Taza Pir Mosque

Set within the historic Yasamal district of Baku, the Taza Pir Mosque has been the principal mosque of Azerbaijan for more than a century and the official seat of the Caucasus Muslims Office. Its construction was funded almost entirely by Nabat Khanum Ashurbayova, a widowed philanthropist and mother of the oil magnate Isa Bey Ashurbeyov, who wished to leave a lasting charitable endowment for the Muslim community of the city. Work began in 1905 under the direction of the Azerbaijani architect Zivar bey Ahmadbeyov, pausing only during the most turbulent years of revolution before the mosque was finally completed in 1914 on the eve of the Great War.

The design blends the restraint of late Ottoman classicism with motifs drawn from the medieval Shirvanshah tradition of the Absheron peninsula. Two minarets of pale local limestone rise above the city skyline, each finished with a slender balcony and a conical tiled crown. The main dome sits above a square prayer hall, its interior decorated with gilded inscriptions, calligraphic roundels and carved wooden panels that local craftsmen produced entirely by hand. Windows of coloured glass soften the light and lend the chamber a calm, amber tone during the long Caspian afternoons when the sea breeze drifts inland.

During the Soviet period, the mosque suffered the fate of many religious institutions in the region. It was closed for worship, repurposed as a cinema and later as a warehouse, while its treasures were scattered and its minarets silenced. Restoration began in the 1940s and accelerated sharply after Azerbaijani independence, returning the building to active service. Today visitors find restored mihrab tiles, a newly gilded dome and preserved inscriptions bearing the names of the Prophet Muhammad peace and blessings be upon him and his family alongside his closest companions may God be pleased with them.

Taza Pir functions as both a working congregational mosque and the administrative centre for the Muslims of the Caucasus, coordinating religious education, Hajj arrangements and charitable programmes across Azerbaijan, Georgia and beyond. During Ramadan the courtyard fills long before dusk, and the iftar tables set out along its walls remain one of the most cherished civic traditions of modern Baku.