Located in the plain of the river Drin, not that far from the river itself, the mosque has been prone to
flood damage over the centuries. It is in the quarter known as Bahçallek, at
the foot of the large outcrop on which is built the fortress of Shkodër, more
popularly known as Rozafa Castle.
The mosque was built on the orders of
Mehmet Pasha Bushati in 1773/4. During the second half of the 18th
century, the area of modern Albania was more or less divided into two great
Pashaliks (administrative divisions) of the Ottoman Empire. Thanks partly to the remoteness of this most
western part of the Empire, the power of Istanbul was reduced and Mehmet Pasha
in the north and Ali Pasha of Tepelene in the south were able to expand their allotted
territories and become increasingly autonomous.
Mehmet Bushati rose to the position of
Pasha or governor after exploiting a power struggle between two rival families
of Shkodër, the Caushlli and Begolli. The feud, over a period of 20 years, had considerably
harmed the local economy and affected the trade and manufacturing on which the
livelihood of Shkodër depended. From his
base as leader of the leather workers, Mehmet gained the support of other
tradesmen and managed to break the power of the two families. He was rewarded
with the governorship, or ‘Pashalik’, of Shkodër by Sultan Mustafa III in 1757.
At first a faithful servant to the Sultan,
he administered his regions and served in Ottoman campaigns, but from 1768 he
also began to capture lands outside his governorship without the permission of
the Porte. This led to an increasingly tense relationship until Mehmet Pasha’s
death in 1775.
The Lead Mosque was built in 1773-4, just a
year before the death of the Pasha.
There are several traditions attached to the building of the mosque, one
of which is that it was built on land owned by the Catholic Church. If this is
true, it is another example of how Mehmet Pasha used this mosque to show his
power over the city of Shkoder and beyond. It is said that he personally
supervised aspects of its construction, watching from the castle and coming
down the steep path to make his daily visits.
The Lead Mosque is the largest historic
mosque in Albania, and the only one that is built around a courtyard. Inner
courtyards are a feature usually found in imperial Ottoman mosques. With the
design of this mosque Mehmet Pasha is emphasizing his power and pretensions,
and the strength of the Bushati dynasty (which was to continue until 1831).
The stone for the construction came from
the nearby village of Gur i Zi, and legend has it that a human chain was formed
from the village to the construction site to transport the stone.
The original dedicatory inscription above
the door to the prayer hall no longer survives, but its replacement records
that the mosque was repaired in 1863-64 under the care of Haxhi Mahmut
Berberi. The first imam of the mosque
was Egyptian, Haxhi Ahmet Misria. Sometime after the 1864 repairs, the custody
of the mosque passed to the Tabaku family of Muftis, and has remained with them
to the present day, under Hafiz Isuf Tabaku. The mosque was closed during the
cultural revolution of 1967, and the minaret pulled down, but mosque escaped
further destruction perhaps because it had been designated a Cultural Monument
in 1948.
As noted, the mosque has a number of
peculiarities that emphasize Mehmet Pasha’s ambitions. The courtyard columns are each cut from a
single block of stone, and the courtyard itself roofed with domes originally covered
with lead, a technique common in high-status buildings. The lead has long since
been removed (any remaining in 1916 was taken by the Austrian army) and
replaced with concrete and zinc.
The main prayer hall is approached across the
courtyard. The prayer hall is square and the qibla wall has
a polygonal apse containing the mihrab. The polygonal apse for the mihrab is a
feature used by the court architect Sinan Pasha in the 16th century
and its use here shows, once again, the inspiration of imperial architecture.
Any wall paintings or calligraphic designs decorating the walls were
whitewashed after 1967.
The prayer hall has a single high dome, and
the drum is pierced with windows. It feels spacious and light. The hall is
flanked externally by porticoes roofed with small cupolas, and although they
are not symmetrical and the building plan is irregular, it still has a very
pleasing and harmonious appearance. The mosque’s minaret is attached to the
south side of the building, but now only the base remains.
The Lead Mosque was the first mosque to
reopen in Albania: on 16th November 1990 a religious rally was held
there by Hafiz Sabri Koçi after 23 years of state atheism. Photographs of the
huge crowd that attended are on display in the courtyard. Mehmet Bushati would
surely have been pleased to see the throng of people around the mosque that he
had built.
 |
| Photo taken 16th November 1990 |
There is a story that Mehmet Pasha not only
oversaw the work, but actually worked on its construction in order to show his
piety. It is said that a villager came to the construction site to find the
Pasha. He wanted to file a personal complaint and thought that he would catch
him at the site. He looked amongst the workers but couldn’t see the Pasha, and
so asked one of the workers where he was. The worker told him to wait a while.
When the worker’s task was completed, he took up his robes, and the villager
was surprised to see that it was the Pasha himself. The petitioner was touched by the humility of
the governor who had worked alongside others in simple robes.
The legend seeks to emphasize the humility
of the Pasha, but the physical remains of the Lead Mosque, with its imperial
architectural echoes, tell a different story.
Gilkes, O., Albania An Archaeological Guide, I.B.Tauris, 2013, 267-276
Manahasa, E., The Existing Mosques Built During Ottoman Period in Albania, Msc Thesis, Istanbul Technical University
Comments
Post a Comment