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Arabahmet Mosque:
Nicosia - North Cyprus |
This is the one which all visitors should see, not only because of its
excellently designed architecture, but because the priest in charge,
i.e. the Imam Mahmut Sevket Gazi, is a scholarly man, well versed in the
Koran, can read the old Turkish script on the tombs and is always
willing to be one's guide. The writer is very much obliged to him for
not only explaining the main aspects of Islam but for allowing me to be
present at the noon-day prayer meeting.
The Arabahmet Mosque is at the northern end of Victoria Street, and west
of Sarayönü (Atatürk Square). The view picture shows the simplicity of
design, and the intermingling of typical Mediterranean trees and shrubs
adds to its beauty. The whole place is well looked after and used by the
faithful every day.
The most important place inside the mosque is the Mihrab, which is
always placed in
its relation to Mecca and for both Cyprus and Turkey, that is the south.
It is at the Mihrab that the imam leads the Moslems in prayer, where he
stands with his back to the people. Steps nearby lead up to a kind of
canopied pulpit, where on Fridays and Bayram festivals the imam faces
the people and delivers an oration. This part of the mosque is called
the Minber. The man who invites Moslems to prayer from the minaret is
the Muezzin, five times a day, but these vary with the times of sunrise
and sunset.
You will always see a clock near the Mihrab and the one here is an
antique grandfather clock that would fetch £500 in an antique sale in
London, but let us keep it here in its rightful place. There are no
images of people or animals, either as pictures or as carvings. This is
because the Moslem idea of God is not a person. If he were, then he must
have had a father and mother. Nor do we see anywhere a portrait of the
prophet Mohammed.
Islam teaches cleanliness in the holy place, in the presence of God, and
so all mosques have washing places outside; you must not take dirt into
the mosque with your shoes, and they are left outside the porch.
The colour of Islam is green, hence the furniture is usually painted in
this colour. In the desert countries of the Middle Cast, green is for
paradise- for by hard work you can make the red-brown desert productive
with water and it becomes green. Thus productivity and industriousness
are two other aspects of Islam.
When a prayer meeting is in progress, beads are used for counting the
prayer repetitions and the whole session lasts about half an hour.
The Islam calendar dates from the flight of Mohammed from Mecca to
Medina which occurred in 622 A.D. but the years are not based on the sun
but on the waxing and waning of the moon. It is a lunar calendar, so it
is not easy to arrive at, the Moslem equivalent of the present year 1979
which 1 understand is 1357.
For Christian visitors to Nicosia it is essential to understand the main
features of the Islamic religion in order to appreciate various mosques.
The external features of the Arabahmet mosque typify the simplicity of
design used in all mosques in the Middle East. We see hardly any stone
carving or ornamentation, except for the Minaret. Most minarets have a
balcony for the muezzin near the top where he can call out over the
rooftops of the town houses. Immediately below this balcony, the
supporting brackets are often richly carved and resemble the stalactites
one sees in a limestone cave. Hence the name given to this style is
stalactitic and it can be seen on the minaret in fig. 15. The Arabahmet
mosque is not an ancient monument yet, as it dates only from 1845.
The remaining mosques are rather insignificant, and one, the Sarayönü
near Atatürk Square, is engulfed by the high-rise buildings close by. |
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