Lala Kasım Bey Mosque

The Lala Kasım Bey Mosque stands in the old walled city (Suriçi) of Diyarbakır's Sur district. Specialists date its prayer hall to the 15th century, before the Ottoman conquest of the region, with its minaret added as a separate addition at a later date. Like several mosques of Diyarbakır from this period, it is built from the dark basalt stone native to the area, trimmed with pale stone inlay in bands that give the walls their striped appearance. Its entrance portico repeats this striped pattern across its columns, a treatment some visitors have likened to the black-and-white courses used on certain Italian church facades, though here the effect comes from local volcanic stone rather than imported marble. The mosque's design is often discussed alongside the nearby Safa Mosque, whose richer decoration and later minaret are usually read as a step toward Ottoman taste, with Lala Kasım Bey representing the plainer, earlier regional style it replaced.