Tarsus Grand Mosque ( tr, Tarsus Ulu Cami) is a
mosque
A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...
in
Tarsus,
Mersin Province
Mersin Province ( tr, ), formerly İçel Province ( tr, ), is a province in southern Turkey, on the Mediterranean coast between Antalya and Adana. The provincial capital and the biggest city in the province is Mersin, which is composed of fo ...
,
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
.
Geography
The mosque is at the center of Tarsus in ''Camii Nur'' neighbourhood. It is the biggest mosque of Tarsus. It is close to
St Paul's Church, only about bird's flight away.
History
The mosque had been built in 1579 during
Ottoman rule. The commissioner of the mosque is İbrahim Bey of
Ramadanid dynasty, a
Turkmen dynasty which was the ruler of the region before 1517 and continued as the vassal of the Ottoman Empire during the rest of the 16th century. But according to information plate of the mosque, there was an older mosque in the place of Grand Mosque which was built during the
Abbasid (Arab) rule in the 9th century . After Tarsus was captured by the
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
, the old mosque was transformed into a church. But in the 14th century Ramazanoğlu captured Tarsus and in 1579 the mosque was rebuilt.
Kırkkaşık Bedesten
Kırkkaşık Bedesten is a bedesten (covered market) in Tarsus, Turkey. There are figures of lotus carved on the pediment of the bedesten. In the Medieval Age, the people named the bedesten ''Kırkkaşık'' (forty spoons) because they mistook the ...
a
bedesten
A bedesten (variants: bezistan, bezisten, bedestan) is a type of covered market or market hall which was historically found in the cities of the Ottoman Empire. It was typically the central building of the commercial district of an Ottoman town or ...
to support the mosque was also built in 1579.
Technical details
The entrance to mosque courtyard is via a monumental marble gate at the north . The nartex with 14 columns to bear 16 domes has been decorarated with tiles. The building material of the main building is carved stone. The columns in the main building have been connected with half pointed arch so called ''Iranian Arch''. The pulpit and the niche (directed to
Mecca
Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red ...
) is made of marble.
[Tarsus booklet, Tarsus Municipality]
The tombs
At the east of the mosque there are tombs of
Al-Ma'mun
Abu al-Abbas Abdallah ibn Harun al-Rashid ( ar, أبو العباس عبد الله بن هارون الرشيد, Abū al-ʿAbbās ʿAbd Allāh ibn Hārūn ar-Rashīd; 14 September 786 – 9 August 833), better known by his regnal name Al-Ma'mu ...
(the Abbasid caliph),
Luqman
Luqman ( ar, لقمان, Luqmān; also known as Luqman the Wise or Luqman al-Hakim) was a wise man after whom Surah Luqman, the 31st sura (chapter) of the Quran, was named. Luqman ( BC) is believed to have been from Nubia or from Egypt.Ibn Kat ...
and
Seth
Seth,; el, Σήθ ''Sḗth''; ; "placed", "appointed") in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mandaeism, and Sethianism, was the third son of Adam and Eve and brother of Cain and Abel, their only other child mentioned by name in the Hebrew Bible. A ...
who is believed to be the son of
Adam
Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...
.
See also
*
List of Turkish Grand Mosques
This is a list of Turkish Grand Mosques or ''Ulucami'', a title originally given to the grandest Friday mosque of a Turkish city where local citizens traditionally gathered en masse for Friday Prayers, though today it is common for Muslims in a si ...
References
{{Mersin Province
Ottoman mosques in Mersin
Buildings and structures in Mersin Province
Religious buildings and structures completed in 1579
Tourist attractions in Mersin Province
History of Mersin Province
Tarsus, Mersin
Mosques in Mersin
Tarsus
Burial sites of the Abbasid dynasty
16th-century mosques
Ramadanid Emirate