Kosovo's Ottoman mosques, town by town

Ottoman mosques are the other half of Kosovo’s religious heritage, and often the easier half to see, because they stand in the middle of towns rather than out in the hills. Here’s which ones have an official record, what date it gives them and which I’d put on a route.

How many, and where

As far as I could find, there’s no official count of every mosque in Kosovo. What there is, though, is the Ministry of Culture heritage database (DTK), with 49 entries covering mosques, minarets that outlived their mosque and complexes built around one. Prizren accounts for 16, Peja and Gjakova six each, Pristina five and Gjilan four. Most date from the 16th or 19th centuries.

That spread tells you where to look. The towns with an Ottoman bazaar kept their mosques right in the centre, and you can see nearly all of them from outside on a stroll.

Pristina and Peja, the oldest dated

In Pristina, the Imperial Mosque in Pristina, also known as the King’s or Great Mosque, has a six-line inscription in Arabic script over the door fixing its construction in 1461, on the orders of Sultan Mehmed II. It’s the earliest written date I’ve seen on any of these records. Close by, the DTK places the Çarshi Mosque in the early 15th century, though without an inscription, while the Jashar Pasha Mosque owes its present look to a 19th-century overhaul paid for by Jashar Pasha himself.

In Peja, the Bajrakli Mosque in Peja went up in the heart of the old bazaar, where the open-air market used to be. Its record says Mehmed II funded this one too, and describes a single-space building with a dome and minaret.

Once your dates are set, check which hotels are still free in Prizren before prices climb.

Prizren, the town of mosques

Prizren is where you’ll see most. Sinan Pasha Mosque was commissioned by Sofi Sinan Pasha in 1615, and the DTK rates it among the town’s most distinctive monuments for its position, dome and minaret. Older still is the Kukli Mehmed Bey Mosque of 1531, a square 9 by 9 m building in the Saraçhane quarter next to the Halveti tekke.

My favourite oddity is the Arasta minaret. The mosque was built between 1526 and 1538 in the row of shops that gave it its name, and traders used it for prayer. In the 20th century the mosque and its quarter were knocked down to make way for blocks of flats, leaving only the minaret, restored in 1970, with a Star of David carved into its shaft.

Gjakova, Gjilan and the tekkes

In Gjakova, Hadum Mosque dates from 1585 and stands at the heart of a complex that also has a minaret, a Koranic school, graveyard and a library the DTK counts among Kosovo’s oldest, at the crossing of the two main streets of the great bazaar. Out east, the Atik Mosque in Gjilan, finished in 1606 or 1609, still has wall paintings in its dome.

Alongside the mosques stands the architecture of the dervish orders. The DTK lists thirteen tekkes, spread across Gjakova, Prizren, Rahovec, Mitrovica and Kamenica, among them the Gjakova tekke of Sheikh Danjolli and Sheikh Zenel’s at Topanicë, from 1754.

If you would rather have a local show you round, book a guided tour in Prizren and choose by the reviews.

Before you go in

No official source publishes visiting hours or rules for these mosques, and most are still used for worship. I’d avoid prayer times, dress so that shoulders and knees are covered, leave my shoes where the locals leave theirs and check before photographing the interior. If you find the door locked, most are still worth the walk for the outside alone.

Once your dates are set, check which hotels are still free in Prizren before prices climb.