Ottomans · a Light

The Blue Mosque was criticised because its patron had won nothing

Sultan Ahmed I began his mosque in Istanbul in 1609, on the site of the old Byzantine palace and directly facing Hagia Sophia. The architect was Sedefkar Mehmed Agha, trained in Sinan's office. Inside are more than twenty thousand tiles from the kilns at Iznik, and the order was so large that the workshops raised their prices and the sultan capped them. Six minarets went up, matching the number then at Makkah, which caused comment at the time. The sharper criticism was financial. A sultan's mosque was expected to be paid for from the spoils of a victory, and Ahmed had no victory, so the money came from the treasury, and jurists said so.

Istanbul · 1609 to 1617