Description: People say that Selimye Camii, or Selimiye mosque, is the biggest mosque in the Islamic
world. Whether it is truth or no I do not know. The fact is that Selimiye is really monumental.
It is interesting for a few reasons.
First we have to say that Selimiye is a copy of Blue mosque in Sultanahmet, Istanbul. It is
made by the same architect, whose name I forgot. But to me Selimiye was more beautiful.
Second there's quite a funny story about its windows. The myth is that it has exactly 999
windows because of sultan's command. The architect wanted to build exactly 1000 windows on the
mosque, but after saying this to the sultan he said that it is not possible. 1000 windows was
too much. Sultan said that people will not be able to remember such a great number so it had to
have fewer windows. So the architect built 999 windows and everything was okay. People were able to
remember that number and it was nearly 1000.
Third we have to say something about minarets of Selimiye Camii. These are said to be the
sheerest in the world. And they are very very high. And the wonder is that in each of them there
are three distinct stairways. Each minaret has three balconies and there's one stairway for
each. It was made so because muezzins, when going up to the minaret to sing their prayers, were not allowed to meet each other. So everyone had his own stairway.
And the last reason for visiting Selimiye is that for me, it was the most beautiful mosque in
Turkey.
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