Kasap İlyas Mosque

Located in the Cerrahpaşa neighborhood of Fatih, this mosque takes its name from its founder, Kasap İlyas Efendi, a butcher who endowed the building shortly before formalizing its charitable foundation deed in 1495, and who is buried in the small graveyard beside its mihrab. The original structure was destroyed in the devastating Istanbul earthquake of 1894, but it was rebuilt on the same foundations using many of the same old stones, preserving continuity with the fifteenth-century building. The mosque's harem section was renovated and given a wooden dome, while its mihrab was finished in gypsum plaster and its minbar carved from marble. A further restoration took place in 1993. Though modest in scale, with a single minaret, the mosque is a good example of how Istanbul's historic neighborhood mosques were repeatedly rebuilt after earthquakes while keeping their original footprint and founder's name alive.