Blue Mosque, Yerevan

Blue Mosque Armenian: Կապույտ Մզկիթ
Shown within Armenia
Basic information
Location	Yerevan, Armenia
Geographic coordinates	40°10′41″N 44°30′20″E / 40.1781°N 44.5056°E / 40.1781; 44.5056Coordinates: 40°10′41″N 44°30′20″E / 40.1781°N 44.5056°E / 40.1781; 44.5056
Affiliation	Islam
Rite	Twelver Shia
District	Kentron
Ecclesiastical or organizational status	Mosque
Architectural description
Architectural style	Islamic
Completed	1764-68
Specifications
Minaret(s)	1
Minaret height	24

The Blue Mosque (Persian: مسجد کبود‎, Masjed-e Kabud; Azerbaijani: Göy məscid, Armenian: Կապույտ Մզկիթ, Kapuyt Mzkit), is a mosque in Yerevan, Armenia. During the Soviet era, because of secularist policy, the Mosque stopped its services and became the Museum of Yerevan. After the independence of Armenia, with the support from Iranian government, the premises again started acting as a Mosque.^[1]

History

The Yerevan region had been under the control of various Muslim rulers since the incursions of Timur in the 14th century. From the second third of the 18th century, it had been a province of Iran (ruled successively by Nadir Shah, Karim Khan Zand and the Iranian Qajar Dynasty), before it fell to the Russian empire in 1827.

For the mosque's construction, various dates from the mid-18th century are cited in literature. As reported by 19th-century traveller H.F.B. Lynch, the Blue Mosque was commissioned to be built during the reign of Iranian ruler Nadir Shah (1736–47) by Husayn Ali Khan.^[2] George Bournoutian names Husayn Ali Khan as the patron of the building, but places his reign in the years 1762-83.^[3] According to Vladimir M. Arutyunyan et al. construction started in 1760 and was completed under Husayn Ali Khan in 1764-68.^[4][5]

The building was the main congregational mosque for the city. When Yerevan was captured by Russia in 1827 it was, according to the cataster drawn up by the Russians, the largest of its eight functioning mosques. The building consisted of the main prayer hall, a library, and a madrasa with 28 cells, all organised around a courtyard, with the overall complex occupying 7,000 square metres of land. There is a single minaret at the main portal, in keeping with contemporaneous mosques, and there is no evidence that there were more minarets.

Due to the secularist policies of the Soviet government, religious services at the Blue Mosque were stopped and in 1931 it was used to house the Museum of the City of Yerevan.^[6] In the latter half of the 1990s the mosque underwent a heavy restoration, funded by Iran, that U.S. State Department employee and foreign service officer Brady Kiesling^[7] criticised for being aesthetically damaging in his travel book.^[8] Islamic religious services have now resumed within the Blue Mosque, which is the only operating mosque in Armenia. The Museum of the City of Yerevan is now housed in a purpose-built building on another site.

Gallery

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Blue_Mosque_of_Yerevan.

• 

  The Blue Mosque in Yerevan, view from the courtyard towards the prayer hall (photo F. Sarre, 1897)

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  The "Khan's Mosque" in Yerevan

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  The entrance and the dome

• 

  Secondary entrance of the Blue Mosque in Yerevan, added in the late 19th century to the original plan (pictured after the recent renovation)

• 

  A modern view from the courtyard towards the prayer hall

• 

  Minaret of the Blue Mosque

• 

  Closer view of the dome

• 

  Interior view of the dome

See also

• Erivan Khanate
• Islam in Armenia
• Persian Armenia

Notes

External links

• 3D model

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