ARCHITECT ATLAS
Loading atlas
Great Mosque of Diyarbakır

Great Mosque of Diyarbakır

Hibatallah of Gurgan

Photo: R Prazeres · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Location
Sur, Diyarbakır, Turkey
Client / Owner
Malik-Shah I
Year
Completed 1092
Access
Public
Typology
Spiritual
Style
Islamic

The Great Mosque of Diyarbakır stands in the old city of Sur. The Seljuk sultan Malik-Shah I commissioned it, and the oldest inscription, on the prayer hall's west facade, dates construction to 1091 and 1092. The article names Hibatallah of Gurgan as its only recorded architect, who supervised the courtyard decoration and completed the prayer hall in 1155 and 1156. The infobox gives the style as Islamic and Seljuk. It holds up to 5,000 worshippers.

A lightning fire in 1115 severely damaged it. After the Ottoman conquest in 1515, a smaller Shafi'i prayer hall was added in 1528 and 1529. The present minaret was rebuilt in 1839, and the courtyard fountain was added in 1849.

The basalt-paved courtyard reuses Byzantine columns and Corinthian capitals. The story of a church once shared with Muslims is disputed, and some scholars call it apocryphal. The main entrance is on the east side.

Comments

  • Loading comments…
Be kind. Anyone can flag a comment for review.

Sign in

or

Your profile

3 to 24 letters, numbers, underscores or periods. It’s shown with your comments.

Contact us

Questions, corrections or ideas? Your message goes straight to the Architect Atlas owner.

Save to list

    Edit information

    We look the building up on Wikipedia for you. Architect Atlas lists buildings that have their own Wikipedia article: our test for notoriety and our source of truth.

        Typology
        Style (one to three)
        Photo (shown in a 4:3 frame)

        Drag and zoom to frame the building well. New photos are checked before they appear.

        Every change is checked before it goes live: facts against Wikipedia, photos by eye.