Herat Blue Mosque & Tile Factory. How Afghanistan Created the World's Finest Blue Times! Vlog. 4K

Afghanistan is my country no. 110 and I was looking forward to visiting one of the Oldest Mosque in the Islamic World. The Great Mosque of Herat, known as the Blue Mosque, was first built in 1200 CE under the Ghurid Sultan Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad, at a time when Herat was one of the most important cities in the Islamic World.

But in 1221, everything ended.
Genghis Khan’s Mongol army invaded Herat, slaughtered its population, and burned the mosque to the ground. What remained was ash, broken tiles, and silence. For nearly a century, the mosque stood in ruins.

In the 14th century, reconstruction began under the Kart Dynasty, but it was the Timurid Empire that transformed the mosque into the blue masterpiece we see today. Between 1417 and 1438, Shah Rukh Mirza (son of Timur / Tamerlane) and his wife Queen Gawhar Shad rebuilt and expanded the mosque on a monumental scale. They turned Herat into the cultural and intellectual capital of the Islamic world, rivaling Samarkand and Isfahan. They invested heavily in architecture, art, calligraphy and tile-making, making Herat famous across Persia, Central Asia and beyond.

The Herat Blue Mosque is famous for:
-Handmade blue and turquoise tiles
-Massive courtyard and prayer halls
-Deep Quranic calligraphy
-tile factory, producing tiles using Timurid-era techniques still practiced today

At full capacity, the Herat Blue Mosque can accommodate over 20,000 worshippers, especially during Friday prayers and Eid, making it one of the largest active mosques in Afghanistan.

This is not just a mosque.
It is Afghanistan's identity carved in blue!

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