Öziceli Hacı İbrahim Mosque

The four‑hundred‑year‑old Özicseli Hadzsi Ibrahim Mosque is a listed historic building located on Berényi Zsigmond Street in Esztergom. Many in the city also know it as the former archbishop’s granary.

It is the most distant surviving and restored mosque of the former Ottoman Empire in the north‑west direction.

Description

The Esztergom mosque – unlike the typical mosque form – is a two‑storey, rectangular‑plan building with a vaulted roof and a minaret that rises like a chimney from its north‑west corner. Under the prayer hall runs the medieval street of Víziváros, bounded on the west by the district’s fort wall and on the east by Várhegy. The mosque was built above this street in the early 17th century. The present street of Víziváros – formerly Úri Street, now Berényi Zsigmond Street – lies several metres higher than the medieval road, a rise that was cut into the hillside only long after the Turkish period. Because of the raised street level, today the mosque’s two‑storey layout is visible only on the façade facing Erzsébet Park.

The original Ottoman‑era gate has a semicircular closing, is made of carved stone, and features a pointed arch; its windows are donkey‑arch shaped. On the north‑west corner of the building stands the remains of a minaret, which was demolished only in the 18th century. In the prayer hall’s wall, tilted jars were built into the sides, their mouths facing the interior so that the room would not echo. Only a few of these remain, mostly in the building’s southern wall. During excavations, grain kernels were found in the jars, indicating that the mosque was used as a granary after the Turkish period. Pieces of the former mihrab, i.e., the prayer niche, were also fortunately uncovered at various points of the excavation area; after assembling them and reconstructing the missing parts, the entire prayer niche was restored. In addition to the beautiful carvings, the Ottoman‑era painting and decoration could be restored in several places.

On the Danube‑floodplain side of the building complex, at the foot of the Mill Bastion, is the Small Gate, which led from the city wall surrounding the Water City to the riverbank and the former ship bridge spanning the Danube. Above this gate, visible from the Elizabeth Park, is the Arabic victory inscription of Suleiman I, erected in the 17th century in memory of the 1543 capture of Esztergom, at a time when the mosque was also built at the level directly above the inscription. The inscription reads: “To Sultan Suleiman, son of Selim Khan.” According to Hungarian and Ottoman historians, Suleiman I personally led his conquering army in the 1543 campaign. According to tradition, the first Turkish troops entered through this gate, and by occupying the Mill Bastion and the famous Esztergom water‑lifting structure within it, forced the Christian defenders to hand over Esztergom on August 9 1543.

History

For a long time the theory persisted that the mosque was originally nothing more than the Veprech Tower mentioned in a charter of King Béla IV in 1239, which the Turks supposedly later converted into a mosque. However, investigations associated with the mosque (financed by Rosenberg Hungária Ltd.) revealed two facts. First, apart from the pre‑existing city walls, the mosque was built entirely by the Turks in the first half of the 17th century. Second, the excavations uncovered, beneath 19th‑20th‑century buildings adjacent to the mosque, a clearly identifiable approximately 10‑metre shaft of the original Veprech Tower. Thus, today the earliest fortified building of the Water City, also known as one of Esztergom’s oldest named structures, is again visible. In later periods it was also called the “Water Tower.”

According to contemporary (16th and 17th century) illustrations, as well as the work of Evlia Cselebi, the famous Turkish traveler and travel writer, we know that the mosque was built sometime between 1605 and 1663. Evlia Ciselebi writes in his book: “…Öziceli Hacı Ibrahim mosque, with a lead roof, painted wooden ceiling, large volume, brick minaret of great height and newly built, beautiful mosque”. After the reconquest of the city (1683) it became a bishop’s residence. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries it was the property of the Petz family and served as a residence. The adjacent building, where once a tekke, i.e., a dervish monastery, operated, was turned into a factory. After the Second World War the property was nationalized. In 1953 the workers of the Petz factories could move into the house. The former Turkish bath between the two buildings operated with three pools until 1962/63. The residents bought the house in 1957.

In the autumn of 1998 the Rosenberg Hungária Ltd., headquartered in Tokodaltáró, purchased the very dilapidated building and its associated land with the intention that after renovation the residential house would become a guesthouse. At that time Dr. István Horváth, then director of the Balassa Bálint Museum, drew the owners' attention to the fact that they were most likely buying a former prayer house. Changing the company's original plans, it undertook the excavation and restoration of the building that had received monument status. Four meters deep beneath the street level they found the road network used from the Middle Ages to the 18th century. They uncovered the lower part of the minaret belonging to the mosque, whose substructure still stands up to a height of 10 metres, and the first nine steps of the spiral staircase remained intact. After several years of excavation, the renovation began in 2006, and by the end of the year the building received a new roof structure. A significant portion of the stone carvings of the mihrab, i.e., the prayer niche, was found, and this was also restored in its full splendor. Upon completion of the works, the Ottoman‑era building was handed over on 20 November 2007. At the hand‑over conference Karl Rosenberg received the Pro Cultura Hungarica award. Together with the neighboring Malom Bastion, the building became a tourist attraction (museum, café).