Sofular Abdullah Pasha Mosque

The Sofular Abdullah Pasha Mosque stands on a steep hillside facing Amasya's castle, in a quarter that still preserves many traditional Ottoman houses. It was commissioned in 1502 by Abdullah Pasha, a beylerbey, or provincial governor-general, serving under Sultan Bayezid II; the mosque's endowment deed was drawn up by his son, Defterdar Abdülkerim Bey, around the same year. The building is a single-domed, single-minaret structure of modest scale: its corners are built of carefully hewn stone while the main walls combine rubble stone and brick. A cylindrical minaret with one brick-built balcony rises from the northeastern corner. Visitors reach the main entrance, which carries a three-line inscription, by climbing three steps into a vaulted porch flanked by two small vaulted rooms that once served as classrooms where students studied the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. Inside, the prayer hall is covered by a dome set on an unusually deep drum.