Just east of Merzifon, at the entrance to the village that today bears the name Karamustafapaşa, the Abide Hatun Mosque rises on a sloping hill and at first gives the impression of an unassuming provincial mosque. With walls laid in alternating courses of brick and cut stone, a tiled timber roof and a single brick minaret, it differs little at first sight from the mosques found in many Anatolian villages. Once one steps through the door, however, that impression changes: the beams of the wooden ceiling over the prayer hall, the eaves of the women's gallery and the brackets are painted from end to end with kalem işi, the Ottoman technique of hand-painted ornament. The mosque was built by Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha, one of the best-known grand viziers in Ottoman history, in the village of his birth and in the name of his mother, Abide Hatun. It is therefore at once a well-preserved example of seventeenth-century provincial architecture and a personal memorial left to his homeland by the statesman remembered for the Siege of Vienna.

Location and the Name of the Village

The mosque stands in the village of Karamustafapaşa in the Merzifon district of Amasya province. The village lies a few kilometres east of the district centre and a little over forty kilometres from the city of Amasya. Sources give the distance from Merzifon variously as between two and four kilometres; Hüseyin Hüsameddin writes that the village lies about two kilometres to the northeast of the town. Named today after Kara Mustafa Pasha, who was born there, the settlement has been known by other names in the course of its history. In older records and in local usage it appears as Marınca, in the records of 1928 as Mirince or Marınca, and in those of 1960 as Bahçekent. Hicabi Gülgen, who studied the mosque in detail, refers to the village as Nârince and published the building under the title "Nârince Âbide Hâtun Câmii". The village today has a population of around two hundred.

The name Marınca also caught the attention of the Amasya historian Hüseyin Hüsameddin. In his Amasya Tarihi (History of Amasya) he links Marınca with "Marsivan", one of the old names of Merzifon, and suggests that the ancient town preceding Merzifon may have stood on the site of this village. He also notes that in old Ottoman land surveys Marınca was listed as a quarter of the town of Merzifon. This etymology and settlement history are the author's own conjecture and are not accepted as a documented view; they are nonetheless worth mentioning, since they show how closely the village has long been bound up with Merzifon. The phrase Hüsameddin uses for the village, "maskat-ı re's", that is, "place of birth", states plainly that Kara Mustafa Pasha was born here.

Abide Hatun and Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha

Very little is recorded about Abide Hatun herself. What is known comes largely from accounts of her son's life. Kara Mustafa Pasha was born in 1044 (1634-35) in the village of Marınca. His father, Oruç Bey, was one of the timar-holding cavalrymen (sipahis) of the district and fell during Murad IV's siege of Baghdad. Left fatherless at the age of four, Mustafa was taken under the protection of Köprülü Mehmed Bey, later Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, who was then sanjak governor of Amasya and a friend of his father, and was brought up together with Köprülü's own sons. The sources also preserve another tradition, according to which Mustafa was the son of a sipahi named Derviş, was born in 1036 (1626-27), and entered Köprülü's service at the age of eighteen. That his mother's name was Abide Hatun is known with certainty from the inscription her son placed on this mosque. The inscription calls Abide Hatun "merhûme", "the late", which shows that she was no longer living when the building was completed.

Kara Mustafa Pasha rose in the household of the Köprülü family and became one of its sons-in-law by marrying a daughter of Köprülü Mehmed Pasha. Beginning as sword-bearer and as the official who presented petitions to the sultan, he went on to serve as second master of the horse and as beylerbey (governor-general) of Silistre and Diyarbekir; between 1661 and 1666 he was grand admiral, and during the campaigns of Köprülüzade Fazıl Ahmed Pasha he was several times appointed deputy grand vizier in the capital. He took part in the Kamaniçe (Kamianets) campaign and in 1672 conducted the negotiations for the Treaty of Buczacz with Poland. On the death of Fazıl Ahmed Pasha he became grand vizier on 28 Şaban 1087 (5 November 1676); he took the fortress of Chyhyryn (Çehrin) in 1678 and laid siege to Vienna in 1683. After the siege ended in the rout of 12 September 1683, and with his rivals at court working against him, he was executed in Belgrade on 25 December 1683 by order of Mehmed IV. That the pasha never broke his ties with his homeland is clear from the large complex he built in Merzifon and from this mosque in the village of his birth.

In the Ottoman world it was a long-established custom for statesmen and members of the dynasty to build mosques, small mosques, fountains or schools in the name of their mothers. Merzifon itself has examples of this tradition: Devlet Hatun, mother of Mehmed I (Çelebi Mehmed), is known to have founded an imaret (public kitchen), a mosque and a dervish lodge in the town in 1419. The Abide Hatun Mosque, a pious endowment (waqf) established by a grand vizier in his provincial birthplace to keep his mother's memory alive, is one of the seventeenth-century provincial expressions of this custom. That it was built in a village, and with a care beyond the village's own scale, also shows how a grand vizier's rise was reflected in his homeland.

Date of Construction and the Inscription

The sources give the date of construction in different ways, and the difference matters for understanding the building's history. Immediately above the main portal, set into the wall, is the foundation inscription, carved in relief on a marble slab in monumental celî sülüs (thuluth) script. It consists of two lines arranged in four panels, with two small rosettes of equal size placed between the lines. The text, which survives intact in its original form, is in Arabic and, as read by Gülgen, runs as follows: "Kad benâ hâze'l-câmia'ş-şerîfe es-sadru'l-âlî Mustafa Paşa / Li-ecli vâlidetihi'l-merhûme Âbide Hâtun / Fî zemeni Sultan Mehmed Hân ibni's-Sultan İbrâhim Hân / Li-seneti ihdâ ve tis'în ve elf." In English: The grand vizier Mustafa Pasha built this noble mosque for his late mother Abide Hatun in the time of Sultan Mehmed Han, son of Sultan İbrahim Han, in the year 1091.

The year 1091 in the inscription corresponds to 1680, and the Sultan Mehmed it names is Mehmed IV. Kara Mustafa Pasha's endowment deed likewise records that the mosque was built in the name of his mother Abide Hatun. Hüseyin Hüsameddin, however, gives the date of construction as 1087 (1676) and tells the story slightly differently: according to him, in 1087 Kara Mustafa Pasha enlarged the small mosque that his mother Abide Hatun had built in his native village of Marınca, turned it into a congregational mosque and added a school beside it. Some descriptive texts give the date of construction as 1669. The fact that the inscription styles Mustafa Pasha "es-sadru'l-âlî", that is, grand vizier, suggests that it dates from after November 1676, when he took office; this weakens the date of 1669, whereas Hüsameddin's 1676 and the inscription's 1680 lie close together. The two dates could also be explained by work beginning in 1676 and ending in 1680, but there is no document to confirm this.

Some descriptions state that the mosque was built by Abide Hatun in the early seventeenth century. Given that Kara Mustafa Pasha was born in 1634-35, it seems impossible for the building in its present form to date from the beginning of the century; according to its inscription it belongs to the last quarter of the century. The only record of a building commissioned by Abide Hatun herself is the small mosque mentioned by Hüsameddin and later enlarged, and when that building was erected is not known. There is no repair inscription anywhere in the mosque, so the building's later history has to be reconstructed largely from architectural evidence and from what the villagers relate.

General Appearance and Setting

The mosque sits on the sloping hill at the entrance to the village. Because of the gradient, retaining walls were built along its south and west sides, stepping down to the southwest corner where the slope is deepest. These terraced retaining walls and the hilltop position lend an unexpected dignity to a simple village mosque, which catches the eye of anyone approaching from afar. Bounded by roads on all four sides, the mosque is enclosed on the east and north by its courtyard and courtyard walls, which hide the building from view on those sides. Together with its courtyard, ablution fountain, school, latrines and woodshed, the mosque occupies a total area of 1,802 square metres.

In seventeenth-century Ottoman religious architecture, alongside single-domed masonry mosques, a type with a timber roof set on walls of alternating brick and stone also became widespread. The Abide Hatun Mosque is one of the examples of this group identified by the architectural historian Zeynep Nayır. The main block is a rectangular prism, and together with the minaret projecting from it, the red of the brick forms a harmonious whole with the yellowish dressed stone used in the minaret's pedestal and base. The east, west and south façades have two rows of windows; the lower ones are flat-lintelled and the upper ones have pointed-arched tympana. At the top, the body walls meet the timber roof through brick dentil cornices, and because these cornices project outward the roof cannot be seen from below.

Plan and Interior

The building consists of a rectangular prayer hall with a portico, the son cemaat yeri or late-comers' porch, added to the north. The prayer hall measures 13.10 metres in width and 18.60 metres in length; the porch added on the north measures 4.45 by 13 metres. One climbs from the courtyard to the porch by a recently built flight of three steps. In the present porch, on either side of the entrance axis, there is a prayer niche (mihrabiye) 2.15 metres high ending in a plain quarter-dome hood; beside each niche is a flat-lintelled window opening into the prayer hall.

On entering the prayer hall through the main portal, the women's gallery, which extends about five metres towards the qibla, and the side platforms raised one step above the floor along its length create the effect of an artificial corridor at the entrance. The gallery is reached by stairs concealed within the wall on either side of the portal. A door in the northwest corner of the ground floor leads to the minaret. Of the twenty-two windows set one above the other in the façade walls, seventeen are in use and light the interior well. In front of the mihrab the floor is raised by one step over a stretch of four metres. The mihrab stands in the middle of the south wall, with the minbar immediately to its west. Apart from the two wooden posts carrying the women's gallery, no supports divide the prayer hall. According to Gülgen, the absence of the many wooden posts usual in mosques of this type is due both to the lightness of the wooden ceiling and roof and to the moderate span of the space. The result is an airy, spacious interior that can be taken in at a single glance.

According to the congregation, the brick paving of the floor was removed in 1950, a concrete screed laid in its place and wooden parquet put down over it. All the façade walls were plastered on the inside and painted with plastic and oil paints. In the present appearance of the interior these recent interventions stand side by side with the original wooden ceiling.

Architectural Elements

The Main Portal

The main portal, built entirely of stone, is a segmental-arched opening 3 metres wide and 3.85 metres high including its outer borders. Half-round mouldings and borders frame the portal; between the segmental arch and the upper border band there are two blank panels, and the foundation inscription is set into the wall just above the borders. The opening of this rather plain portal is 2.27 metres high to the keystone and 1.55 metres wide; the recess formed by the thickness of the wall is covered above by a barrel vault. The real value of the portal lies in its wooden leaves. They combine curved-cut carving with inlay: the lower and upper panels are left plain, while in the middle panels geometric motifs formed by a continuous pattern of dodecagons are worked in inlay, with the spaces between and around them carved in the curved-cut technique. Some descriptions identify this work as kündekari, the Ottoman technique of interlocking wooden panels. Rosettes appear on the door frame. Gülgen also notes that the motifs have suffered unskilful repairs at a later date. On the inside the leaves rest against door jambs that project outward.

The courtyard is entered through an original gateway of dressed stone at the northeast corner of the mosque. On the outside the gateway sits within a barrel-vaulted recess, the actual opening at its centre is segmental-arched, and three steps lead down from the threshold stone into the courtyard. The leaves of this gateway are recent. The door of ordinary materials leading from the courtyard to the porch must also be a product of the repair of around 1950, together with the porch itself.

Windows

There are two rows of windows in the façades. Those of the lower row measure 1 by 1.55 metres, with pointed relieving arches and flat lintels; their tympana are filled with brickwork. Closed with iron grilles on the outside and wooden shutters on the inside, these windows number three each on the east and west façades and two each on the south and north. The upper windows measure 0.80 by 1.35 metres and have pointed-arched tympana; there are three on each façade. They are closed on the outside by new wooden lattices and on the inside by cast concrete grilles. The concrete grilles replaced plaster window screens that had decayed by 1994.

Mihrab, Minbar and Pulpits

The mihrab is not visible from outside, but on the inside it projects 0.25 metres from the wall. Worked entirely in plaster and stucco, it is 3.75 metres high and 2.87 metres wide. The five-lobed mihrab niche, ending in a quarter-sphere hood, is 3.20 metres high, 0.85 metres wide and 0.45 metres deep. A semi-geometric chain band surrounds the niche on three sides; between this chain and the outermost band framing the mihrab are geometric star motifs formed by a continuous pattern of octagons, with semi-stylised leaf motifs between them. Later coats of paint have obscured the contours of the motifs. On close inspection small asymmetries can also be made out, caused by the plaster layers not having been set precisely in place.

No trace of the original minbar survives; the present one is made of pine, chipboard and plywood and was renewed in 1990. The preaching chair (vaaz kürsüsü) stands on the east wall of the prayer hall, between the last two windows on the south. It is reached by a staircase concealed in the wall, entered through the opening of one of the lower windows of the east wall, and rises two metres above the floor. The openings at either end of the staircase are segmental-arched. The chair, 0.90 metres wide, projects 0.60 metres into the hall and is attached to the wall by a monolithic stone bracket set into it. The muezzin's platform, at the end of the women's gallery near the west wall, projects 1.50 metres into the hall; it is 2.34 metres wide and stands 0.30 metres above the floor of the gallery. Resting on the beam that carries the gallery by means of two-stepped corbelling, this platform has decoration on its underside showing the features of three different periods, and it has therefore provided the most important clues to the repairs the building has undergone.

The Women's Gallery

Running along the north wall, the women's gallery projects 4.85 metres into the prayer hall and stands 3 metres above the floor of the mosque. Resting on the walls on the north, east and west, the gallery is supported on the side of the hall by four wooden posts, two of them embedded in the wall. These T-headed wooden posts, which reach down to the floor, are the only elements dividing the interior. The style of the decoration shows that the gallery's panelling has been replaced, while its eaves and wooden posts are original. An older inventory publication states that the underside of the gallery was also decorated; today only the eaves carry ornament. Since no repair is known to have been made to the gallery in the meantime, either this point was overlooked or the eaves were what was meant. The doors from the prayer hall to the gallery stairs are plain and segmental-arched, whereas the doors opening onto the gallery above are crowned with carved stone hoods. According to Gülgen, this stonework resembles the door decoration of the bath in Merzifon known by Kara Mustafa Pasha's name; the similarity suggests that the two buildings may have come from the hands of craftsmen working in the same circle and in the same years.

The Minaret

The minaret adjoins the main block at the northern end of the west wall. Its staircase is reached through a segmental-arched door in the northwest corner of the prayer hall and a barrel-vaulted passage. The sixty-six-step staircase has a slit window opening to the south at every tenth step. The pedestal, measuring 3.25 by 4.50 metres, and the transition zone at the level of the upper windows are of dressed stone, while the shaft, balcony and upper shaft are entirely of brick. Where the shaft joins the transition zone and the balcony there are stone rings projecting slightly outward. Above the upper ring, five rows of dentil courses lead to the balcony. The difference in the brickwork and joints of the upper shaft shows that the part above the balcony has been repaired. The upper shaft is topped by a lead-covered conical cap and a finial. The minaret is 20 metres high from street level to the balcony and 29 metres to the finial.

Materials and Construction

Some descriptive texts state that the mosque is built of rubble stone. Gülgen's measured study gives a more detailed picture: the main load-bearing elements are walls in which three courses of brick alternate with one course of dressed stone. The south, east and west walls are 1.20 metres thick, and the north wall with the main portal is 1.50 metres thick. Dressed stone was used for the main portal, the corners of the body walls, the window and door jambs, the courtyard gateway and the pedestal and transition zone of the minaret. The pointed relieving arches of the lower windows, the tympanum panels of the upper windows, the shaft, balcony and upper shaft of the minaret, and the dentil cornices where the walls meet the roof are of brick. Rubble stone was used in the retaining walls and in the outer walls enclosing the courtyard.

The prayer hall is covered by a wooden ceiling with a timber roof above it. The ceiling beams, running north to south, rest on wooden brackets ranged along the walls and are fixed to them with cast nails. The beams covering the main space rest on the wall at the south, while at the north they rest on transverse intermediate beams at the level of the women's gallery eaves and, beyond this junction, continue in the same way to the north wall. Corbelling is used where the beams meet the wall and the intermediate bracket. The wooden corbels seen where the ceiling beams abut the wall and at the eaves of the muezzin's platform projecting from the women's gallery serve a structural purpose but also soften harsh lines by stepping the rise. The capitals of the posts in the women's gallery, the stone bracket of the preaching chair, the minaret balcony and the eaves of the outer walls at roof level, on the other hand, are more decorative than functional. Judging from the character of the decoration on the beams, only the beams covering the main space and the brackets on which they rest are original; the other beams, brackets and corbels, and the wainscoting that runs round the walls on all four sides, were added later. Pine was used in the original woodwork, pine and hornbeam in the later repairs. The tiled timber roof over the ceiling was last renewed in 1986.

The Painted Decoration

The real distinction of the mosque lies in the kalem işi decoration painted on the wooden ceiling of the prayer hall and on the woodwork of the women's gallery to the north. In terms of its ornament the building is counted among the finest Ottoman works, and the ceiling of wooden beams, the spaces between the beams and the ceiling of the women's gallery, carried on a thick beam to the north, are richly painted with plant and flower motifs. Gülgen's study showed that this decoration is not the product of a single period but bears, in its motifs and colours, the features of three distinct periods. Thanks to this finding, the mosque also takes on the character of a document in which the development of Ottoman painted ornament over time can be followed on a single ceiling.

The first and oldest group is the original decoration. The brackets on which the beams over the main space rest at the south and north, the beam transferring the load of the women's gallery to the wooden posts, the floorboards of the muezzin's platform and the motifs on all of these belong to this group. In these designs, which use red, green, white and blue, rumi (stylised split-leaf) and hatayi (stylised floral) motifs predominate. The motifs are painted on three faces of the beams and run continuously into one another so as to fill the whole space. This stylised idiom of classical Ottoman ornament belongs to the last quarter of the seventeenth century, when the building was erected.

In the second group stylisation diminishes and the flowers come closer to their natural forms. The panelling of the soffit of the women's gallery eaves and the infill between the corbels of the entire roofing system are filled with these motifs. In designs dominated by an orange-tinged red, pastel yellow and green on a white ground, naturalistic floral compositions are repeated. Tulip, carnation and poppy meet in a central daisy, and the gaps are filled with scattered leaf motifs. The motifs are framed by green and white chains. This naturalistic approach is related to the style that later became widespread in Ottoman book arts and in painted decoration on wood; for this comparison Gülgen draws on Yıldız Demiriz's study of naturalistic flowers and on research into the painted woodwork of Ankara's mosques.

The third group belongs to the most recent period and consists merely of imitations of the motifs of the second group. On an orange ground, the motifs of the previous period have been clumsily copied in yellow, red, blue and white. Apart from these, tulip, lily, rose and leaf motifs applied at random can be seen in some places. These motifs appear all round the wainscoting that encircles the ceiling like a band, except on its west and southwest sides; the blank sections there most probably belong to the repairs after the 1943 earthquake. The absence of decoration in some parts of the main space and under the women's gallery likewise points to repairs. Nowhere in the painted decoration is there a master's name or signature.

The mosque's second important area of ornament is the wooden leaves of the main portal described above; the third is the plasterwork of the mihrab. Taken together, these three areas show that the building, so plain from the outside, directed all its decorative effort inward, towards the ceiling and the door on which the congregation's eyes would rest. The contrast between the modesty of the exterior and the richness of colour inside is the strongest impression the mosque leaves on visitors.

Courtyard, Ablution Fountain and Primary School

The rubble-stone courtyard wall that encloses the north and east walls of the mosque along an asymmetrical line, the ablution fountain at the courtyard entrance and the latrines backing onto the northern courtyard wall date from 1985. The waste-water connection shows that the present latrines replaced older ones. There are a few pines and fruit trees in the courtyard. To the right of the courtyard entrance, along the north wall, stand the primary school (sıbyan mektebi), which has lost its original form through repairs, the latrines and the woodshed.

According to Hüsameddin's account, the school in the northeast of the courtyard was also built by Kara Mustafa Pasha. It is a regular rectangular building measuring 5 by 7.30 metres, running along the north wall. Its walls of dressed stone are one metre thick on every side and its floor is paved with brick. The roofing has been entirely altered; it has a segmental-arched door and two flat-lintelled windows. Described as a two-room masonry building, the school was in use as the imam's residence at the time of Gülgen's study. The existence of the school shows that, beyond serving as a place of worship, the mosque was conceived as the centre of a small endowed complex where the village children were taught reading, writing and the elements of religion. This small group of buildings, founded in Abide Hatun's name, remained at the centre of the village's religious and social life for centuries.

Earthquakes and Repairs

Merzifon and its surroundings lie on one of Turkey's major fault zones and an active fault line. In the twentieth century the region experienced the earthquakes of 1916, 1923, 1939, 1943 and 1944, for which damage assessments were made. According to the villagers and the congregation, the 1943 earthquake damaged the mosque's ceiling beams, roof eaves, porch, and the balcony and upper part of the minaret. The damage was repaired in 1949-1950 with the help of the villagers. In this last major repair the ceiling beams were put back in place, the side walls of the porch were rebuilt and the upper shaft of the minaret was restored in the same material. The brick paving of the prayer hall floor was replaced with concrete and wooden flooring, but the painted decoration was not touched at that time or later.

The present porch differs from the main block in its materials, masonry technique and style, and was rebuilt with load-bearing brick walls after the 1943 earthquake. It was built on two floors; the upper floor, reached by wooden beams extended from the crown of the main portal, is entered through the window opening of the women's gallery. According to the congregation, this floor was built to be used as a school but was never used and has remained idle. Embedded in the later walls of the porch facing the courtyard are four marble columns with identical capitals and bases. These columns show that there was formerly a colonnaded porch here, carried on four columns and covered by a sloping roof. A photograph taken after the 1943 earthquake clearly shows the damage to the porch.

More recent works have also been recorded: electrical wiring was installed in 1974; the ablution fountain, latrines and courtyard walls were rebuilt in 1985; the roof was renewed in 1986; the present minbar was installed in 1990; and in 1994 the decayed plaster window screens of the upper row were replaced with cast concrete grilles. In 1994 the mosque was also placed among the endowed monuments administered directly by the General Directorate of Foundations. Despite all these interventions the main plan has been preserved, and the changes have remained within limits that do not disturb the original layout. The mosque is still open for worship today.

Kara Mustafa Pasha's Other Works in Merzifon

The Abide Hatun Mosque is only one of the buildings Kara Mustafa Pasha erected in his homeland, and its meaning is better understood when it is seen within this wider building activity. Between 1666 and 1679 the pasha built a complex in the centre of Merzifon. Comprising the mosque known as the Paşa Camii, the Taşhan, a bedesten (covered market), a library, two baths and shops, this group left its mark on the town's physical appearance, and the water channels included among the pasha's endowments profoundly affected Merzifon's social and economic life. Hüseyin Hüsameddin relates that in 1090 the pasha built a solid masonry mosque in the middle of the town, with a timekeeper's room, a library, a lecture hall and an ablution fountain in front of it; that he brought water to the town through two kilometres of conduits from Taşan Dağı and built some thirty masonry fountains; and that he endowed a teaching post at the mosque.

The pasha's endowments and buildings were not confined to his homeland. Among his works are the complex on the Divanyolu at Çarşıkapı in Istanbul, comprising a madrasa, a small mosque, a library, a tomb (türbe) and a sebil, which he began and his son Ali Pasha completed; a mosque in Galata and a small mosque and han in Hocapaşa; a mosque, madrasa, library, bath and caravanserai at İncesu near Kayseri; a han, bath and mosque in Jeddah; and a palace and fountains in Edirne. He also established endowments in Kamaniçe, Çorum, Tokat, İzmir and Aleppo. Within this vast building programme the mosque at Marınca is modest in scale, but its dedication directly to the pasha's mother gives it a place of its own. That he built a mosque for his mother in his native village at a time when his Merzifon complex was under construction, during the most brilliant years of his grand vizierate, is a concrete expression of his attachment to his homeland and family.

Visiting

Because it lies so close to the centre of Merzifon, the Abide Hatun Mosque can easily be combined with a visit to the town. Going on to the village after seeing Kara Mustafa Pasha's works in the town, such as the Paşa Camii, the Taşhan and the bedesten, allows one to see the buildings he left to his homeland as a whole. As the mosque is an active village mosque, it is best to visit outside prayer times and during daylight hours; daylight matters for seeing the painted ceiling well. It is advisable to plan transport to the village in advance. Inside, the ceiling beams of the main space, the eaves of the women's gallery and the underside of the muezzin's platform are the best places to see the different periods of decoration side by side; the wooden leaves of the main portal and the inscription above it also repay close inspection.

Chronology

1044 (1634-35): Kara Mustafa Pasha is born in the village of Marınca near Merzifon, the son of Oruç Bey and Abide Hatun (according to another tradition he was born in 1036/1626-27).

1666-1679: Kara Mustafa Pasha builds his complex in the centre of Merzifon, comprising a mosque, the Taşhan, a bedesten, a library and baths.

1669: The year given as the date of construction of the mosque in some descriptive texts.

5 November 1676: Kara Mustafa Pasha becomes grand vizier.

1087 (1676): According to Hüseyin Hüsameddin, the pasha enlarges the small mosque built by Abide Hatun into a congregational mosque and adds a school beside it.

1091 (1680): The date in the foundation inscription; the mosque is completed in the name of the late Abide Hatun.

25 December 1683: Following the defeat at Vienna, Kara Mustafa Pasha is executed in Belgrade.

1916, 1923, 1939, 1943, 1944: Damaging earthquakes in Merzifon and its surroundings.

1943: The earthquake damages the ceiling beams, roof eaves, porch and upper part of the minaret.

1949-1950: Repairs with the help of the villagers; the porch is rebuilt in brick on two floors, and concrete and wooden parquet are laid on the floor.

1974: Electrical wiring is installed.

1985: The ablution fountain, latrines and courtyard walls are rebuilt.

1986: The tiled timber roof is renewed.

1990: The present minbar is installed.

1994: Concrete grilles replace the plaster window screens of the upper row; the mosque is placed among the monuments administered by the General Directorate of Foundations.

2003: Hicabi Gülgen's measured study of the mosque is published.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Hüseyin Hüsameddin. Amasya Tarihi, vol. I, Istanbul 1928, p. 327 (section on Merzifon and Marınca).

Academic studies

Official sources

Other sources

  • Kültür Envanteri. "Abide Hatun Camii". https://kulturenvanteri.com/yer/abide-hatun-camii/
  • "Merzifon Abide Hatun Camii" and "Karamustafapaşa, Merzifon". Turkish Wikipedia (supplementary source). https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merzifon_Abide_Hatun_Camii
  • Sources used by Gülgen: Zeynep Nayır, Osmanlı Mimarlığında Sultan Ahmet Külliyesi ve Sonrası (1609-1690), Istanbul 1975; A. Aziz Taşan, "Merzifon", Önasya Mecmuası, no. 2, 1979; Türkiye'de Vakıf Abideler ve Eski Eserler, vol. I, Ankara 1983; E. Ayhan, Türkiye ve Dolaylarında Deprem Kataloğu (1881-1980), Istanbul 1980.

Online sources