Turkey's largest mosque opens on Istanbul's Asian side

A grandiose six-minaret mosque capable of holding more than 60,000 worshippers opened its doors Thursday in Istanbul after nearly six years of construction. Dozens of citizens, along with senior officials from the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party, joined the morning prayers around 6:30 am (0330 GMT). 'It is a great work of art. I would like to thank our president for making such a project possible in Istanbul,' AK Party mayoral candidate for Istanbul Binali Yıldırım said in statement while cited by Turkey's state-run news agency Sitting atop a hill for which it is named on Istanbul's Asian side, the Çamlıca Mosque complex is one of the mega project of AK Party government. The mosque, which bears traits of Ottoman architecture, is the largest ever built in Turkey, according to the association that funded it. 'It has a capacity of as many as 63,000 worshippers. A conference hall, a library, a museum and a car park for 3,500 vehicles, will serve along with it,' Ergin Külünk, the head of the association of donors that helped finance the project, told dpa. The mosque features several references to Turkish history besides Ottomans. Four of its minarets are 107.1 metres tall, a reference to the 1071 battle between the Seljuk Empire and Byzantine Empire in Manzikert in the south-eastern province of Muş. There are 16 names of God in Arabic written on the inner side of its 34-metre-wide dome, a reference to 16 Turkish states in history, according to Külünk. 'It is a splendid project,' Erdoğan said of the mosque in May last year. 'It is the new spiritual shield of Istanbul,' he told an event marking the anniversary of the date the Ottomans conquered Istanbul in 1453. 'It is a masterpiece. Thanks to our president. God be with him,' said one old lady, who gave her name as Emine, as she slowly walked up the high stairs, marvelling at the construction. Hundreds of people attended the first ever prayer at the Çamlıca Mosque in Istanbul, following completion of its construction that started in 2013. The faithful gathered at Turkey's now largest mosque complex before sunrise Thursday to perform a Fajr, or dawn, prayer. The secondary dome has a diameter of 34 meters, after the license plate number for the city. The interior of the dome is inscribed with 16 adjectives attributed to Allah and 16 here also symbolizes the number of states founded by Turks in history. Atop the main dome is a three-piece finial that weighs 4.5 tons and at a height of 7.77 meters, the largest of its kind. Designed as a successor rather than a rival to grand Ottoman-era mosques like the famed Blue Mosque, Çamlıca incorporates the old and new in its architecture with traces of decoration and building styles from the Ottoman era and the pre-Ottoman Seljuk architecture.