Esmahan Sultan Mosque
- Historic monument category A; code LMI CT-II-m-A-02901
- It was built in 1575
- Oituz Street, no.1, Mangalia
Built by Esmahan Sultan, daughter of Sultan Selim III (1566-1574). The Mangalia mosque is the oldest Ottoman building still fully standing on the territory of Romania. It was extremely renowned in the entire territory of the Ottoman Empire, the traveler Evliya Celebi highlighting that a pilgrimage to the mosque in Mangalia would have had the same religious value as the one from Mecca.
The building of the mosque is atypical but it accurately reflects the ethnic dimension of Dobrogea: the architectonic style is a maur one but the veranda, made out of wood, not specific to Ottoman religious buildings, is of Byzantine and Balkanic inspiration. The stone it was built ouf of is 85 cm thick and is taken from the walls of the Greek fortress Callatis.
The inside roof is decorated with wood and the minaret is one typical of Ottoman buildings of the 16th century. Around the mosque is a ritualic Ottoman graveyard, dating back to the 15th-17th centuries, in which the most important Ottoman personalities of Dobrogea are put to rest: muftis, high ranking military men, administrative officers, the financial elite of the region.
