Dictionary of islamic architecture

See also:
Hadramawt, San’a
Further reading:
P.Costa, ‘Islamic religious buildings in Yemen’,
Proceedings of the 8th Seminar for Arabian Studies 1974,
London 1975.
B.Finster, ‘An outline of the history of Islamic religious
architecture in Yemen’, 
Muqarnas: An Annual on Islamic
Art and Architecture
9: 124–47, 1992.
L.Golvin and M.C.Fromont, 
Architecture et urbanisme d’une
cité de haute montagne en République arabe du Yemen,
Éditions de Recherche sur les Civilisations, Mémoire
no. 30, Paris 1984.
Al-mudhafar Mosque with Ashrafiyya Mosque in the background, Ta
iz, Yemen, © Charles Aithie

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Yemen
A funduq in Thula, Yemen (after Golvin and Fromont)

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315
R.B.Lewcock and G.R.Smith, ‘Two early mosques in the
Yemen, a preliminary report’, 
Art and Archaeology
Research Papers,
1973.
—— ‘Three early mosques in the Yemen’, 
Oriental Art,
NS
20: 1974.
Naval Intelligence Division, 
Western Arabia and the Red Sea,
Geographical Handbook Series, BR 527, Oxford 1946.
U.Scerrato, G.Ventrane and P.Cuneo, ‘Report on the third
campaign for the typological survey of the Islamic
religious architecture of the Yemen’, 
East and West,
36(4):
1986
Yesil Cami (The Green Mosque)
Imperial Ottoman mosque in Bursa famed for its green
tile decoration.
The Yesil Cami is part of a large complex built by
Sultan Mehmet and completed in 1420. The complex
is one of the last in a series of royal mosque complexes
in Bursa starting with the Orhaniya in the fourteenth
century and ending with the Muradiye completed in
1447. The complex includes a mosque, madrassa, bath
house, soup kitchen and the tomb of Mehmet.
The mosque is built in the Bursa T-plan style
which is based on the four-iwan plan of Seljuk
madrassas. In Bursa mosques the entrance iwan
becomes reduced to a small entrance vestibule leaving
a T-shaped building with a central courtyard flanked
by side rooms (iwans) and with a large prayer hall in
front. The central courtyard is covered with a dome
which has an oculus, or round hole, in the roof to let
in light and air. In most of the Bursa T-plan mosques
the entrance is preceded by a three- or five-domed
portico, which is a feature borrowed from the usual
Ottoman single-domed mosque. In the Yesil Cami,
however, the portico is missing as Mehmet died before
this could be added. The entrance façade of the
mosque contains eight windows, one pair either side
of the door on the ground floor and four on the upper
floor. Each of the ground-floor windows consists of a
rectangular grilled opening inset into a richly carved
arched frame which itself is set into a recessed panel.
Between each pair of windows there is a deeply
recessed minbar with a muqarnas hood. The upper
windows are set into rectangular panels and are
entirely open except for a low carved balustrade. Only
the two central windows are real; the other two serve
no purpose except to balance the composition of the
façade. The entrance opens into a small vestibule from
which stairs lead up to the celebrated royal gallery.
On the ground floor the vestibule opens into the
domed central courtyard which is flanked on either
side by small domed alcoves. To the south of the
courtyard under a large arch is the domed prayer hall
with its magnificent muqarnas hooded mihrab
surrounded by a tilework frame.
The most noticeable feature of the interior is the
extensive use of polychrome glazed tiles. Until the
seventeenth century the outer surface of the domes
were covered in green tiles giving the mosque its
name. The tiles carry a variety of patterns including
flowers, calligraphic inscriptions, geometric interlace
as well as motifs executed in three dimensions like
the tile bosses in the royal gallery. The tilework of
the mosque is reproduced in Mehmet’s tomb, which
is located on a hill above the mosque.