Dictionary of islamic architecture

partly on the status of a particular building.
Bulgaria can be divided into two main regions
on the basis of Ottoman architecture: Bulgarian
Thrace and the area of the Danube (Danubia).
Bulgarian Thrace was the first area conquered by the
Ottomans and so has a higher proportion of Ottoman
buildings than the rest of the country.
Bulgarian Thrace
One of the oldest Islamic structures in Bulgaria is
the turba of Lal Sahin Pasa in Kazanlik, thought to
date from the mid-fourteenth century. The turba is
an open, domed canopy supported on piers; the
entire structure is made out of baked brick.
Most of the surviving Ottoman buildings,
however, are in the major cities. Some of the best
examples can be found in Plovdiv (Turkish Filibe
and Byzantine Philippopolis) in the south-east of
Bulgaria near Turkish Thrace. Here the Ottomans
founded a new Muslim settlement outside the walls
of the Christian one. The focal points of the city
were the two mosques located at either end of the
city centre. The older of these is the Cumaya Cami
or Great Mosque built by Murad II in the 1420s
which is reputedly one of the largest and most
important mosques in the Balkans. It has nine bays
roofed by three central domes and six wooden
vaults, and beneath the central dome is a pool or
fountain. In general the building resembles that of
the Sehadet Cami in Bursa built in 1365. To the south
of the Great Mosque is the Zaviye Cami or Imaret
Mosque built in 1440 which formed the core of a
commercial district with a bedestan and hammam.
The Ottoman town of Filibe was developed
between these two mosques and a main street was
built to link the two.
To the east of Filibe is the city of Yambol which
was established after the Ottoman conquests in
1365. Probably the most important monument at
Yambol is the Eski Cami built between 1375 and
1385. This consists of a single-domed unit built of
brick and ashlar masonry in the Byzantine and early
Ottoman style. In the mid-fifteenth century rooms
were added on to the sides and a square minaret
was also added. At Yambol too is one of the best
preserved examples of an early Ottoman bedestan.
This consists of a long hall roofed by four domes
and entered through the middle of the long sides.
On the outside of the building are thirty vaulted
rooms or shop units.
North and West Bulgaria (Danubia)
Outside Thrace Ottoman buildings tended to have
more local characteristics. In the area of Danubia a