Fatih Mosque (Babaeski)

Fatih Mosque, Old Mosque or Small Mosque, is a historic Ottoman-era mosque located within the boundaries of the district of Babaeski in Kırklareli Province. In front of the mosque there is the Four-Faced Fountain and the Babaeski Bath.

History

According to the inscription above the mosque's entrance door, it was built in Hijri 871 (AD 1467) by order of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. Additionally, according to a tradition about the mosque's construction, Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, who set out to capture Istanbul, after a conversation with an old man named Eskici Baba in Babaeski, decided that the town should be called Babaeski and that a small mosque should be built in its center.

It was registered on 08.04.1988 by decision number 7.

Restorations

Based on the interior decorations, it was repaired in the 18th and 19th centuries. The part of the minaret above the balcony collapsed at an unknown date, was repaired in wood, and probably renewed again with stone material in the 1970s. One view is that the original minaret was not present in the mosque and was built later as a separate structure.

In 1971 the last prayer hall, which was understood to have been made of wood and covered with tiled broken roof, was renewed in reinforced concrete at an unknown date. The mosque's door and window frames were replaced with PVC. The mosque is open for worship today.

Architecture

The mosque was built with a rectangular plan, covered with a wooden broken roof tiled with Marseille tiles, and constructed of brick-lined cut stone. Its square-based minaret, attached to the southwest façade, is a single balcony and made of finely cut stone. It is also thought that the mosque may originally have been built with a dome.