Islam in Europe: Wooden Prayer Spaces of Ottoman Thrace (Bulgaria and Greece) – Testimony to a Spiritual Continuum
At the beginning of the 20th century, Lieutenant-Colonel F.R. Maunsell, Military Attache to the British Consulate in Istanbul, travelled extensively through the south-eastern Balkans while surveying areas of the Ottoman Empire penetrated by Russia during the conflicts of the second half of the 19th century. In 1906, he gave a lecture to the Royal Geographical Society in London on “The Rhodope Balkans”, the mountainous core of what historically has been known as Thrace, and is now shared by southern Bulgaria, north-eastern Greece and the far west of European Turkey.
Maunsell observed that the Rhodope, “form a part of European Turkey curiously little known … seldom penetrated by travelers and since the stirring times of the war of 1878, when some of the Turkish columns retreated through its passes, and its feudal beys organized a force to descend on the Russian line of communications, the country has remained forgotten. … Its chief beauty, especially in the centre and west, lies in its pine-clad summits and slopes, enclosing pleasant valleys, upland meadows watered by many rills, along which are villages of log-built houses, whose wooden roofs and general outline would remind one of the Tyrol, were it not for an irregularity of shape that must be oriental, and for the wooden tower of the minaret above the trees.” Further east, in the upland frontier zone between Bulgaria and Turkey, he similarly noted, “… dense masses of pine and beech forest, by open grassy uplands and glades, through which flow many small streams … A glimpse of the wooden roofs and minarets of a village can be obtained, as well as its outlying forms and sheepfolds, which are occupied for the summer pasturage.”
These are the first written records of the popular architecture of this lush, fertile Muslim region. Wood was the prevailing material in both domestic and religious buildings. A fine example of a vernacular wooden mosque from the first century of Ottoman colonisation survives in the village of Podkova in the south-central Bulgarian Rhodope near the border with Greece. Dated 1435, it is known locally as the “Mosque of the Seven Maidens (Джамията на седемте моми)”. It is remarkably similar in overall appearance, structure, proportions and modest interior furnishings to a number of the early single story vernacular wooden mosques of the Çarşamba district of the Samsun region of the northern Black Sea coast of Turkey, e.g. Şeyh Habil Camii (dated by dendrochronology to 1204 and 1205-1211), Gökceli Camii (dated also by this technique to 1206) and Ordu Köyü Camii (1420). Another similar building a little further to the east also has wooden constructional elements dating from the same general period as the Podkova mosque: Eski Camii in Ikizce, Ünye district, Ordu province (its dendrochronological dates include 1395, 1416, 1427 and 1437 ).
Among the Muslim colonists settled by early Ottoman sultans in Thrace after their conquests were those from areas near Samsun relocated under Sultan Mehmet I in the early 15th century. It is not unreasonable to suggest that among them were those who built mosques like those of their homelands when they settled in similar natural environments.
A little before the wooden mosque of Podkova was built, a large Ottoman imperial mosque was being completed in the city of Didymoticho on the eastern fringes of the Rhodope. Known in Turkey as the Çelebi Sultan Mehmet Camii and in Greece as the Bayezit Mosque, it is the largest historical mosque in Europe east of mediaeval Muslim Spain and one of the continent’s most important Islamic monuments.
Now a regional centre of Greek Thrace close to the modern border with Turkey, Didymoticho was first captured by the Ottomans in 1359 and served for a time as the Ottoman capital before this was shifted to Edirne and then to Istanbul. Construction of the massive stone mosque was begun by Sultan Bayezit I (1360-1403) and completed by Sultan Mehmet I (1389-1421) in 1420. Its central prayer space was originally spanned by twin masonry domes. However, these collapsed and the building was subsequently given a pyramidal roof supported by a substantial wooden structure dated by dendrochronology to 1439.
The mosque’s central prayer space was covered with a large wooden cupola formed of steam-curved wooden ribs to which were applied small polygonal-shaped wooden pieces forming chevron-patterned segments. Tragically, the ceiling was destroyed by fire on 22 March 2017. Considered to be of 17th century date, it was among the most important wooden monuments in Europe.
There have long been questions as to whether the cupola was a unique creation or derived from some as-yet-unidentified building or style. Overlooked is the possibility is that it may have been the work of a Morisco craftsman or craftsmen, among the many thousands of Muslim countrymen who moved to Thrace and Rumeli following their expulsion from Spain in 1609. Although the technique used is simpler, the overall effect and coloration of the cupola’s decoration recalls examples of the exquisite and complex Mudejar and Morisco wooden dome and ceilings of Spain and the Spanish American colonies in which they also ultimately found refuge.
Today, in reviewing the now extensive evidence of the rich heritage of vernacular wooden mosque architecture in the north-east of Turkey and Adjara in Georgia, it is apparent that there is a relationship to interior domes of similar basic construction in a number of these buildings.
They include the following mosques in the Samsun region of Turkey: Yavaş Bey Camii (Salipazari district) - 1890; Şehitler Camii (Salipazari district) - 1890; Aşagi Söğütlü Camii (Terme district) - 19th century and Paşayazi Köyü Camii (Çarşamba district) - 1906. It is considered that these were derived from earlier examples in the region. Those with interior wooden domes in Adjara, Georgia include: the village mosques of Ghorjomi, Chao, Purtio, Zeda Tkhilvana and Tago (Khulo district); Dghvani and Chvana (Shuakevi district): Kvirike (Kebulati district); Uchketi (Khelvachuri district); and Pirveli Maisi, Tskhmorisi and Zundaga (Keda district). They range in date from the 1860s to 1915.
(to be continued)
