Encountering the Middle East: HONR 212B-01H

Sultan Ahmed Mosque - Catalogue Entry

Portrait of Sultan Ahmed I

Despite appearing as an older man in the image, the sultan rose to the throne at age fourteen and died at age twenty-seven. This portrait was supposedly commissioned by Mehmed Aga to celebrate the construction of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque.

Historical Context Surrounding the Mosque’s Construction

Upon the beginning of its construction in 1609, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque would be the first building of its kind to be built in the Ottoman capital of Istanbul since the construction of the Suleymaniye Mosque from 1550 to 1557 by Sultan Ahmed I’s great-great-grandfather Suleyman the Magnificent.[1] When Ahmed ascended to the throne in 1603 at age fourteen, the empire was in a state of immense turmoil. In the first year of his reign, war with the Safavid empire was renewed and would last beyond his death until 1618. In 1606 after the signing of a peace treaty with the Habsburgs, Ahmed would witness the end of “the Long War” that began under his grandfather Murad III in 1593. However, the conclusion of this war was not the victorious achievement that the young sultan might have hoped it to be as it ended in a stalemate with tremendous casualties on both sides.[2] With wars being fought on both ends of the empire during the start of his reign, a series of rebellions against the empire began due to the incredible burdens that had been placed on the citizens by such conflicts. Additionally, years of rebellions and environmental disasters plagued the empire in the years preceding his rule, placing Sultan Ahmed I in a position that seemed to suggest that the empire was facing a drastic decline.[3] Thus, it was within this context that Ahmed commissioned the building of his imperial mosque.

Sehzade Mosque Exterior

The Sehzade Mosque provided the inspiration for the design of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque. The Sultan Ahmed Mosque eclipses this mosque in scale tremendously.

Ahmed and His Mosque’s Inspirations

In coming to leadership at such a young age, Sultan Ahmed was desperate for a figure to model his rule after. During this era in which the Ottoman Empire’s vigor was in question, Ahmed found an exemplar for his leadership in his great-great-grandfather Suleyman the Magnificent, who was widely understood as being the ruler symbolic of the empire’s golden age. Due to the chaos of the time and his inexperience as a head of state, Sultan Ahmed I chose to legitimize his leadership through the construction of a new sultanic mosque in Istanbul. Just as Suleyman became a model for Ahmed’s leadership, so too did his imperial mosque become an example for Ahmed’s own construction project. While many sultans participated in Friday prayer in the Hagia Sophia as it was nearest to the palace, Sultan Ahmed instead opted to travel to the Suleymaniye Mosque for Friday prayer, thus reflecting his preoccupation with his predecessor’s rule and embodying his image.[4]

In commissioning the project, Sultan Ahmed I appointed Mehmed Aga, a student of legendary architect Sinan, to be the chief architect of the structure. In designing the young ruler’s mosque, Mehmed Aga took inspiration from multiple of Sinan’s works, particularly the Sehzade and Suleymaniye mosques. The plan of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque’s prayer hall was a reworking of Sinan’s first major work, the Sehzade Mosque. Following a plan of a main dome rested on four piers and braced by four semi-domes with cupolas filling the remaining corners, the scheme of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque is much larger, with additional exedrae running from three of the semi-domes.[5] In using an expanded design of one of the great mosques of Suleyman’s era for his own mosque, Ahmed I showcased how his structure would serve to legitimize his leadership, reflecting how his rule, just as the mosque, was descended from and expanded upon the legacy of his renowned ancestor. Featuring four uneven minarets surrounding its porticoed courtyard, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque duplicates a distinctive feature of the Suleymaniye Mosque. However, with the inclusion of two additional minarets on the qibla wall side of the prayer hall, the extravagance of the structure is heightened,[6] further highlighting how Ahmed I sought to legitimize his leadership by creating a structure that both harkened back to a former era of imperial grandeur and managed to expand upon it to showcase his persistent authority as the sultan. Additionally, by having the mosque be a fusion of the elements of the Sehzade and Suleymaniye mosques, the structure was able to be understood as a distinct piece of architecture in the tradition of sultanic mosques, thus allowing for Sultan Ahmed I to reflect his own uniqueness as ruler through the extravagance of his mosque.

Exterior of Suleymaniye Mosque

The Suleymaniye Mosque was another point of inspiration and comparison for Mehmed Aga in designing the Sultan Ahmed Mosque. Unlike his ancestor, Sultan Ahmed I faced substantial criticism in constructing the imperial mosque of his namesake. 

Opposition to the Mosque’s Construction

When Sultan Ahmed I resolved to construct his own sultanic mosque, his decision was met with intense criticism by those within the Ottoman elite as the young ruler had not only not acquired the spoils of war to fund such a project but was also actively engaged in conflicts that were draining the empire of resources. In the Ottoman empire, it was tradition for sultans to construct their own mosques only when they had been victorious in war over non-Muslims and that the funding for such large building projects was to be provided by war booty.[7] While such tradition was not practiced universally, the era of decline that was faced by Sultan Ahmed I led to heightened attention being placed on the sultan’s adherence to traditional practice and Islamic law relating to the construction of such projects as the Ottoman elite sought to restore the empire to its former greatness.[8] Repeatedly expressing his personal desire for his armies to be victorious and for the legitimacy and stature that such triumph would grant him[9], Ahmed I was not ambivalent to this criticism, but chose to continue in the construction of his imperial mosque despite it. The construction of the mosque in the face of such opposition emphasizes its legitimizing power as the building of the structure showcased Sultan Ahmed’s ability to reject any challenges against his judgment as sultan. By dismissing his critics in this way, Ahmed was able to bolster his own imperial authority with the mosque being a visual reflection of his independence and force as a ruler.

Domes of the Suleymaniye Mosque - Interior

The tilework of the Sultan Ahmed mosque differed greatly from past imperial mosques in its extrvagance and intricacy. While the interior of the Suleymaniye Mosque features some elaborate decoration, it pales in comparison with that of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque.

Iznik Tilework: The Mosque’s Greatest Extravagance

The greatest extravagance of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque is the 20,000 Iznik tiles that cover the interior. While the tiles feature a range of colors, the prominence of blues and white gained the mosque its nickname “The Blue Mosque”. By 1570, the practice of producing Iznik tiles had been practically perfected, thus the tiles featured in the Sultan Ahmed Mosque were brilliantly made and surely added magnificent extravagance to the structure.[10]  The inclusion of Iznik tiles in the Sultan Ahmed Mosque showcased a break in the tradition of how the interiors of Istanbul’s other sultanic mosques were decorated.[11] The richness of the colors and intricacy of the tile’s designs once again showcase the true extravagance of the mosque. The tiles contain more than 50 different tulip designs as well as a variety of other flowers, fruits, and trees, symbolizing paradise and the beauty of God’s creation. The interior of the mosque additionally contains more than 150 stained glass windows, which provide natural daylight that not only makes the colors of tiles more pronounced but also symbolizes God’s presence in the space.[12] The use of the blues and whites within the mosque connote ideas relating to calmness, purity, spirituality, and God’s immaculacy and immortality.[13] By having viewers encounter these ideas upon entering the mosque and observing the tiles, the extravagance of the mosque serves to project the same ideas onto the mosque’s patron, thus operating to legitimize Sultan Ahmed’s leadership further by associating his characteristics with that of God.  

Interior Dome of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque

The interior of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque is ornately decorated with beauitful Iznik tilework. This decoration was one of many extravagant elements included in the mosque that served to legitmize the rule of its parton, Sultan Ahmed I.

Public Ceremony of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque and Its Legitimizing Power

The final legitimizing force that Sultan Ahmed infused into his mosque would be that of the public events that occurred at the site during its construction and those that would be held annually after its completion. In classical Ottoman discourse relating to sultanic rule, one’s leadership was legitimized by the sultan’s visibility in public venues.[14] In the years leading up to becoming the sultan, the withdrawal of Ahmed’s grandfather Murad III was said to have undermined the sultan’s legitimacy. With victory in war and protection of the taxpayers against exploitation by the elite being the other main forces by which a sultan was legitimized,[15] Ahmed’s decision to make many public appearances during the mosque’s construction was the manner in which he sought to legitimize himself during the process as he failed to triumph in war and as the funding for the mosque was drawn from the state treasury. The most powerful of these ceremonies was the dome-closing ceremony that marked the project’s completion with the final piece of the central dome being put into place. Featuring a grand parade and the presentation of elegant sultanic gifts that would come to outdo the project’s inauguration ceremony, the theatricality of the event and its circumvention of customs relating to the dedication of buildings sought to legitimize both the monument and ruler in a new form.[16] The extraordinary amount of fanfare that was employed for the event reflected how the new mosque and the ruler that commissioned it were to be understood. One of Ahmed’s main claims to legitimacy was his piety, and, with the construction of a massive new mosque that eclipsed traditional sultanic mosques in both size and elegance, the extravagance of the structure served to reinforce his authority as a ruler further.[17] In presenting himself as a visible leader who wished for his people to share in a magnificent new place of worship, Sultan Ahmed sought to use the construction of his mosque to ingratiate himself to his subjects. This fact is emphasized by Ahmed’s establishing of a unique festive ritual for his mosque in which the Mevlud poem, chanted in honor of the Prophet’s nativity, would be annually recited.[18] Sultan’s Ahmed’s proclamation of this ritual in his foundation deed for the mosque not only legitimized his authority as a religious leader but also his mosque as a place meant for regular religious practice.

Works Cited

Budak, Samet. “‘The Temple of the Incredulous’: Ottoman Sultanic Mosques and the Principle of Legality.” Muqarnas 36 (2019): 179-207.

Denny, Walter B. “Turkish Tiles of the Ottoman Empire.” Archaeology 32, no. 6 (November/December 1979): 8-15.

Faroqhi, Suraiya. The Ottoman and Mughal Empires: Social History in the Early Modern World. London: I.B. Tauris, 2019.

Namiri, Mahsa Esmaeili and Rafooneh Mokhtarshahi Sani. “Symbolic Meaning of Colours in Safavid and Ottoman Mosques.” Journal of Shi’a Islamic Studies 10, no.1 (2017): 91-123. https://doi.org/10.1353/isl.2017.0003.

Rustem, Unver. “The Spectacle of Legitimacy: The Dome-Closing Ceremony of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque.” Muqarnas 33 (2016): 253-344.

Worringer, Renee. A Short History of the Ottoman Empire. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021.

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To return to the group exhibit, click HERE.