Ottoman mosque · 1561/62 · restored 2016
An elegant 1561/62 mosque nicknamed the 'Princess of the Balkans', reopened for worship in 2016 after 104 years.
These are the stories you can open in the 3D view, each at its own numbered point on the model.
This is the Gazi Hajdar Kadi Mosque, in the old Ovči Pazar, the sheep market, on the left bank of the Dragor.
The Arabic inscription above the door gives the year 969 of the Hijri calendar, which is 1561/62. Most sources name the founder as Haydar Efendi, the kadi or judge of Bitola; others call him Haydar Bey.
Its fine proportions earned the mosque the nickname “Princess of the Balkans”. By local tradition it is a work of Mimar Sinan, the chief architect of the Ottoman court, but no record confirms this.
It is better described as a building of Sinan’s era, probably by an unknown architect who knew his work. The traveller Evliya Çelebi praised it in 1661.
The walls are laid in bands: two courses of brick, then one course of stone, repeated all the way up. They are said to be about 1.4 m thick.
Inside, the prayer hall is about 11 m square; outside it measures about 13.9 m. A twelve-sided drum carries the dome, whose top stands 19 to 20 m above the ground.
The entrance portico has three pointed arches on four columns and is roofed with three small lead domes. The two middle columns are of green verde antico stone, while the outer two are white.
Behind them, look at the carved wooden door. Its ornament is built on the letter elif, the first letter of the Arabic alphabet.
The slender minaret you see was rebuilt during the restoration and completed in 2016. In photographs taken before the restoration the mosque stands without it.
Sources disagree about its past. Most describe a single minaret, while one source says this was the only mosque in Bitola with two minarets. The question remains open.
After 1912 the mosque was abandoned, and the lead was stripped from its dome. It was later used as a store for gravestones and as a warehouse for a liquor factory. A first restoration took place in 1960–61, and in 1972 it briefly served as a concert hall.
Press “Before 2014” to see it as it stood before the latest restoration.
Between 2014 and 2017 the mosque was restored with funding from Turkey’s Directorate General of Foundations. The work gave it back its portico, its minaret and its lead-covered domes.
On 4 November 2016 it reopened for prayer, 104 years after it had been abandoned. At dusk, warm floodlights pick out the arches and the minaret.
In 1848 the English artist and poet Edward Lear travelled through Monastir, as Bitola was then called, and painted this mosque.
His picture records it almost three centuries after it was built, when it was still in use and the town was part of the Ottoman Empire.
Typical prices are our estimates for orientation, not menu prices. Check opening hours on the spot.
Walk around the model, switch between day and night, and hear each story read aloud in English, Macedonian or Turkish.
Open in 3D.jpg){kind=link}