Šarena Mosque
Interesting facts
- An Ottoman verse inscription by Derviş Mehmed Muradi records the rebuilding in the form of a chronogram, praising Abdurrahman Pasha for making this colourful mosque.
- Its founders were two sisters from Tetovo, unusual at a time when most mosques were paid for by sultans, beys or pashas.
- Some accounts name Isak Bey as the architect of the original fifteenth-century mosque.
- Unlike most Ottoman mosques, it has no dome: the single square prayer hall is covered only by its tiled roof.
- Besides the mosque, tomb and bathhouse, the site once also included an inn.
- The stone walls enclosing the courtyard are recent, built in 1991 in a classical Ottoman style.
- The painted exterior was restored in 2010 and 2011, with support from a US State Department cultural preservation grant of about 95,000 euros.
Why it is worth it
In the old quarter of Tetovo, beside the Pena river that tumbles down from the Šar Mountains, stands a small mosque covered inside and out in painted ornament. Its local names all point to the same thing: Šarena Džamija in Macedonian and Alaca Cami in Turkish mean the colourful or decorated mosque, while the city's Albanian residents mostly call it Xhamia e Pashës, the Pasha's Mosque. Instead of the glazed tiles found in many Ottoman interiors, its walls carry bright painted panels of flowers, geometric patterns, landscapes and buildings.
The first mosque on the site was built in the fifteenth century; sources give both 1438 and 1495 as the year of construction. Inscriptions on the building name its founders as two women, Hurshide and Mensure, who lie in an octagonal tomb in the courtyard. Its present appearance dates from 1833, when Abdurrahman Pasha, one of the best-known governors of Tetovo, had the old building pulled down, apart from the minaret, and replaced with a new one. He brought painters from Debar to decorate it, and they worked in oil paint; according to tradition, more than 30,000 eggs went into preparing the paint and glaze. Among the images is a view of Mecca, a rare subject in the mosques of south-eastern Europe.
The prayer hall is a single room about ten metres square under a hipped tiled roof, entered through a portico of six stone columns with a gallery above. The marble mihrab and minbar are carved in a Baroque manner, and the whole building mixes late Ottoman and European influences. A fountain for ritual washing stands in a courtyard planted with flowers, and the restored double bathhouse across the river is now an art gallery. Tetovo itself, the fifth largest city in North Macedonia with about 63,000 people, lies at the foot of the Šar range; under Ottoman rule it was known as Kalkandelen.
Getting there
The mosque is in the centre of Tetovo, in north-western North Macedonia. The nearest airport by straight line is Pristina International Airport (PRN) in Kosovo, about 63 km away across the border and the Šar Mountains; within the country, Skopje International Airport (SKP) is about 55 km to the east.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Šarena Džamija, meaning Decorated Mosque in English but also variably translated as Painted Mosque, is a mosque located near the Pena River in Tetovo, North Macedonia. The mosque was originally built in 1438 and later rebuilt in 1833 by Abdurrahman Pasha. Unlike other mosques of the Classical Ottoman period, the Šarena Mosque is more characteristic of traditional mosques in Anatolia, as it was constructed before the conquest of Constantinople, when Byzantine-influenced mosque domes became the standard design.
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