The Muradiye Mosque ( tr, Muradiye Camii) is a 15th-century Ottoman

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, ...

Edirne Edirne (, ), formerly known as Adrianople or Hadrianopolis (Greek: Άδριανούπολις), is a city in Turkey, in the northwestern part of the province of Edirne in Eastern Thrace. Situated from the Greek and from the Bulgarian borders, ...

, Turkey. The building is noted for the tiles that decorate the ''

mihrab Mihrab ( ar, محراب, ', pl. ') is a niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the ''qibla'', the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca towards which Muslims should face when praying. The wall in which a ''mihrab'' appears is thus the "qibla w ...

'' and the walls of the prayer hall.

Construction and architecture

The small mosque was commissioned by

Murad II Murad II ( ota, مراد ثانى, Murād-ı sānī, tr, II. Murad, 16 June 1404 – 3 February 1451) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1421 to 1444 and again from 1446 to 1451. Murad II's reign was a period of important economic deve ...

and completed in 1435-6. It originally formed part of a

Mevlevi The Mevlevi Order or Mawlawiyya ( tr, Mevlevilik or Mevleviyye; fa, طریقت مولویه) is a Sufi order that originated in Konya (a city now in Turkey; formerly capital of the Seljuk Sultanate) and which was founded by the followers of Jalal ...

dervish Dervish, Darvesh, or Darwīsh (from fa, درویش, ''Darvīsh'') in Islam can refer broadly to members of a Sufi fraternity A fraternity (from Latin language, Latin ''wiktionary:frater, frater'': "brother (Christian), brother"; whence, ...

complex but was later converted into a mosque. The complex included a soup kitchen (''

imaret Imaret, sometimes also known as a ''darüzziyafe'', is one of a few names used to identify the public soup kitchens built throughout the Ottoman Empire from the 14th to the 19th centuries. These public kitchens were often part of a larger complex ...

'') and an elementary school (''

mekteb A kuttab ( ar, كُتَّاب ''kuttāb'', plural: ''kataatiib'', ) or maktab ( ar, مَكْتَب) is a type of Primary school, elementary school in the Muslim world. Though the ''kuttab'' was primarily used for teaching children in reading, wri ...

'') but these buildings have not survived. The mosque has a T-shaped plan with a five bay portico and an entrance hall with a domed room on either side. The prayer hall is separated from the entrance hall by a solid arch. The building has been heavily repaired after suffering earthquake damage. The single stone minaret has been rebuilt several times; the present structure dates from 1957.

Tiles

Frieze

The prayer hall has a tiled frieze around three walls and a large tiled ''

'' set between two windows. The frieze is formed of eight rows of blue-and-white hexagonal tiles that are set on their points. Some of the tiles were stolen in 2001 and the gaps have been filled with plaster. The tiles have a creamy white

fritware Fritware, also known as stone-paste, is a type of pottery in which frit (ground glass) is added to clay to reduce its fusion temperature. The mixture may include quartz or other siliceous material. An organic compound such as gum or glue may b ...

body and

cobalt blue Cobalt blue is a blue pigment made by sintering cobalt(II) oxide with aluminum(III) oxide (alumina) at 1200 °C. Chemically, cobalt blue pigment is cobalt(II) oxide-aluminium oxide, or cobalt(II) aluminate, CoAl2O4. Cobalt blue is lighter ...

designs under a clear transparent glaze. They measure across. The very varied designs are arranged haphazardly. Most show the influence of Chinese

blue-and-white porcelain "Blue and white pottery" () covers a wide range of white pottery and porcelain decorated under the glaze with a blue pigment, generally cobalt oxide. The decoration is commonly applied by hand, originally by brush painting, but nowadays by stenc ...

produced in the early 14th century during the

Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fifth ...

. Before the theft in 2001 there were 479 tiles with 53 different designs. Of these, 15 designs occurred only once while the most common design occurred 54 times. Filling the gaps between the hexagonal tiles are plain turquoise glazed triangles. The borders of the frieze are formed by a row of rectangular tiles. Along the top of the frieze are a series of large blue-and-white moulded

palmette The palmette is a motif in decorative art which, in its most characteristic expression, resembles the fan-shaped leaves of a palm tree. It has a far-reaching history, originating in ancient Egypt with a subsequent development through the art o ...

tiles.

''Mihrab''

The exceptionally large rectangular ''

'' is formed of moulded polychrome tiles. A tiled inscription on the outer

cavetto A cavetto is a concave moulding with a regular curved profile that is part of a circle, widely used in architecture as well as furniture, picture frames, metalwork and other decorative arts. In describing vessels and similar shapes in pottery, ...

moulding runs up one side, across the top and down the other side of the ''mihrab''. The ''

cuerda seca The term "cuerda" (Spanish for ''rope'') refers to a unit of measurement in some Spanish-speaking regions, including Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Cuba, Spain, and Paraguay. In Puerto Rico, the term cuerda (and "Spanish acre"''naskh'' characters which contrast with the cobalt blue background. Running through the shafts of the ''naskh'' characters is a second inscription in yellow ''Kufic'' characters. Some of the text on the left side is simply a mirror image of that on the right. The inscriptions include text from the

Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation in Islam, revelation from God in Islam, ...

3:32 - 3:35
and a dedication to Sultan Murad II who ruled between 1421-1444 and again from 1446-1451. The

spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fill ...

s of the niche consist of elaborate ''cuerda sec'' tiles that are decorated with yellow, apple green, turquoise, mauve and cobalt blue glazes. In contrast, the stalactite vault of the niche is formed by white moulded tiles with an underglaze floral decoration in cobalt blue. Some of the floral ''chinoiserie'' designs on these tiles repeat those used on the hexagonal blue-and-white tiles of the frieze.

Masters of Tabriz

The style of the polychrome ''cuerda seca'' tilework of the ''mihrab'' is strikingly similar to that of the ''mihrab'' in the

Yeşil Mosque The Green Mosque ( Turkish: ''Yeşil Camii''), also known as the Mosque of Mehmed I, is a part of a larger complex (Turkish: külliye) on the east side of Bursa, Turkey, the former capital of the Ottoman Turks before they captured Constantinopl ...

(built 1419-21) in

Bursa ( grc-gre, Προῦσα, Proûsa, Latin: Prusa, ota, بورسه, Arabic:بورصة) is a city in northwestern Turkey and the administrative center of Bursa Province. The fourth-most populous city in Turkey and second-most populous in the ...

and it is therefore considered likely that the tiles were produced by the same team of craftsmen. In Bursa the craftsmen signed the ''mihrab'' as "the work of the masters of Tabriz". After completing the tiles of the Muradiye mosque it is believed that the "Masters of Tabriz" also produced the

underglaze Underglaze is a method of decorating pottery in which painted decoration is applied to the surface before it is covered with a transparent ceramic glaze and fired in a kiln. Because the glaze subsequently covers it, such decoration is completely ...

painted

lunette A lunette (French ''lunette'', "little moon") is a half-moon shaped architectural space, variously filled with sculpture, painted, glazed, filled with recessed masonry, or void. A lunette may also be segmental, and the arch may be an arc take ...

panels of the

Üç Şerefeli Mosque The Üç Şerefeli Mosque ( tr, Üç Şerefeli Camii) is a 15th-century Ottoman mosque in Edirne, Turkey. History The Üç Şerefeli Mosque was commissioned by Ottoman sultan Murad II (1421–1444,1446– 1451), and built between 1438 and 1447. ...

(completed in 1447) in Edirne. The blue-and-white hexagonal tiles of the Muradiye Mosque are the earliest example of underglaze painted tiles produced in Ottoman Turkey. They are also the first example of tiles with a frit body produced under the Ottomans.

Tile transfer

Although the walls of the mosque above the tiled frieze are now whitewashed, some of the original painted wall-decoration has been preserved. From the surviving patches of paintwork it is evident that at some point the walls were redecorated with a different design. Strikingly, the tilework appears to have been placed on the walls after the second layer of wall-painting had been applied. This can be clearly seen where the painting runs behind the blue-and-white palmette tiles of the frieze. The art historian John Carswell has argued that although the date of 1435-6 above the entrance fits with the dedication to Murad II on the ''mihrab'', it is probable that the tiles were transferred to the mosque from an imperial building. As supporting evidence he points to the lack of a coherent pattern to the arrangement of hexagonal tiles and the mixing of the two different styles of rectangular border tiles. The ''mihrab'' is also unusually large for the size of the building. Carswell suggests that it is likely that the tiles were original made for a building in the palace complex on the plain below. In 1450 Murad II built a palace complex, the ''Saray-ı Cedid-i Amire'' (New Imperial Palace), to the north of the city on an island in the river Tunca. The palace was expanded by successive sultans and in the 17th century accommodated between six and ten thousand people. By the early 19th century much of the palace was in ruinous state and almost nothing now survives.

Notes

References

Sources

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External links

YouTube video
Edirne Chamber of Commerce
Photographs of Edirne by Dick Osseman
Includes a few pictures of the mosque. {{Authority control Ottoman mosques in Edirne Mosques in Edirne Tourist attractions in Edirne Ottoman architecture in Edirne Religious buildings and structures completed in 1436 15th-century mosques