ASIANOVERLAND.NET WINTER EUROPEAN DAY 33/206:  ISTANBUL, TURKEY

“13-1-81 – BLUE MOSQUE

ST.SOPHIA

CARPET SHOP

HIPPODROME

OBELISK"

The Obelisk of Theodosius is the Ancient Egyptian obelisk of Pharaoh Thutmose III re-erected in the Hippodrome of Constantinople by the Roman emperor Theodosius I in the 4th century AD.

The obelisk was erected during the 18th dynasty (1479–1425 BC) to the south of the great temple of Karnak. The Roman emperor Constantius II (337–361 AD) had it and another obelisk transported along the river Nile to Alexandria to commemorate his 20 years on the throne in 357. The other obelisk was erected on the Circus Maximus in Rome in the autumn of that year, and is known as the Lateran Obelisk. The obelisk that would become the obelisk of Theodosius remained in Alexandria until 390; when Theodosius I (379–395 AD) had it transported to Constantinople and put up on the Hippodrome.

After the Ottoman's crushing losses in the 1603–18 war with Persia, Sultan Ahmet I decided to build a large mosque in Istanbul to reassert Ottoman power. It would be the first imperial mosque for more than forty years. While his predecessors had paid for their mosques with the spoils of war, Ahmet I procured funds from the Treasury, because he had no victories. The construction was started in 1609 and completed in 1616.

The Blue Mosque angered the locals, as it was built on the site of the palace of the Byzantine emperors, in front of the basilica Hagia Sophia (at that time, the primary imperial mosque in Istanbul) and the hippodrome, a site of significant symbolic meaning as it dominated the city skyline from the south.

The Ottoman–Safavid Persian War of 1603–1618 between Safavid Persia  and the Ottoman Empire, was disastrous for the Ottomans.  While facing disasters on the Eastern Persian front, Mehmed III died in 1603 at the age of 37. The new sultan Ahmed I who was 13 years old, appointed a commander of the eastern army who marched from Istanbul 15 June 1604, a very late time for the campaigning season. 

The Ottoman campaign of 1605 was unsuccessful, as the forces they led from Erzerum towards Tabriz suffered defeat on 9 September 1605. This was the first Safavid Persian victory against the Ottomans in their history. In this battle the Persians utilized their predominantly cavalry force to great advantage, decisively defeating the Ottomans, who suffered some 20,000 dead.

The Ottoman-Safavid Persian war effectively ended with another Persian victory in 1612, when Persia regained and re-established its suzerainty and control over the Caucasus and Western Iran, which the Persians had lost to the Ottomans in 1590.

Sultan Ahmed Mosque, also known as the Blue Mosque, was constructed between 1609 and 1616 during the rule of Ahmed I. It contains Ahmed's tomb, a madrasah and a hospice. Hand-painted blue tiles adorn the mosque’s interior walls, and at night the mosque is bathed in blue as lights frame the mosque’s five main domes, six minarets and eight secondary domes.

The Sultanate of Women was a period of extraordinary political influence exerted by wives and mothers of the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire, including young sultans such as Ahmed 1, who became Sultan when only 13. The Sultanate of Women phenomenon lasted from 1533 to 1656, and is epitomised by the construction of large public buildings, such as the Blue Mosque.

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