Arap Mosque

Arap Camii in the Eminönü district of Istanbul, Turkey, is one of the most architecturally unusual mosques in the entire old city, occupying the former Church of San Domenico built by Genoese Dominican friars in the fourteenth century within the Genoese quarter of Galata across the Golden Horn. The church was converted to a mosque after the Ottoman conquest and received its popular name Arap Camii, the Arabs' Mosque, from the Andalusian Muslims who fled to Istanbul following the Reconquista of Spain and the expulsions of the late fifteenth century; Sultan Bayezid II settled many of these refugees in the Galata area and assigned them this mosque as their place of worship. The building's architecture is strikingly Gothic in its basic form, with a rectangular basilican plan, a square bell tower converted into a minaret, and pointed-arched windows, features entirely unlike any other mosque in the city. The interior has been adapted for Islamic use with a mihrab oriented toward Makkah and carpets covering the floor, but the original ecclesiastical structure remains unmistakable. The Galata setting, in a neighbourhood long associated with Genoese, Italian, Spanish, Armenian, and Greek communities, gives the mosque a uniquely cosmopolitan context within Istanbul's religious geography. The congregation today includes residents of the surrounding streets, visitors drawn by the mosque's architectural curiosity, and descendants of the Andalusian community whose forebears made this building their first Istanbul home. Friday prayers fill the hall. For visitors, Arap Camii offers one of the city's most fascinating encounters with layered religious and cultural history: a Gothic church become a mosque for refugees from Spain, still in daily use five centuries later. Modest dress, shoes removed at the threshold, hair covered for women, quiet conduct, and photography carried out only outside of active prayer are the essential courtesies expected. Andalusian heritage in the Turkish capital is commemorated in various ways, and the mosque's distinctive history as the home of refugees from the Reconquista gives it a particular place in the Muslim migration story.