Description of the attraction
From 1365 to 1385 in Bursa, by order of Sultan Murad I, an imperial complex was built, including a mosque with a madrasah and a zaviyya of dervishes, an imaret, a fountain-sebil, a turba, a hamam and a mektbi (school for studying the Koran for boys). For work on the construction site, the sultan allocated his prisoners. The name of the architect is unknown, but it is believed that he was captured by the Sultan's soldiers and was Italian.
A visit to the complex begins with a walk through the courtyard with cypresses and a beautiful fountain. A small path leads to a mosque with columns and four windows. The base of the structure has an inverted T-shape. Slab-like bricks and many columns with carved capitals were used in the construction of the building. Through a richly decorated door, the visitor enters a delightful inner hall, the ceiling of which is faced with very rare and beautiful tiles. The interior of the mosque is decorated with whimsical Arabic inscriptions and a golden altar. In places, the gilding was damaged both by time and by external sediments. Interesting architecture and original details of the building (galleries of the facade and the second floor, window openings) amaze with their style and give the mosque a great resemblance to a palace. A later addition to the mosque is the only minaret located in the northwest corner of the building. It is very similar to the small turret of the famous Italian palazzo.
Despite the fact that the mosque has very spacious rooms for prayer, there were also rooms for students. Sixteen rooms on the second floor, located along the outer walls of the building, were madrasahs and had access to a U-shaped inner balcony, from which one can view the central hall on the first floor.
In the garden of the complex, there are ten polygonal convex tombs belonging to the sultan and his family. Turbe, located opposite the mosque, was built after the death of Murad I in 1389 on the orders of his son, Sultan Bayezid I.
For lighting in the mosque of Murad I, oil lamps were used earlier and this led to a fire more than once. The building has recently been restored. An interesting fact is that almost all the famous thinkers of Bursa studied at the madrasah, located on the second floor of the mosque.
