Constructed in the 13th and 14th century, these five wooden-columned buildings are nicknamed 'the forest mosques'. Here's why they've now been inscribed with World Heritage status...
Think of a Turkish mosque and what will spring to mind is likely to be İstanbul’s famous Blue Mosque, or one of the masterpieces of Sinan, the great 16th-century architect. But away from the Ottoman capital, stone and marble were considered luxury items. The locals built with the materials to hand, which, in the case of the west of the country, often meant wood.
Western Anatolia is home to a set of spectacular mosques, built in the 13th and 14th centuries during the little-known Beylik period, before the Ottoman conquest of Anatolia when what is now Türkiye was divided into many individual fiefdoms. These mosques carried the art of building in wood without using nails to great heights, their elaborately painted ceilings supported by columns created from single tree trunks, leading to their being nicknamed ‘forest mosques’. Now added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites, they offer wonderful alternative destinations for visitors keen to experience the real Türkiye.
The wooden structures inside Eşrefoğlu mosque are original (Alamy Stock Photo)
At the foot of the rock in Afyon lies the Ulu Cami (Shutterstock)
The standout winner in the finest forest-mosque stakes has to be the Eşrefoğlu Mosque in Beyşehir, which stands on the shores of the eponymous lake, 330 kilometres southwest of Ankara. Built in 1299, the mosque gives little away externally (although it does have part of a Roman sarcophagus embedded in its walls). Cross the threshold, however, and you step into a spectacular ‘forest’ of 42 columns, their elaborately carved ‘stalactite’ capitals supporting an exquisite ceiling. Everything here – the rafters, the capitals, the platforms provided for the emir and muezzin – is decorated with a delicate form of stencilling known as kalemişi (pencilwork). Only the black, white and turquoise tiles of the mihrab revert to more familiar Seljuk style.
One hundred and eighty-five kilometres north of Beyşehir, Afyon is dominated by a soaring rock topped with the remains of a castle, a great place to head to at sunset to listen to the call to prayer rolling around the town. Keeping a low profile at the foot of the rock is the Ulu Cami (Great Mosque), externally austere but metamorphosing internally into another breath-taking forest mosque dating back to 1272, its ceiling supported by 40 wooden columns. The surrounding streets are full of lovely late-Ottoman houses that are well worth exploring.
The exterior of Sivrihisar's Ulu Cami (Shutterstock)
The prayer hall inside Ankara's Aslanhane mosque (Alamy Stock Photo)
The small and very atmospheric town of Sivrihisar, 124 kilometres northeast of Afyon, attracts relatively few visitors despite being home to the forest mosque with the largest number of wooden columns, a full 67 of them holding up the raftered ceiling of an Ulu Cami built in 1275. Sivrihisar is just down the road from the remains of Roman Pessinus at Ballıhisar, and several of the columns perch on marble bases pilfered from the site in the years before modern enthusiasm for archaeology rendered such reuse unimaginable.
If you’re without a car, the Aslanhane Mosque in Ankara, 136 kilometres northeast of Sivrihisar, is by far the easiest of the forest mosques to visit, snuggling down on the hillside beneath the ancient Hisar (Castle) and conveniently close to the popular Archaeology Museum. Here, too, the columns of a mosque built in 1289-90 rest on stone bases presumably filched from the old Roman city, other traces of which pop up on and around the foot of the hill.
The trickiest to reach without a car is the small Mahmutbey Mosque in the remote village of Kasaba, 250 kilometres northeast of Ankara, near Kastamonu. Built belatedly in 1366, it boasts a mere four wooden columns which robs it of the ‘forest’ feeling of its fellows. Instead, an elaborate gallery adds to the stunning visual feast: every surface is decorated with delicate orange and red kalemişi and the incredible painted rafters of the ceiling evoke those of some of England’s finest medieval churches. Alas, its remoteness left the mosque painfully vulnerable to theft; after its wooden door was stolen then recovered, the decision was made to house it more securely in the 19th-century Liva Paşa Konağı museum in Kastamonu.
Mahmutbey Mosque (Shutterstock)
Location: Beyşehir is a 1.5-hour drive from Antalya with Afyon a 2.5-hour drive further north. Afyon is a 1.5-hour drive from Sivrihisar which is a 1.5-hour drive to Ankara. Kastamonu is a three-hour drive from Ankara.
Getting there: There are international airports at Antalya and Ankara.
Getting around: Buses run from Antalya Otogar (bus station) to Beyşehir or from the AŞTİ terminal in Ankara to Beyşehir, Afyon, Sivrihisar and Kastamonu. The best way to visit all the mosques is to hire a car in Antalya or Ankara.
Accommodation: In Beyşehir the Anamas Hotel offers standard accommodation. In the centre of Afyon, the delightful small Şehitöglu Konağı occupies a converted Ottoman house; alternatively, drive out of town to a nearby thermal hotel to test the waters. In Ankara an old han near the Hisar has been converted into the lovely Divan Hotel. Sivirhisar has only limited accommodation. There’s none at all in Kasaba.
Further info: goturkiye.com
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