By Ingrid Petcu Levei | The Museum of National History and Archeology, Constanta, Romania
Description
The Esmahan Sultan Mosque in Mangalia, on the Black Sea, is the oldest in Romania, dating to 1573. It was named after its founder, princess Esmahan/İsmihan (1545–1585), who was the daughter of the Ottoman Sultan Selim II (1566–1574) and wife to Sokollu Mehmet Pasha (1505–1579. The mosque is also known as Princess İsmihan’s Mosque.
The rectangular mosque with a single-galleried cylindrical minaret is built of ashlar masonry. Its asymmetrical main façade features a curved prayer niche (mihrāb) on the right side of the arched portal, which is flanked by a single pair of two-tiered windows on both sides. There are visible signs of awkward old and new repairs on the walls. The lower windows, for instance, have been enlarged in such a way that their rectangular frames encroach upon the pointed blind-arched lunettes. The painted plaster interior decorations have completely disappeared, and the present flat, wooden ceiling is new. The mosque’s interior space has a renewed wooden upper gallery above the entrance portal, resting on six sandstone pillars that are presumed to be spolia. Likewise, some large-size regular blocks of cut stone used in the outer face of the mosque’s back wall, which differ from irregular smaller stones at the side and front walls, are believed to have been recovered from the ancient ruins of Callatis. Ancient Callatis was a Greco-Roman trade hub, the archaeological remains of which have been partially excavated.
In the 17th century, the Esmahan Sultan Mosque was well known. The famous Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi (1611-1682) described it in the fifth volume of his Book of Travels as the "Kaaba-Mecca of wanderers and the poor". Therefore, those who did not have the material means to make a pilgrimage to the holy places, could at least come to Mangalia.
The architecture of the mosque is quite atypical for the Dobrogea area, which is a historical region in Southeast Europe located between the lower Danube River and the Black Sea. It is divided between Romania and Bulgaria. The Romanian part is in the southeastern part of the country, while the Bulgarian portion is in the northeastern region. Dobrogea has a long history, with ancient Greek colonies along the Black Sea coast, including cities like Histria and Tomis. Dobrogea was part of the Roman Empire and later the Byzantine Empire. After the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), Northern Dobrogea became part of Romania, while Southern Dobrogea remained part of Bulgaria. The population is ethnically diverse, with Romanians, Bulgarians, Turks, Tatars, and other minorities.
The mosque has a square plan, which is common in traditional Islamic architecture. The prayer room is simple and spacious, without elaborate decorative elements. The emphasis is on religious utility. The minbar (pulpit) and mihrab (niche that indicates the direction of prayer towards Mecca) are also built from local materials and are central features in the interior design. The mosque includes a minaret of moderate height, typical of smaller Ottoman mosques. The minaret is circular in section, and the upper part is surrounded by a gallery, from where the muezzin calls the faithful to prayer. The roof of the minaret is simple, conical, and typical of the classic Ottoman style.
The stone from which the window was built is 85 cm thick and comes from the walls of the Greek fortress of Callatis. The mosque is located in the center of the current city, so above the ancient city of Callatis. Surrounding the mosque is an old Muslim cemetery, which contains the graves of local dignitaries, including that of the mosque’s founder, Esmahan, daughter of Sultan Selim II and granddaughter of the famous Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.
Significance
The initial traces of the mosque’s foundation were partially visible when Evliya Çelebi visited Mangalia in the middle of the 17th century. He reported that this was an ancient port whose fortress had been destroyed by Sultan Bayezid I (1389–1401), but its foundations could be seen in the currently inhabited part of the city at the mouth of the port.
The most detailed information on the Esmahan Sultan Mosque was provided by the restorer-architect and architectural historian Ekrem Hakkı Ayverdi in his1981 book cataloging Ottoman monuments in Romania and Bulgaria. Chiefly concerned with documenting the mosque’s formal features, Hakkı refrained from interpreting the contextual and personal factors that may have motivated the architectural patronage of the princess. He consulted her endowment deed (waqfiyya) and briefly summarized its contents, but without considering its connection to the interlinked endowments of her influential husband: Sokollu Mehmed Pasha (grand vizier between 1565 and 1579), who was a convert to Islam but born into a Serbian Orthodox family in Bosnia. Because of her incomparable royal blood, the princess is buried in the mausoleum of her august parents and siblings, constructed by Sinan next to the Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul.
Esmahan Sultan’s endowment deed lists the Mangalia Mosque as one of her three main charitable socio-religious monuments, testifying to its considerable importance. The other two were monumental complexes built by Sinan in the capital Istanbul. One of them is her spectacular mosque in the “Çatladı Kapusı” quarter, constructed between 1567–1568 and 1571–1572. This ashlar masonry domed sanctuary, boasting a fountained forecourt with arched marble colonnades and lavish Iznik tile revetments, is particularly renowned for its harmonious proportions and the perfect balance between structure and ornament. While the princess endowed the mosque itself, the accompanying madrasa and the subsequently added dervish convent, completed in 1574, were separately founded by her husband as part of the same complex in his own endowment deed.
The second complex listed in Esmahan Sultan endowment deed is her aforementioned madrasa in the Eyüb district, which abuts the familial domed mausoleum of her husband and their children, both completed in 1568–1569. This, too, was a jointly endowed complex by the couple. Its mausoleum, featuring sumptuous Iznik tile revetments, and its subsequently built freestanding domed prayer hall (1579), functioned as a school for Qurʾan recitation. The nearby public fountains created by him ranged in date from 1567–1568 to 1570–1571. Both multifunctional complexes co-endowed by husband and wife carry Sokollu Mehmed Pasha’s name, although she was the main founder. This is an unfortunate manifestation of male chauvinism and traditional gender roles that have erased her memory from the public sphere.
The Mosque is surrounded by a Muslim cemetery, equally valuable for its age, both from a cultural and spiritual point of view. It contains graves that are over 300 years old. In the construction of the mosque, stone taken from the walls of the Callatis fortress have been used. The ritual fountain, located in the courtyard of the Mosque, was built with stone from an old Roman tomb. During the Communist period, the monuments fell into disrepair and the cemetery was no longer delimited by any kind of fence. A few years after the Revolution, the Turkish tombs and the mosque itself, were renovated, and the courtyard was surrounded by a high fence. The roof was replaced with a new one. Inside, the plaster was redone and the minaret, which was very inclined, was brought back to its original state. The fountain in the yard, which had been blocked in 1959, was also restored. Its water is once again used for the ritual of washing the dead. The Turkish-Tatar community in Mangalia currently has more than 3,000 Muslim believers.
The Esmahan Sultan Mosque in Mangalia is important both as the oldest Muslim place of worship in Romania, symbolizing the Ottoman heritage and cultural-religious coexistence in Dobrogea, and as an active center of the Turkish-Tatar community, attracting tourist interest and contributing to the diversity of the local heritage.
The monument could further benefit from an integrated conservation and promotion program, including specialized guided tours, multicultural events, and educational exhibitions. These would highlight its historical, architectural, and cultural significance in the context of the Ottoman impact in the region and the religious diversity of Dobrogea.
Further Reading
Iorga, Nicolae. "Moschei pe pământ românesc." Buletinul Comisiunii Monumentelor Istorice 22 (1929): 184–187.
This article offers general data about the mosque and its importance in historical and geographical space by comparison with other similar monuments.
Kiliç, Serkan. "An Evaluation of Ottoman Architectural Monuments in Romania." In Turkish Cultural Legacy in the Balkans from Empire to the Republic of Türkiye, edited by Delia Roxana Cornea, Metin Omer, Emanuel Plopeanu (Cluj-Napoca: Editura Mega, 2023), 97–119.
This essay examines the architecture of Ottoman monuments in Romania, including a discussion of the Esmahan Sultan Mosque.
Necipoğlu, Gülru. "The Mangalia Mosque in the Waqf Empire of an Ottoman Power Couple." In The Land between Two Seas: Art on the Move in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea 1300–1700, edited by Alina Payne (Leiden: Brill, 2022), 200–219.
This article discusses the history of the monument, including relevant plans about the architecture of the building, its history, as well as details about the life and deeds of Esmahan Sultan.
Radu, Laurențiu, and Corina Radu-Iorguș. "Ottoman Heritage from Mangalia." In Turkish Cultural Legacy in the Balkans from Empire to the Republic of Türkiye, edited by Delia Roxana Cornea, Metin Omer, Emanuel Plopeanu (Cluj-Napoca: Editura Mega, 2023), 139–145.
The article discusses the Esmahan Sultan Mosque in connection to the tombstone inscriptions from the nearby courtyard. Using as a starting point a summary table with the names and details of the deceased, the authors refer to the demographic situation of the city during the 17th–19th centuries, highlighting the consequences of the Russian-Turkish conflicts of the 19th century on the evolution of the population.
