Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque
Sixteenth-century Ottoman mosque at the heart of Bascarsija, open to visitors between prayers.
Gazi Husrev-beg, Ottoman governor of the Sanjak of Bosnia, endowed this mosque in 1531 as the centrepiece of a waqf that also paid for a madrasa, a library, a covered market and a public bath. The design is attributed to Acem Ali, an architect of the Ottoman court, and follows the Early Classical manner: a domed prayer hall with a semi-domed extension towards the qibla, a three-bay portico and a single minaret of some forty-seven metres.
The building has been repaired and altered repeatedly. Austro-Hungarian works brought electric lighting in 1898, said to be the first for any mosque. Shelling during the siege of Sarajevo damaged the fabric badly; restoration from 1996 returned the structure to its Ottoman form, and the calligrapher Hazim Numanagic repainted the interior in 2001-02. It remains the principal congregational mosque of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with guided visits outside prayer times.
Highlights
- Domed Early Classical prayer hall attributed to the court architect Acem Ali
- Minaret of about 47 metres above the Bascarsija rooftops
- Courtyard with sadrvan fountain and the founder's turbe alongside
- Interior calligraphy repainted by Hazim Numanagic after the 1990s war damage
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