Wooden Pillared Mosques Below the Citadel

Enter the citadel through Hisar Gate, the one with the clock tower, and follow Kale Kapısı Street to Zindan Gate; once through, the mosque is on the left on Alitaşı Street. This is Ankara's oldest known mosque. It has no foundation inscription, so the date is read from the minbar: the worn Arabic inscription on its side panel has been read as 574 AH (1178) and as 594 AH (1197-98). Most researchers accept the second and place the minbar in the reign of Muhyiddin Mesud, son of Kılıçarslan II and ruler of Ankara. The name probably comes from a repair under Alaeddin Keykubad I. Two blind niches above the prayer hall door hold repair inscriptions: one for Lulu Paşa, governor of Ankara, in the early 1360s, the other for Şerife Sümbül Hatun in 1433-34, which is why some sources also call it Muradiye Mosque.

Inside, the hall is rectangular, without posts, under a flat wooden ceiling with a hexagonal centrepiece. The Seljuk mihrab, uncovered in 1984, has a muqarnas hood and small dice-capital colonnettes at the corners. The minbar is kept behind glass; it is imitation kündekari work and carries the craftsman's inscription on its left railing. Look at the garden too: on the east side a brick mihrab is cut into the citadel wall. It belonged to the first mosque built by Muhyiddin Mesud, and the sockets that held its ceiling beams are still visible above it. The mosque was restored by the General Directorate of Foundations in 2008; the ancient stones in the garden were gathered nearby. Come early, the inner citadel fills up towards noon. Wait during prayer, leave your shoes at the door and keep quiet inside.

Source: İşçen, Cumhuriyet Öncesi Ankara'da Cami ve Mescitler; Ankara Valiliği, Ankara Vakıf Eserleri; Kültür Portalı; Wikipedia.

At the foot of the road from the citadel to Samanpazarı, on the southern slope of the hill, stands Ahi Şerafeddin Mosque, known to everyone as Aslanhane after the Roman lion built into its wall. It is described at length in the existing Ulus mosques route, so this is a short stop; but it is the chief example of the tradition this route is about, and you cannot walk past without going in. The thuluth inscription on the minbar door gives 1289-90; according to the TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam the building may be older, and the patron's name on the north door points to the early 13th century. The walnut minbar was made by the carpenter Mehmed bin Ebubekir.

Inside, 24 wooden posts in four rows, each topped with a Roman capital, carry the ceiling; the hall is divided into five aisles at right angles to the mihrab, the middle one wider and higher. The mihrab combines tile mosaic and plaster, a rare pairing in Anatolia, with tile and plaster mouldings framing the muqarnas hood. Blue tile decoration can be picked out on the brick minaret. In 2023, at the committee meeting in Riyadh, it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List together with Eşrefoğlu in Beyşehir, the great mosques of Sivrihisar and Afyonkarahisar and Mahmut Bey in Kastamonu, Turkey's first serial cultural nomination. The ruined lodge across the street and the tomb of Ahi Şerafeddin belong to the same complex and are seen with the mosque. Shoes off at the door; Friday noon is very crowded, so avoid that hour. From here you walk about five hundred metres towards Ulucanlar to Direkli Mosque.

Source: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Ahi Şerafeddin Camii; Ankara Valiliği, Ankara Vakıf Eserleri; KTB basın bülteni; Wikipedia.

Walk from Aslanhane towards Ulucanlar Street; the mosque stands in Kale neighbourhood at the corner of Direkli and Ceylan streets. It has no inscription, so specialists date it by the style of its plaster mihrab, to the 15th century and for some to its first half. Foundation records show it was renewed in the 18th century, and a court register of 1588-1590 mentions a member of the congregation of Direkli Masjid, so the name is at least four hundred years old.

You understand the name at the door: five wooden posts carry the entrance porch, and the mosque is named after them. The porch was later glazed in. Two half columns from antiquity flank the entrance. The walls are mudbrick with timber ties on a base of Ankara stone, the roof is tiled, the ceiling wooden. Inside, a wooden women's gallery stands at the north end and a moulded plaster mihrab rises to the ceiling on the south wall: a muqarnas hood over the niche, a window on each side, and a frame of two bands, one in naskh script, one geometric. The minbar is new. The wooden minaret at the north-east corner has a zinc-clad cap. A grave known as Direkli Baba, thought to be the founder's, once stood against the north wall; it is gone today. In the 2007 restoration the courtyard additions were removed and ablution facilities added. This is a small neighbourhood mosque; you may find it locked outside prayer times, in which case look at the posts and columns from outside and move on. If open, enter quietly and stay at the back if people are praying. The next stop, Hacı Musa Mosque, lies south-west, at the corner of the Hacettepe campus facing the Altındağ municipality.

Source: Ankara Valiliği, Ankara Vakıf Eserleri; İşçen, Cumhuriyet Öncesi Ankara'da Cami ve Mescitler; Kültür Portalı.

The mosque now sits inside the central (Sıhhiye) campus of Hacettepe University, south-east of the Altındağ municipality building, reached by a stair from Talatpaşa Boulevard. Its old streets, Eski Yol and Küçük Gelin, vanished when the campus was laid out, and its surroundings became a park in 2006. Two inscriptions sit above the door. The foundation inscription in thuluth says the mosque was built by Seyfeddin, son of Hacı Musa, but researchers have read its date as 1422, 1432 and 1490; a foundations register of 1522 already lists the masjid. The second, in riqa script, records the repair by the foundations administration in 1923. Semavi Eyice treats it as a 15th-century mosque, while the mihrab and painted decoration belong in character to the late 17th and early 18th century, so the building was thoroughly reworked then.

What to look for: of the three pointed arches of the porch, the middle one rests on two reused marble columns. The wooden leaves of the prayer hall door are 15th-century work, finely carved, with the profession of faith across the top. Inside, the ceiling has no posts and is divided into squares by battens; small painted flowers sit where the battens cross, a hexagonal centrepiece marks the middle, and floral painting runs along the window frames. Three bands frame the moulded plaster mihrab, the niche is hooded with muqarnas and two lines of thuluth fill the panel above; the wooden minbar is original, with geometric side panels and a row of palmettes. Under the balcony of the north-west minaret you can pick out a sawtooth cornice. The General Directorate of Foundations restored it in 1975. The campus setting is calm; enter quietly outside prayer times and remove your shoes. From here you head north to Anafartalar Street; the way skirts the old Jewish Quarter, where the small Örtmeli Masjid is another two-post example of the same tradition, though not a stop on this route. Zincirli Mosque waits on the street.

Source: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Hacı Musa Camii; İşçen, Cumhuriyet Öncesi Ankara'da Cami ve Mescitler; Ankara Valiliği, Ankara Vakıf Eserleri.

Come up to Anafartalar Street and walk towards Ulus Square; Zincirli Mosque is on the left, opposite the Anafartalar Bazaar, entered from Mahmut Atalay Street on the north side. On the way you pass the domed Kurşunlu Mosque, Ankara's example of the single-domed type of 15th-century Ottoman architecture and a useful contrast to the timber-ceilinged world of this route. Zincirli has neither inscription nor endowment deed, but documents show it was built by Ankaravi Mehmed Emin Efendi (1619-1687), chief judge of Anatolia and in his last years Şeyhülislam, hence its other name, Kazasker Mosque. Wikipedia links the mosque, a college, a school and twenty-five fountains to an endowment of 1685. From the ceiling work, the minbar and the mihrab, Gönül Öney suggests the late 17th or early 18th century.

The building is a late, large example of the Ankara type: rectangular, mudbrick walls with timber ties on a stone base (clad in brick in the last restoration), a hipped tiled roof and no dome. In front is a porch of three pointed arches on cut-stone piers. Inside, two hexagonal centrepieces sit in the coffered wooden ceiling within a painted frame; the five-sided plaster mihrab rises to the ceiling with a muqarnas hood and a row of palmettes; the walnut minbar is kündekari work with openwork railings. The inscription right of the minbar records the repair by Governor Hurşit Paşa in 1879, the one over the qibla door a repair in 1925; further work followed in 1937 and 2005. On the busiest street in Ulus, it is open and in use all day; enter quietly and wait at prayer time. For the last stop, Ahi Yakup, climb the slope behind Hacı Bayram Mosque.

Source: Ankara Valiliği, Ankara Vakıf Eserleri; İşçen, Cumhuriyet Öncesi Ankara'da Cami ve Mescitler; Kültür Portalı; Wikipedia.

From Zincirli climb the slope behind Hacı Bayram Mosque, to its north-east; Ahi Yakup Mosque is in Hacı Bayram neighbourhood, on Selman-i Farisi Street according to the Culture Portal, reached by a stone stair of eleven steps. The Arabic inscription over the prayer hall door bears the date 794 AH, that is 1392; the Culture Portal treats it as the building date, while the Ankara Governorate's book of foundation monuments reads it as a repair inscription and pushes the building back to the late 13th or early 14th century. The patron, Ahi Yakup, was one of the ahi leaders of Ankara under Bayezid I, son of Ahi Çelebi, son of Ahi Sinan. His college and lodge have not survived.

The building is small, without a minaret, under a tiled roof; reused Roman marble sits in the stone footing, plastered mudbrick above. A wooden roof covers the porch. Its real value lies in its mihrabs, one in the porch and one in the hall, both cast from the same plaster mould. In the centre of the spandrel of the hall mihrab is set a Miletus bowl twenty centimetres across, patterned in light and dark blue; Bekir Eskici regards this as the oldest known example of the early moulded plaster mihrabs of Ankara and uses it as a yardstick for dating the others. The same mould was used at Ahi Tura Masjid a few streets away. In the burial ground on the north-east side lies the uninscribed grave of Ahi Yakup, marked by a broken marble column painted green. The neighbouring Ahiler Association restored the mosque in 1984 and the General Directorate of Foundations in 2009. The route ends here; walk down to Hacı Bayram Square and Ulus metro station is ten minutes away. It is a neighbourhood mosque and may be closed outside prayer times; if open, take off your shoes and enter quietly.

Source: İşçen, Cumhuriyet Öncesi Ankara'da Cami ve Mescitler; Ankara Valiliği, Ankara Vakıf Eserleri; Kültür Portalı; TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Ankara.