Arap Mehmet Mosque

Arap Mehmet Mosque, better known locally as Molla Arap Mosque, was built in Bursa in the first quarter of the 16th century by Mevlana Mehmed, a scholar of Horasan Turkish descent popularly nicknamed "Molla Arap," whose given name was Muhyiddin Mehmed. He took part in a Hungarian campaign during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent and, after returning to Bursa, lived there until his death in 1531; he is buried in the mosque's graveyard, where an iron-fenced tomb attributed to him still stands opposite the building. The mosque is notable as one of Bursa's rare multi-domed mosques, its square prayer hall originally covered by nine domes set on hexagonal drums. Severely damaged in the 1855 earthquake, only part of the structure survived, and it was subsequently rebuilt as a smaller, two-domed mosque under the patronage of Ahmet Vefik Pasha, who served as governor of Bursa in the late Ottoman period.