Talk:Blue Mosque, Istanbul

error, rebooting universe
Would you think it really pedantic if I point out that a cube cannot be 64x72 metres, as by definition all the sides of a cube are the same length? I have not touched the article, which is great.--Anthony.bradbury 23:23, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Re the number of minarets: Tour guides have twice told me the legend is that the architect mistakenly heard the word for "gold" as the word for "six." Neither mentioned, however, that Sultan Ahmet was responsible for adding the seventh minaret to the Ka'aba! Not R 12:20, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Is there a place to enter the local legend that: "They say the Blue Mosque is so beautiful that the seagulls will not land on it." (Its true, they don't land on it; although its not clear whether their appreciation of its aesthetics is the reason.

photo
There is a great picture of the mosque on wikimedia commons. I encourage someone to add the picture to this article.--Fagles 02:13, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

"Islamic" architecture?
If the Blue Mosque is a scaled down, elaborated version of Hagia Sofia, how can it be called an example of Islamic architecture? Isn't it really Byzantine architecture?


 * How can it be Byzantine architecture when it is a mosque. But it is a fact that Byzantine architecture contributed a lot to Islamic and Ottoman architecture.Thelorien 17:47, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Since the Ottomans adopted the dome wich the Byzantines used its fair enough by me to call it Byzantine architecture. But still there are differences : of course the minarettes and also the archs wich are used by the muslims are different from the Byzantine ones. But its oke with me to change it.(145.53.211.52 08:56, 19 January 2007 (UTC))


 * Islamic art inherited a lot from the Byzantines/Romans, who themselves inherited from Greeks and earlier civilization.Bless sins 22:43, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Despite the fact that the Byzantine Empire was a Balkan Orthodox Empire it was very much Greek. It's official language was Greek for most of its existence and the Emperors where almost all Greek. Byzantine architecture is a part of the Hellenic Architecture. —Preceding unsigned comment added by WhiteMagick (talk • contribs) 21:48, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The earlier civilizations mentioned above are actually Anatolian civilizations who still lives like a mosaic consists of thousand cultures here in Anatolia - Turkey. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.254.147.84 (talk) 11:42, 3 May 2007 (UTC).


 * No, its not Byzantine architecture. Its Byzantine influenced Islamic architecture.--149.99.63.218 18:08, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

BTW I'd like "Blue mosque" to redirect here, since other Blue mosques aren't notable. So I'd like to insert the following template:

Bless sins 22:43, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Architect??
I find it bizarre how auch a famous and internationally recognised building does not have the architect even mentioned in this article, what is the problem, was he Greek or Armenian or something? Reaper7 17:17, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * No. It is just he was a pupil of Sinan and did not have his own arthitectural line.. I mean, Blue Mosque is a great and huge one; however its just copies of Sinan's. Also, Sinan's Selimiyye and Suleymaniyye are accepted more magnificient than the Blue Mosque. And no, Turks do not care if the architect was a Turk or not; just like Armenians and Persians love to do.--hnnvansier (talk) 04:52, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Errr...
How is this "Ottoman Architecture"? It's a clone of Byzantine architecture and the Hagia Sophia in particular. JuliusNero (talk) 05:15, 23 December 2008 (UTC)


 * No it is not. There are major differences between Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque. Byzantium architecture 'influenced' Ottoman architecture; but Ottoman architects were fay beyond the former empire.--hnnvansier (talk) 04:54, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


 * How's that? Externally, the Blue Mosque looks almost IDENTICAL to the Hagia Sophia......JuliusNero (talk) 14:41, 21 September 2009 (UTC)


 * First of all, Blue Mosque is not accepted as the 'best' mosque of Ottoman history. It is beautiful and huge, right; but mosques such as Selimiye and Suleymaniye are known for being 'better' in details than Blue Mosque. So, it is impossible to say that Ottomans mosque-arthitecture is a clone of Byzantium just by looking at Blue Mosque.


 * The reason that Blue Mosque resembles Hagia Sophia that much is the 'idea' of building a larger mosque next to Hagia Sophia, for comprasion. It is not a 'clone'; it is a sign of 'if we were the builders of Hagia Sophia, we would be able to build it better'.--hnnvansier (talk) 04:39, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Major Revamp
This article needs a major revamp, and the better the soon. While the History section is written well and to the point, if short overall, the Architecture section is full of weasel words; it's obvious that whoever typed up the text for it has something against either the Mosque itself or the architecture of this Mosque in particular. Phrases and sentences like "The domes are supported by four massive piers that recall those of the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, another masterpiece of Sinan. It is obvious that Mehmet Paşa was overcautious by taking this inflated margin of safety, damaging the elegant proportions of the dome by their oppressive size." should never be found in an article on Wikipedia, ever.

wrc_wolfbrother (talk) 10:21, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Page move
For discussion on moving this back to Sultan Ahmed Mosque, see Talk:Sultan_Ahmed_Mosque. -M.Nelson (talk) 00:27, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Bizantine Architecture

 * You are dumb because you do not know anything about Ottoman architecture.. "Stealing"??? LOL. Did not you 'Greeks' steal (!) Anatolia from Hitties???--hnnvansier (talk) 04:55, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

where is the obama photos
please add some obama photos. http://images.google.com.tr/images?gbv=2&hl=tr&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Atr%3Aofficial&sa=1&q=obama+blue+mosque&btnG=G%C3%B6rsellerde+Ara&aq=f&oq= —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.181.43.213 (talk) 16:24, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Photo of the Blue part?
The article mentions that it's called the "Blue Mosque" because of a part of the interior. However, this does not seem to be pictured in any of the current photos, and I cannot find any online. Can somebody rectify this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.237.255.138 (talk) 11:08, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Also the "iç avlu" (inner courtyard) pic is added to the section titled "Exterior". A serious effort on pics is needed here. --E4024 (talk) 19:34, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

File:Blue Mosque Courtyard Dusk Wikimedia Commons.jpg to appear as POTD soon
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Blue Mosque Courtyard Dusk Wikimedia Commons.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on December 3, 2016. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2016-12-03. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 12:23, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Minarets
The text says - ¨The Sultan Ahmed Mosque is one of the two mosques in Turkey that has six minarets (one in the modern Sabancı Mosque in Adana, the Hz. Mikdat Mosque in Mersin, Çamlıca in Üsküdar and the Green mosque in Arnavutköy). ¨ - isn´t that four others, making five in all ? Or am I misreading that ? -- Beardo (talk) 15:18, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 30 November 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: not moved to Blue Mosque. However, there seems to be support for Blue Mosque, Istanbul, if any editors wish to carry that out. ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 18:01, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

– This building is almost universally titled the "Blue Mosque" first, and Sultan Ahmed mosque second, and is the most famous and well-known example of a 'Blue Mosque'. Google blue mosque, you will see this mosque. Google scholar blue mosque, you will see this mosque. Even Turkish sources, when speaking to an international audience use "Blue Mosque" first, e.g.:. I recommend this page becomes the place that Blue Mosque directs to, and the main mention on the Blue Mosque (disambiguation) page. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:50, 30 November 2021 (UTC) — Relisting. —usernamekiran • sign the guestbook • (talk) 15:50, 7 December 2021 (UTC) — Relisting. —usernamekiran • sign the guestbook • (talk) 06:09, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Sultan Ahmed Mosque → Blue Mosque
 * Blue Mosque → Blue Mosque (disambiguation)


 * Note: WikiProject Islam has been notified of this discussion. VR talk 13:15, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Turkey has been notified of this discussion. VR talk 13:16, 30 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Support per nom.--Ortizesp (talk) 14:51, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Support. It's Blue Mosque in the Anglosphere; this Google Ngram establishes this I would say. Common name vs offical name, common name wins. Herostratus (talk) 03:17, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Strong Oppose The arguments that are proposed above would make sense if we were writing on a tourism site, but this is an encyclopedia, not Wikivoyage. All academic sources in my possession mention the mosque by its name, and not by the name of Blue mosque, which is the "tourist" name. Moreover, I do not see why we should neglect all the other blue mosques of the Islamic world, some of which have a considerable historical and artistic importance, moving the page of disambiguation. Actually, here you are not asking to move one page, but two, but to do that one should open a new move request also for the disambiguation page. At the limit, we could rename the article Blue Mosque, Istanbul, but not Blue Mosque, which should remain the disambiguation page. Alex2006 (talk) 10:53, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * @Alessandro57 - that's a pretty confusing signature you have there: why not just rename your account? Iskandar323 (talk) 12:27, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * @Iskandar323 - this really wouldn't be a bad idea...but can it be done? By the way, my username is strangely similar to yours (Alessandro in Italian means Iskandar, but in my user name I have the birth year, and not the death year like you ) :-) Alex2006 (talk) 12:33, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Ha! You got the reference. For renaming, it's pretty simple: Special:GlobalRenameRequest Iskandar323 (talk) 12:38, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Of course I got it, I know my namesake well. :-) Thanks! Alex2006 (talk) 12:42, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment - what are any of us, but tourists of information here? I included one academic source that uses Blue Mosque, and pointed to Google scholar: . If there is one contender for the most famous blue mosque it would be the Blue Mosque of Tabriz, which also has an alternative name, the "Masjed-e Moẓaffariya", which relates to the name of the complex that it is in, just as the name "Sultanahmet cami" does when refering to the Blue Mosque in Istanbul - relating it to the Sultanahmet complex. However, I still would not suggest that this is the first Blue Mosque that comes to most people's minds. Blue Mosque, Istanbul would not be a terrible alternative, however - even if, in my mind, a little redundant. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:57, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment:"You'll never fall into the tourist traps when you travel with Frommer's. It's like having a friend show you around, taking you to the places locals like best. " or "Istanbul is one of my favourite cities. Its location, architecture, and cosmopolitan bustle draw me back every year, and I like to finish each day with a visit to a favourite café." These are two among the first hits of Google Scholar: I really don't think we can call them "academic sources", and with that we can forget Google Scholar. When I talk about academic sources, I mean Müller-Wiener, Necipoğlu, Mamboury, just to name a few: none of them calls Sultan Ahmet Camii the Blue mosque. Besides that, we should not forget that this is an imperial mosque, and the imperial mosques erected by the Ottomans in Istanbul are all named after members of the Ottoman imperial family. I think it takes very solid reasons to change this on Wikipedia. Alex2006 (talk) 13:20, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Comment - this research paper is a good example of how the Blue Mosque is the accepted WP:COMMONNAME for the structure in English, even when the same (Turkish) authors refer to it as Sultan Ahmet Camii in Turkish (in academic usage, outside of the various parallels already mentioned in the tourism industry).
 * Comment - Thank you for finding this "research paper". It's a pity though that the "research paper" has been published by a neurosurgical journal. The reason? Don't ask me, Turkey is a country where anything can happen, I know it by experience. :-) Anyway, the "research paper" (but have you read it?) is nothing more than an unreferenced and unsourced compilation work as can be done by any good wikipedia user. As a general rule, sources are not counted, but weighed (if one knows how to do it, of course): I mentioned Gülru Necipoğlu, possibly the most important living scholar of Ottoman architecture, who in his "The Age of Sinan" simply ignores the term "Blue Mosque" (it is not even mentioned in the index as a reference to the real name of the mosque), and you respond pulling out of the google hat an article assembled by a Ms. Nobody (a medical student who decided to switch to art history?), then using this sensational paper to deduce that the term "blue mosque" is "used in academia". Very sad, but that's the way the world goes today. Alex2006 (talk) 17:04, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * @Alex2006: *Ok, fair enough, on closer inspection, that source doesn't look great. I've struck that comment. But why aren't you linking to any of these sources you are quoting? I guess I can look up "The Age of Sinan", but you could save me and everyone else here some bother by just pointing the way properly to this source and others by Müller-Wiener, Necipoğlu and Mamboury. Actual citation would help everybody a lot faster. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:52, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Strong Oppose per Alex2006. It could be Blue Mosque, Istanbul. Eccekevin (talk) 20:10, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Blue Mosque is ambiguous with no primary topic. Perhaps ' or ' could be a possible article titles... both formats are used in other articles listed at the DAB Blue Mosque. This article has also been at . But no justification for the move as proposed. Andrewa (talk) 18:15, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment I am totally fine with the suggestion of Blue Mosque, Istanbul as three editors above by my count have now suggested. This addresses my original WP:COMMONNAME purpose in raising this RM to move away from the current Turkosphere, possible common name title of "Sultanahmet Camii" and towards the much clearer Anglosphere common name title of the Blue Mosque. The city name is fine either way. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:19, 23 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Move to Blue Mosque (Istanbul). Rreagan007 (talk) 19:20, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Support to Blue Mosque, Turkey per WP:PLACEDAB, WP:NATURALDISAMBIGUATION, and WP:COMMONNAME. BilledMammal (talk) 03:38, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Support Blue Mosque or Blue Mosque, Istanbul. Probably is the primary topic for the name, but if not this is still the clear common name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:33, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

international competition?
Sultan Ahmed I may have been in competition with counterparts from "Mughal India".

Both sides intending to construct the finest monuments. 19:42, 13 December 2021 (UTC)\\\\~\\\~ 137.59.221.36 (talk) 19:42, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Why it an icon ?
Why it an icon ? 41.13.136.217 (talk) 17:57, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

General revisions
I'm in the process of revising the article's text and some of its layout. There are numerous problems, mostly minor, but they add up to a lot of necessary cleanup. For example, many parts of the architecture section seem to be close paraphrases of Godfrey Goodwin's well-known book, yet are attributed to a dead-link website. A lot of the images are also repetitive and uninformative, rather than more deliberately curated per the guidelines of MOS:IMAGES.

I don't expect any contentious edits, but if there are any questions about something I did, feel free to ask here, if helpful. (Feel free also to keep an eye out for any typos or format errors I might have missed.) Cheers, R Prazeres (talk) 20:11, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Some considerations
I found quite a few of the citations do not actually lead to articles/books that can be accessed. Also, perhaps an image or description of what a sphendone is. Bbonefield (talk) 04:54, 23 September 2023 (UTC)


 * The sphendone is briefly identified inline already as a section of the Hippodrome. Otherwise, it's a tangential topic here, as it only needs to be mentioned to locate one of the outlying buildings of the complex. For the citations, I'm not sure what you mean specifically, but most of the sources are accessible to some extent or another online. It's not a requirement of WP:RS, even if free access is always good. I did just notice that two of the books are accessible on Internet Archive and have added links to them . R Prazeres (talk) 07:04, 23 September 2023 (UTC)