and the "only extant building of the Iranian period in Yerevan."[7] The historian of Islamic art Markus Ritter described it as the "main model for the early Qajar mosque architecture of the Iranian period."[15] The mosque complex covers an area of 7,000 square metres (75,000 sq ft).[4] The mosque itself is 97 by 66 metres (318 ft × 217 ft),[12] while the courtyard is 70 by 47 metres (230 ft × 154 ft).[7] The mosque contains the traditional Shia attributes, including a minaret, three mihrabs (prayer halls), holy inscriptions, etc.[33] The mosque includes 24 arched cells that face the pool in the middle of the courtyard, which is surrounded by a rose garden.[3] The minaret, standing at 24 metres (79 ft) tall,[4][3] has a 7-degree slope, but is considered to be architecturally safe.
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