February 14, 2020

What in the World is a Minaret?

May we introduce you to Eyup of Argent Tours. He’s one of our most favorite people in Turkey! We all think he knows absolutely everything about everything in Turkey! So we frequently give him some weird challenges.

One especially fun challenge for Eyup was to introduce Turkey’s minarets to an inquiring family with three young children. Yes, minarets! You can find them in almost any country around the world. And they’re all pretty cool but they are not all the same!  

Minarets can be—

tall with finials, two-tiered, three-tiered, wooden, made of stone, thin, squatty, four in number, six in number, only one in number, ten in number, with a balcony, with no balcony, beautifully tiled, elaborately carved, with spiral stairs, with windows, square, round, or octagonal

Oh! My! What does it all mean? What in the world does a minaret do, actually? Why does it exist? Hmmm!

Turkey is a great place to begin researching the answer to these questions! When you visit be sure and bring along your camera and some sketching materials, maybe even a measuring tape. We don’t want you to forget any of the minarets!