Istanbul_ The Collected Traveler_ An Inspired Companion Guide - Barrie Kerper [121]
Any visitor newly come from Hagia Sophia to the Blue Mosque will notice many resemblances between the two, for although Hagia Sophia opened its doors in AD 537, the Ottoman architects a millennium later drew inspiration from it and incorporated much of the overall plan in their finest designs.
The Blue Mosque was erected in 1616 on a site formerly occupied by the palace and hippodrome of the city of Septimus Severus. All traces of the palace has vanished; but the hippodrome’s axis, or spina, is still marked by three monuments, the most interesting being an obelisk of the Pharaoh Tuthmosis III, which once stood near the eighth pylon of the temple of Karnak in ancient Thebes.
The edifice across the spina is the palace of Ibrahim Pasha, one of Suleiman’s grand viziers. He was murdered in 1536 in Topkapi Palace at the insistence of the Queen, who was convinced Ibrahim had designs on her husband’s throne. His property, including this residence, reverted to the state and today the building is undergoing restoration. The facade is one of the finest to survive from any private Ottoman dwelling. Seen from the west, the mosque is tucked behind a high screen wall. When I saw it in late autumn set against bare tree limbs and in a thicket of minarets (Sultan Ahmet has, exceptionally, six of them), I felt I had chanced upon the enchanted tomb of a prince long dead.
Entry to the mosque is not by the courtyard but from the north exterior wall. There and at other holy sites visitors are required to remove their shoes or strap on cloth slippers, and it is customary to tip the men who tend the shoes or tie the slippers. The money helps support the foundation, too. A donation of one hundred liras (about fifty cents) should do.
I went into the Blue Mosque prepared to take careful note of the celebrated painted decoration. But any such consideration of detail was banished from my mind when I saw the vast, serene interior. Peace and quiet reign, for any footfall is immediately muffled in a sea of carpeting.
The mosque is cruciform, with a hemispherical dome set on four massive, ribbed piers, each about fifteen feet thick, and semi-domes at each of the cardinal points. The dome rises over 130 feet and, unlike the vaults of most Christian churches, its hemispherical curve confers an impression of lightness and space. It is only the chandeliers, brought down to within twenty or thirty feet of the floor, that reestablish any sense of human scale.
In its pristine condition, the building was glazed with over 250 stained glass windows. Much is missing or has been replaced with modern imitations that admit too much light. But the illumination does permit close scrutiny of detail, and of that there is an abundance.
Against the eastern wall are a pulpit of marble, a tiled prayer niche, and a windowed arcade. The shutters of the window sashes are made of ebony inlaid with ivory. It must have delighted Ahmet to look through the shutters down to the Sea of Marmara and across to the Princes’ Islands, a place where his more temperate successors exiled their political foes. This civility unfortunately came too late for Ahmet’s son Osman II, who was executed by his brother Sultan Murat IV. Now reconciled, the brothers lie buried in garden tombs behind the mosque.
On the low wall sections is an unobtrusive but peerless revetment of tiles from the village of Iznik, where they were produced from about 1454 onward. The ones in the Blue Mosque are from the very best period, just after 1600, and are designed for the most part in the so-called quatre fleurs style: intertwined tulips, roses, carnations, and lilies.
About two-thirds of a mile from the Blue Mosque is that of Sultan Beyazit in the square which bears his name. It is just off the Yenicheriler Caddesi, the principal thoroughfare issuing from the At Meidan, and