Gökmeydan Mosque

Gökmeydan Mosque is one of the historic mosques of Bitlis in eastern Turkey, grouped locally among the city's "five minarets," though the exact date of its original Ottoman-era construction is not precisely recorded. Its most documented historical moment came in 1924, when Kazım Dirik, then governor of Bitlis and a former commander in the Turkish War of Independence, had a minaret added to the mosque. This later addition means the building's current silhouette is partly a product of the early Republican period rather than solely its Ottoman origins. A well-known twentieth-century Turkish folk song referencing Bitlis's five minarets is often associated with these mosques, though local historians note the song itself is a later composition rather than a record of any specific historical event tied to the building. Gökmeydan Mosque remains part of Bitlis's historic religious skyline today.