At a glance
- Era
- The Crusades, Ayyubids and Mamluks
- Region
- Anatolia
- Identifiers
- Wikidata
- Review
- Draft Completeness 3/5 · Help complete it
Summary
Hacı Özbek Camii in Iznik is the oldest surviving Ottoman mosque that still preserves most of its original fabric, dated by a building inscription to 1333 1.
Description
Its brick dome is covered with terra-cotta tiles — many original — carved to fit the spherical surface, a hallmark of early Ottoman mosques, and the mosque never had a minaret; its three-bayed porch on two marble columns with Byzantine capitals was demolished in 1959 when the street was widened 1. It is of the single-unit type, a hemispherical dome on a belt of Turkish triangles; three niches pierce the qibla wall, the central one holding the plain modern mihrab 1.
For young visitors
In the Turkish town of Iznik stands the oldest Ottoman mosque still mostly original — built in 1333, its clay-tiled dome still on top.
Curatorial notes
- Source read: Freely, A History of Ottoman Architecture (2011), p. 71 (Hacı Özbek Camii).
Sources
- John Freely, A History of Ottoman Architecture (2011) , p.71
- Goodwin, A History of Ottoman Architecture (1971)
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “Hacı Özbek Mosque, İznik”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/building/haci-ozbek-mosque-iznik/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-23.