Et'hem Bey Mosque
Early 19th-century Ottoman mosque on Skanderbeg Square, painted with rare landscape frescoes.
The Et'hem Bey Mosque stands on the south-east corner of Skanderbeg Square, beside the clock tower, and is one of the few Ottoman buildings left in central Tirana. Work was begun by Molla Bey of Petrela, a descendant of the family that founded the town, and completed in 1821 by his son Haxhi Et'hem Bey. It is a modest single-domed mosque with a portico of slender columns and a tall stone minaret, built at the point where the city's bazaar met the road to Krujë.
Its decoration is unusual. About 300 square metres of painting cover the portico and interior with trees, rivers, bridges, waterfalls and townscapes, subjects rarely found in Ottoman mosque decoration, alongside conventional floral and calligraphic panels. The mosque was closed under the communist ban on religion and became a museum monument; people entered it again in January 1991 in one of the events that marked the end of that policy. A full restoration ran from 2018 to 2021, and the building returned to use for worship and for visitors afterwards.
Highlights
- Completed in 1821 by Haxhi Et'hem Bey on Skanderbeg Square
- Roughly 300 square metres of landscape frescoes
- Reopened to worshippers in January 1991 after the religious ban
- Restored between 2018 and 2021
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