Blue Mosque (Sultanahmet Mosque)

In the 19th century, some of the painted decorations of the interior were renewed and in the process the original colour scheme was partly changed; in 1883 new paintings made with stencil technique replaced the original pencil works.
A major fire that affected the complex in 1912 destroyed or rendered unusable some of the surrounding structures (such as the soup kitchen and madrasah buildings); these structures were later restored.
It is included in the Historical Areas of Istanbul which was accepted as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985.

Also known as the Blue Mosque in Europe, the mosque is famous with its Iznik pottery in its interior.
Its six minarets were a striking feature at the time of its construction; four of them have three balconies, while the two in the courtyard have two balconies. This number of minarets caused controversy at the time, as it was the same as the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, but this issue was resolved when Ahmed I added a seventh minaret to Mecca.
It draws attention with a great dome in the center and surrounding smaller half domes.
The interior is decorated with more than 20 thousand blue-toned Iznik tiles, hence the name of the mosque.
The interior lighting of the mosque is provided by 260 stained glass windows, which allow natural light to shine upon the tiles inside. The inscriptions are made by the calligrapher Seyyid Kasım Gubarî from Diyarbakır and are elegant examples of Ottoman calligraphy.