BREAKING NEWS: 'Several' people killed and injured after explosion by 'suicide bomber' rips through tourist district of Istanbul! So sad. 12 Jan 2016
In this video, we were in Istanbul, Turkey. On a cruise on the Norwegian Jade. Istanbul, Turkey, was an overnight port, giving us more time to explore. This was our visit to the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, or more famously known as the Blue Mosque due to its blue tiles on the ceiling. It was a beautiful Mosque. Awesome place to visit. Come check it out when you are in Istanbul. Some more information of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque from wiki:
The Sultan Ahmed Mosque or Sultan Ahmet Mosque (Turkish: Sultan Ahmet Camii) is a historic mosque located in Istanbul, Turkey's Historic Centre. A popular tourist site, Sultan Ahmed Mosque continues as a mosque today with men kneeling in prayer on the mosque's lush red carpet after the call to prayer. Construction of the Blue Mosque, as it is popularly known, was built between 1609 and 1616 during the rule of Ahmed I. Its Külliye contains Ahmed's tomb, a madrasah and a hospice. Magnificent 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]
The Sultan Ahmed Mosque is one of the three mosques in Turkey that has six minarets (the other two being the modern Sabancı Mosque in Adana and the Hz. Mikdat Mosque in Mersin). According to folklore, an architect misheard the Sultan's request for "altın minareler" (gold minarets) as "altı minare" (six minarets), at the time a unique feature of the mosque of the Ka'aba in Mecca. When criticized for his presumption, the Sultan then ordered a seventh minaret to be built at the Mecca mosque.[12]
Minarets of the mosque.
Four minarets stand at the corners of the Blue Mosque. Each of these fluted, pencil-shaped minarets has three balconies (Called Şerefe) with stalactite corbels, while the two others at the end of the forecourt only have two balconies. Before the muezzin or prayer caller had to climb a narrow spiral staircase five times a day to announce the call to prayer.[12]
Today, a public announce system is being used, and the call can be heard across the old part of the city, echoed by other mosques in the vicinity. Large crowds of both Turks and tourists gather at sunset in the park facing the mosque to hear the call to evening prayers, as the sun sets and the mosque is brilliantly illuminated by colored floodlights.[12]
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