Because of religious traditions, all women are required to wear head scarves and not to wear super-miniskirts upon entering a mosque as well as an Orthodox church. The same goes for the tombs of Islamic saints, too, if the tomb is not named “museum” officially. If you don’t have a shawl or a scarve to put on your head, you can borrow one at the entrance. However wearing-a-scarve rule is somewhat relaxed recently, especially in big mosques of Istanbul in which seeing a tourist is not a rarity. On such mosques, no one is warned about their clothes, or because of their lack of head scarves. Even if you’d have to wear a head scarve, no need to worry about how head scarves can be worn properly, just put it onto the crown of your head (you may wrap it under your chin or behind your neck, lest it slip), that will be excessively adequate.

Also, men used to be required to wear trousers, not shorts, upon entering a mosque, though no one cares about this nowadays (at least in big cities). You may find when entering a mosque in more rural areas you will be expected to follow all traditional procedures.

During the prayer time, worshippers choose to line in the front rows of the mosques, at such a time stay behind and try not to be noisy. During the Friday noon prayer, which is the most attended, you might be asked to leave the mosque, don’t take it personally, it is because the mosque will be very crowded, there just won’t be enough room for both the worshippers and the sightseers. You will be able to enter back as soon as worshippers are out of the gate.

Unfortunately for rock bottom budget travellers, mosques are not good examples of Turkish hospitality. Unlike some other Middle Eastern cultures, eating or sleeping, even lying down without sleeping on the ground inside the mosques is frowned upon in Turkish culture.

All shoes should be removed before entering any mosque. There are shoes desks inside the mosques, though you can choose to hold them in your hand (a plastic bag which would be used only for this purpose would help) during your visit. Some mosques have safeboxes with a lock instead of shoe desks.

Although there are “official” opening hours, which are typically shorter than what the mosque is actually open, at the entrances of the most sightseen mosques, they don’t really mean anything. You can visit a mosque as long as its gates are open.