KOSKI MEHMED-PACHA MOSQUE

With its harmonious architecture and location along the Neretva River, this mosque (Koski Mehmed-Pašina Džamija) is the most elegant of the fifteen in the city. It is part of a complex that was commissioned in 1616 by Mehmed Pasha Koski, a Bosnian nobleman from Mostar who held the prestigious position of defterdar, i.e., grand master of finances of the Ottoman army. But he died in 1618, two years before the completion of the construction. The complex was devastated during the last war and rebuilt in 1999-2001. The mosque is now closed to worship, but open to visitors. It is also one of the most visited monuments in the city. We reach it by a vaulted passage with a semicircular arch. You then enter a courtyard where, in the center, stands the fountain for the ritual ablutions of the faithful. Behind it are the tombstones of the imams who succeeded each other here. Opposite the mosque stands the old medersa (Koranic school), which was transformed into a tekké (place of Sufi worship) until 1924, and now houses a carpet and souvenir store.

Café and minaret with view. Below the small cemetery, the café area has a pleasant terrace overlooking the Neretva with a magnificent view of the Old Bridge. The rest of the courtyard is occupied by a Turkish cultural center. The mosque itself is in the form of a cube of 12.60 m sides topped by a dome 10 m in diameter and 15.25 m high. The entrance is protected by a porch with three domes. The walls, pierced by twenty-five windows, are made of square blocks of 1.10 m sides of the same type used for the Old Bridge, a limestone rock called tenelija. The minaret is 28 m high, topped by an alem (symbol of the crescent and star) of 1.90 m. For an additional 4 KM, you can climb the 89 steps to the top of the minaret (1.30 m wide inside) and enjoy a view of the city with the Old Bridge in the foreground. In the prayer hall, the walls are decorated in the same way as those of the Karađoz-Bey Mosque, with vegetal motifs, various ornaments on the minbar (pulpit reserved for sermons), the mirhab ("shrine" indicating the direction of Mecca) and the mahfil (gallery reserved for women), magnificent calligraphic panels in Arabic repeating certain verses of the Koran and a central rose window on the dome.