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 ...

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 " ...

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

Geography

History

Technical details

The tombs

See also

References