July 8, 2010

I am having a great time so far in this beautiful city. A ffew weeks ago,I visited the Sultan Ahmed or the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, and Topkapen Palace. They are splendid, mashallah! The Blue Mosque is still a mosque and has a beautiful spiral shaped chandelier centered on the huge dome ceiling. Arabic caligraphy covers the walls in a gold and blue blanket. There is a section of the mosque that only muslims can enter, so we got to pray in all that beauty.
The Hagia Sophia, once a church, next a mosque, now a mueseum, is huge and ancient. It is soooo grand with its huge domes and doors that once, only emperors could enter. This mueseum is unique because you get to see two religious arts at once. Christian and Muslim. It is not uncommon here to see in calligraphy "lailahailallah" next to the picture of Virgin Mary and her son Jesus (AWS).
Tokapen Palace, was a palace of some of the great sultans during the Ottoman Empire. Here you will see lots of artifacts and the different rooms the sultans and their families resided in. One thing that is great about Topkapen, is there is LOTS of green space. In Istanbul there's not so much of that, unfortunately. Here are also a lot of artifacts espeacially important to Muslims. Many of the different prophets' belongings are enclosed here. They have everything from the sword of the prophet(SAW) to the first handle of the Kabah.