The tomb of Ahmed I stands on the north side of the Sultanahmet Mosque, on the side facing Hagia Sophia, next to the medrese building. It is covered by a single dome.
The tomb was one part of a complex that also held a covered market, a Turkish bath, a soup kitchen, a hospital, schools and a caravanserai — some of which have not survived. The mosque itself was built by a pupil of Sinan, who took a plan his master had tried before and worked it at a larger scale.
Because the tomb sits at the edge of the mosque precinct beside the park between Sultanahmet and Hagia Sophia, it is the part of the complex most visitors pass without entering; it stands on the route that city tours take through this quarter.
The mosque beside the tomb was built between 1609 and 1616 by Mimar Mehmet Ağa, and the district governorate notes that it is the only sultan's mosque built from the start with six minarets. Its main entrance faces the Roman Hippodrome; the outer courtyard surrounds an inner one, and the prayer hall and inner court stand on a raised platform, with domes climbing one above the other over the galleries.
Inside, four great piers carry the main dome, which is 23.5 metres across and 43 metres high, and the hall takes its light from 260 windows. The galleries on three sides are faced with more than 20,000 İznik tiles. The name Blue Mosque comes from blue paint added in later repairs rather than from the original scheme, and the restoration finished in 1990 returned the painted decoration to its first, lighter colours. The mosque's market, east of the building, was rebuilt in recent years.
When to go
- Climate
- Across İstanbul as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 6.8 °C in January to 24.7 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (99 mm) and lightest in July (22 mm). Long-term means for 1950-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
