Bayezid I Mosque
Yıldırım Camii · Yıldırım Bayezid Camii · Yıldırım Külliyesi Mosque
About
The Bayezid I Mosque, known in Turkish as the Yıldırım Camii or Yıldırım Bayezid Camii, stands on a low hill in the Yıldırım district of Bursa, the early Ottoman capital. It was built between 1391 and 1395 as part of a large religious-charitable complex (külliye) endowed by Sultan Bayezid I, called Yıldırım (the Thunderbolt) for the speed of his campaigns.
Both the mosque and the surrounding district carry the sultan's epithet to this day. The building suffered severely in the great Bursa earthquake of 1855 and was extensively restored in its aftermath.
In plan the mosque follows the inverted-T (zaviye) type favoured in early Ottoman Bursa. A large central hall under a great dome is flanked east and west by lower eyvāns under smaller domes, with a third domed eyvān containing the miḥrāb to the south. Four side rooms with fireplaces and storage niches lie to the north and south of these eyvāns. The northern semi-open prayer porch is divided into five domed bays. Two minarets rise at the sides.
The Yıldırım Camii is also a milestone in Ottoman architecture: it is the first building to use the so-called 'Bursa arch', a flattened arch between the central hall and the southern eyvān that links and supports the two principal domes. Unusually for its time in Bursa, the mosque is built entirely of dimension stone, with no brick used in its fabric.
History
Sultan Bayezid I built the mosque between 1390 and 1395 as the centrepiece of a religious and charitable complex, a kulliye, on a hill in what is now Bursa's Yildirim district, itself named for the sultan's own epithet, Yildirim, the Thunderbolt, earned by the speed of his campaigns. The mosque's original pair of minarets was brought down in the 1855 Bursa earthquake, which damaged the building severely; only a single, freestanding minaret was rebuilt in 1963, and it was not until 2011 that the Bursa Metropolitan Municipality reconstructed both minarets to their original form.
Significance
Yildirim Camii introduced the flattened 'Bursa arch' to Ottoman architecture, the arch that links and supports the mosque's two principal domes between its central hall and southern eyvan, and it is built entirely of dressed stone rather than the brick then common in Bursa. The mosque is one of eight component monuments of Bursa and Cumalikizik: the Birth of the Ottoman Empire, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2014, and it remains an active place of Friday prayer.
Architecture
Early Ottoman inverted-T (zaviye-type) mosque plan in dressed stone, the first building to use the flattened 'Bursa arch' linking its two principal domes, with twin minarets and a five-bayed domed prayer porch
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