Yeni Mosque | Komotini

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Yeni Mosque | Komotini

The Yeni Mosque (New Mosque) is the most important and most attractive Ottoman monument in Komotini and is situated next to the city’s Muftia. It was built between the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries by Ahmet Pasha Ekmektzoglou, Minister of Finance of Sultans Ahmet I and Osman II, with the most probable date of construction around 1600-1618. Externally it has an austere appearance, a plain square prayer hall covered with a leaded dome, but internally it is richly decorated. In several places it is covered with the famous Iznik (Nicaea) decorative tiles and several tiles bearing Koranic inscriptions. The coffered ceilings of the vestibule retain the silk panelling with silk-prints that have exquisite floral decorations and are the oldest surviving in the Balkans. In 1902 the mosque was expanded and acquired a floor, as a result of which the five domes of the original building were demolished. The mosque complex includes the library, the old seminary (where today the Muftia is housed), a cemetery with graves for priests and officials, baths and the mausoleum of Fatma Khanum, the wife of an 18th century vizier.

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