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Wednesday, March 9, 2011

The Other Mosques


Our last day in Istanbul was spent cruising along the Golden Horn, a short river that separates the Old Istanbul and the New Istanbul (better known as Beyoglu), and visiting a couple more of historical mosques.



The Eyup Sultan Mosque is erected by one of the Ottoman sultans next to the tomb of Abu Ayyub Al-Ansari, the flag bearer of Prophet Muhammad SAW. Abu Ayyub is said to be among the last survivor of Prophet Muhammad's trusted companions (when Prophet Muhammad SAW first arrived in Madinah after his Hijrah from Makkah, he stayed in Abu Ayyub's house for seven months while waiting for his mosque to complete).

Abu Ayyub joined the Muslim army during a battle against Constantinople despite his old age at the time. Halfway through the battle, Abu Ayyub fell ill and his last wish was to be buried under the walls of Constantinople. The Muslim army fulfilled his request when they managed to reach the Constantinople walls and buried him there.

Being inside the sacred burial site, goosebumps all over beb!



The Suleymaniye Mosque was built on the order of Sultan Suleiman, the longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (he ruled for 46 years). Sultan Suleiman was known to the Europeans as 'Suleiman The Magnificent' due to his vast military empire, and to the Muslims as Kanuni or 'The Lawgiver' as the reign of Suleiman was regarded as the period of greatest justice and harmony in Ottoman history.

We took a wrong turn when trying to find this mosque and ended up walking into a totally different mosque at first. Well, you can't blame us. As you can see, most mosques in Istanbul looked the same, with the blue umbrella-shaped dome...kan?



By this time, kaki dah rase nak tercabut, perut pun dah lapar giler. So once we found a decent restaurant, we ate our last Turkish dinner dengan sangat lahapnye, in a total silence due to the kebuluran tahap naga hehe.

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