Dueling Muezzin.

Early, really early. Sound asleep. Speakers blare. The Islamic call to prayer. This morning at 5:30 a.m.-ish. It's the muezzin advising worshipers that the time for prayer is now, this moment.  But it's not just the call from the minaret next to my hotel, but from mosques  everywhere -- broadcast from several speakers perched near the top, or on top of each minaret.

Once one muezzin begins, they all begin. Each a different man's voice. The calls overlap and often are a second apart, not beginning at exactly the same moment. While I think they are not all calling the same words, I am certain they are all the same. Or maybe not?

The first two mornings, I didn't hear the call. The next morning I heard it clearly. And it was loud. The Blue Mosque nearby has six minarets, each with several speakers on top. Four more times a day the muezzin will sound the call to prayer, recorded, not live, I imagine, though I could be wrong again.  Hear what the mezzuin sounds like by clicking this link.

Happy to be Blue.

The most photogenic building in Istanbul has to be the Sutlan Ahmed Mosque, or, as it's known colloquially, the Blue Mosque, admired for it's classic Ottoman architecture. Located on prime Sultanahmet real estate, the mosque benefits that stunning Fountain of Sultan Ahmed III a cobblestone's throw away in the old hippodrome area. Built some 400+ years ago, the Blue Mosque is perfection, with it's wedding cake tiered domes and six minarets (count them, six!), highly unusual in the world of mosques, and apparently quite the scandal when it was built, because Mecca's Masjid al-Haram didn't have nearly as many (though soon after, Mecca's Masjid al-Haram added a few more to fix this problem; Mecca's soon boasted seven minarets). 

The interior of the mosque explains the name -- the place is filled with blue and white tiles made in Izmir. The floors were covered with crimson-hued, floral wall-to-wall carpet. 

Since we were not worshippers in this working holy place, we entered with other visitors around the side of the building where inappropriately dressed women without headscaves -- me, for instance with only my big black hat -- and women AND men with exposed legs, were handed glorious blue wraps and plastic bags to slip our shoes into since Mosques always enforce a "no shoe rule." There's no charge to enter, but donations are appreciated as you leave. 

It wasn't prayer time, so the mosque's innermost center was not crowded, but the tourist area was, so we gaped, gawked, admired and skedaddled, impressed, of course. All those domes from the outside? Stunning on the inside.