"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.
