NUSRETİYE MOSQUE

NUSRETİYE MOSQUE

Nusretiye Mosque is another imperial mosque but one that does not bear the name of its benefector. ‘Nusret’ means victory and there are different opinions about what this ‘victory’ refers to. The strongest one is that it refers to the abolution of the guild of the Janissaries by the founder of the mosque, Sultan Mahmud II. What this mosque has to do with this move of the Sultan is that the mosque was built as a part of a military quarter together with some other military buildings. His order for construction of this quartridge was also a result of Mahmud II’s reformist character in terms of military. By that point we can collect that Nusretiye Mosque was built as a sign for the achievement of the military reforms of the sultan in general. A member of the famous Balyan family of arcihtects Krikor Amira Kalfa was put in the charge of completing it. No less than what Sultan achieved with the reforms, the architect who started the construction in the year 1823 also performed an achievement over the mosque by finishing it within 3 years.

Although it is an imperial mosque, due to its construction concept, Nusretiye is not surrounded by typical Ottoman kulliyah (mosque compound) buildings but by military post buildings. The only elements from a kulliyah type of settlement near this mosque are a fountain, a water distribution fountain, a timekeeper’s house and an imperial pavilion for the sultan to reside before greeting people on Friday.