Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque

The Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque stands at the heart of Baščaršija, the old Ottoman market quarter of Sarajevo, its great dome and a single monumental minaret rising above a courtyard shaded by centuries-old lime trees. Completed around 1530–31, it is the largest historic mosque in Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of the finest Ottoman buildings in the Balkans, and it has served as the city's main congregational mosque since the day it opened.

Its founder, Gazi Husrev-beg (1484–1541), was a grandson of Sultan Bayezid II through his mother and governed the Sanjak of Bosnia for most of the period from 1521 to 1541, leading campaigns into Croatia and Hungary and fighting at Mohács. His lasting achievement was civic: he endowed Sarajevo with a complex of public buildings, including a Quran school, a madrasa, a covered market and a public bath, set out in deeds of endowment issued in 1531 and 1537, and the mosque was the centrepiece of that foundation. The architect is not recorded with certainty. Mimar Sinan has been suggested, but most scholars favour Acem Ali of Tabriz, a court architect of Persian origin, and documents show that masons from Ragusa, today's Dubrovnik, were requested for the work. Husrev-beg was killed in 1541 during a campaign in present-day Montenegro and lies in a domed mausoleum beside the mosque; a second tomb holds Murat-beg, his former captive who later became the first administrator of the endowment.

The building belongs to the early classical phase of Ottoman architecture. A square prayer hall about 13 metres across is crowned by a dome on pendentives rising to about 26 metres, with lower domed spaces on either side; on the qibla wall a semi-dome carried on two elaborate muqarnas vaults frames the mihrab, minbar and preacher's chair, opening into the main space under a huge arch. Outside, a portico of four broad columns topped by small domes leads to a portal richly carved with muqarnas. The courtyard holds the domed ablution fountain, in its present form from 1893, along with a small graveyard and the timekeeper's room, and the clock tower and Husrev-beg's madrasa stand nearby. In 1898 the mosque is said to have become the first in the world to be lit by electricity. Husrev-beg's endowment was decisive for the growth of Sarajevo as a city, and many of its buildings, from the madrasa and its library to the covered market, still stand in the surrounding streets. The mosque and its courtyard are a National Monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Getting there

The mosque is in the Baščaršija quarter of the Stari Grad (Old Town) municipality in central Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The nearest airport is Sarajevo International Airport (SJJ), about 9 km away.