KOSKI MEHMED-PASHA MOSQUE

Author: Ekrem Tucaković, PhD, Riyasat of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina • Photo & video: Mirza Hasanefendić

Koski Mehmed-pasha Mosque in Mostar is situated in the Old Town, on the left bank of the Neretva River, very close to the old bridge. The mosque, together with the madrasa, shadervani, turbe (tomb) and harem (courtyard), is a national monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Koski Mehmed-pasha was born in Mostar and served in Ottoman administration. He died in 1611. This benefactor left many pieces of real estate for maintaining the mosque and hanikah (monastery). The inscription about construction of the mosque was made in verses in Turkish and was carved in a stone slab, sized 35 × 65 cm, built in above the main entrance to the mosque. The mosque was built in 1027 Hijra year, i.e. in 1618/1619A.D.

The mosque is covered with a dome and is one of single-space domed mosque with open porch, covered with three small domes and a stone minaret. The central space of the mosque is enclosed by 1.1-meter-thick stone walls and constituted a proper cube of the exterior dimensions 12.6 × 12.6 × 12.5 m. It is covered by the dome with the 15.25 high vertex. The minaret is built next to the right exterior wall. The stone minaret without the cone is 29.90 meter high. The fourteen-sided minaret has 78 stone stairs.

 The interior of the mosque is decorated, and between the windows on the dome trees of pomegranate, lemon, raspberry, pear, palm, cherry, vine and orange are painted, as well as motifs of rose and carnation in the composition with vases.

Koski Mehmed-pasha madrasa-hanikah worked until 1924, when it was officially closed. Shadervani consists of a twelve-sided stone pool of simple make with an extension in the profiled basis, which is surrounded by a water outlet in the form of a canal. On the pillars which are turned toward entrance door two plates with carved inscriptions are built in, which reveal that the shadervani was built in 1781. The inscription was made in rhymed prose in Arabic, and is written in large and beautiful nesh script.

Koski Mehmed-pasha Mosque is one of the most valuable monuments of Mostar and belongs to the type of Ottoman mosques with one dome. The mosque is also very significant from the aspect of urban development.

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