Alaca Imaret Mosque (, from ) or Ishak Pasha Mosque, literally the "colourful mosque", is a 15th-century Ottoman

mosque A mosque ( ), also called a masjid ( ), is a place of worship for Muslims. The term usually refers to a covered building, but can be any place where Salah, Islamic prayers are performed; such as an outdoor courtyard. Originally, mosques were si ...

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

.The Sultan of Vezirs: The Life and Times of the Ottoman Grand Vezir Mahmud Pasha Angelović (1453-1474), Théoharis Stavrides, pagge 413, 2001

Architecture

It was built by order of

Ishak Pasha Ishak Pasha (, ; 1444 – died 30 January 1487) was an Ottoman general, statesman, and later Grand Vizier. Origin Turkish orientalist Halil Inalcik believed that the figure of Ishak Pasha stemmed from confusion among several Ottoman Ishak Pas ...

in 1484 or 1487. It consists of a mosque with an

imaret Imaret, sometimes also known as a ''darüzziyafe'', is one of several names used to identify the public soup kitchens built throughout the Ottoman Empire from the 14th to the 19th centuries. These public kitchens were often part of a larger comp ...

(public charity kitchen). The mosque and imaret are not in use anymore. The mosque has a reverse T plan common to

early Ottoman architecture Early Ottoman architecture developed through several stages during the 14th and 15th centuries, prior to the advent of what is generally considered "classical" Ottoman architecture in the 16th century. Ottoman architecture began as a continuatio ...

, the prayer hall is covered by two large domes, it has a

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cu ...

covered by five smaller domes. It had one minaret, which was destroyed after 1912, after Thessaloniki was conquered by the Greek Army and became part of the modern Greek state. It is under restoration till now.

References

*Picture of the building from above

{{coord, 40, 38, 21, N, 22, 56, 59, E, region:GR_type:landmark_source:kolossus-elwiki, display=title Buildings and structures completed in 1487 Mosques completed in the 1480s Ottoman architecture in Thessaloniki Ottoman mosques in Greece Religion in Thessaloniki 15th-century architecture in Greece Former mosques in Greece Mosque buildings with domes in Greece Mosque buildings with minarets in Greece