, 1917
Early history The mosque was built in 1765–1766 (
AH 1179) by
Hoseyn Ali Khan, the ruler of the
Erivan Khanate under the
Afsharid dynasty, The
minaret of the mosque, standing at was the tallest structure in 19th-century Yerevan.
Soviet period The mosque was secularized after
Soviet rule was established in Armenia. The mosque's entrances and exits were modified significantly. The main gate, on the southern side, to the right of the minaret was blocked. The western gate was "incorporated into a residence complex and became hardly recognizable as an entrance." The entrance on the northern side became the only entrance. It is accessible and visible from
Mashtots Avenue. Beginning with
Alexander Tamanian's 1924 master plan for Yerevan, the mosque has been situated more than two meters below the street level, which requires visitors to descend a flight of steps. The mosque ceased to operate as a religious institution in the mid-1920s. Its courtyard became a "creative space for Armenian artists, writers, poets, and intelligentsia, facilitating the production of a new cultural and aesthetic order for socialist Armenia. The courtyard was protected by large elm and plane trees, and in this way provided the hot and dusty city with a shaded refuge." The courtyard housed a teahouse, which became a hub for intellectual gatherings.
Yeghishe Charents,
Martiros Saryan,
Aksel Bakunts were among its regular visitors. Foreign guests included Armenian-American writer
William Saroyan, Russian poet
Osip Mandelstam, Russian novelist
Andrei Bely and others. Local artists used the "courtyard for exhibitions and as a laboratory for new socialist spirituality." Seyed Hossein Tabatabai, Adviser of the Cultural Center of the Iranian Embassy in Armenia, noted that the mosque was "preserved by the efforts of a number of Armenian intellectuals," especially Charents. .
Independence period In the late 1980s, during the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the mosque did not sustain any damages because it was considered to be Persian, not Azerbaijani, and housed the city's history museum. In February 1991, a preliminary agreement was reached between the city's authorities and an Iranian delegation to restore the mosque. The mosque was re-opened as a religious institution in 1996.
Brady Kiesling described the restoration as "structurally necessary but aesthetically ambiguous." and 1,000 or 0.03% of the total population). Since restoration, it has become a religious and cultural center for the Iranians residing in Armenia and Iranian tourists visiting Armenia. The Iranian cultural center inside the mosque complex attracts young Armenians seeking to learn
Persian. The Persian library of over 8,000 items, named after the poet
Hafez, was opened inside the complex in October 2014. On December 10, 2015, the government of Armenia leased the mosque complex to the embassy of Iran to Armenia for 99 years to use it as a cultural center. During the
Twelve-Day War in June 2025, the
U.S. embassy in Yerevan recommended U.S. citizens exercise increased caution and avoid locations with known Iranian government affiliation, including the Blue Mosque. Iranian President
Masoud Pezeshkian visited and prayed at the mosque during his August 2025 visit to Armenia. In March 2026, a commemoration ceremony was held at the mosque honoring the "
martyrdom" of the late Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei. ==Architecture==