page_title: Selimiye Mosque, Nicosia
section_title: Ottoman period
hierarchical_section_title: Selimiye Mosque, Nicosia / History / Ottoman period
caption_attribution_description: Ελληνικά: To τέμενος Σελιμιγιέ το Φθινόπωρο του 1878English: Selimiye Mosque in 1878 autumn
context_page_description: Selimiye Mosque, historically known as Cathedral of Saint Sophia or Ayasofya Mosque, is a former Roman Catholic cathedral converted into a mosque, located in North Nicosia. It has historically been the main mosque of the city. The Selimiye Mosque is housed in the largest and oldest surviving Gothic church in Cyprus possibly constructed on the site of an earlier Byzantine church.
  In total, the mosque has a capacity to hold 2500 worshipers with 1750 m² available for worship. It is the largest surviving historical building in Nicosia, and according to sources, it "may have been the largest church built in the Eastern Mediterranean in the millennium between the rise of Islam and the late Ottoman period". It was the coronation church for the Lusignan kings of Cyprus.
context_section_description: During the 50-day Ottoman siege of the city in 1570, the cathedral provided refuge for a great number of people. When the city fell on 9 September, Francesco Contarini, the Bishop of Paphos, delivered the last Christian sermon in the building, in which he asked for divine help and exhorted the people. The cathedral was stormed by Ottoman soldiers, who broke the door and killed the bishop along with others. They smashed or threw out Christian items, such as furniture and ornaments in the cathedral and destroyed the choir as well as the nave. Then, they washed the interior of the mosque to make it ready for the first Friday prayer that it would host on 15 September, which was attended by the commander Lala Mustafa Pasha and saw the official conversion of the cathedral into a mosque. During the same year, the two minarets were added, as well as Islamic features such as the mihrab and the minbar.
  The first imam of the mosque was Moravizade Ahmet Efendi, who hailed from the Morea province of the Ottoman Empire. All imams maintained the tradition of climbing the stairs to the minbar before Friday sermons while leaning on a sword used during the conquest of Nicosia to signify that Nicosia was captured by conquest.
  Following its conversion, the mosque became the property of the Sultan Selim Foundation, which was responsible for maintaining it. Other donors formed a number of foundations to help with the maintenance. Okçuzade Mehmed Paşa, a governor of Cyprus in the 16th century, donated a shop to provide income for the Sultan Selim Foundation; other donations include estates in the countryside and other shops. The foundation employed trustees (mütevelli) to look after the funds and transferred 40,000 akçe annually to Medina in late 16th century. During the Ottoman period, it was the largest mosque in the whole island, and was used weekly by the Ottoman governor, administrators and elite for the Friday prayers. In the late 18th century, a large procession that consisted of the leading officials in the front on horseback, followed by lower-ranking officials on foot, came to the mosque every Friday.
  The Friday prayers also attracted a large number of Muslims from Nicosia and surrounding villages. Due to the crowds frequenting the mosque, a market developed next to it and the area became a trade center. The area around the mosque became a center of education as well, with madrasahs such as the Great Madrasah and Little Madrasah being built nearby.
  In 1874, upon rumours that Sultan Abdülaziz would visit Nicosia, a new gate, called the "Aziziye Gate" after the sultan, was built at the east end of the building. The gate was an enlargement of a pre-existing Lusignan window on the site, and pieces of marble and other material from the surroundings were used in its construction. The decorations of the gate include an inscription by calligrapher Es-Seyyid Ahmet Şukri Efendi, the calligraphy teacher of the local high school. The inscription consists of a praise of the sultan and mentions that the gate was built on Abdülaziz's orders by Nazif Pasha. It is surrounded by two ornate figures depicting cypress trees. The gate was afterwards used as the women's entrance, and later fell into disuse, remaining permanently locked.
caption: Selimiye Mosque in 1878, immediately after the British takeover of the city
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-TZ2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "ACD Systems Digital Imaging", "Image DateTime": "2009:12:14 22:14:29", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "216", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "7584", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7586", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/50", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:09:04 11:45:02", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:09:04 11:45:02", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "86/25", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "26/5", "EXIF SubSecTime": "199", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2080", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1528", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "7504", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "32", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Soft", "EXIF Sharpness": "Soft"}