The Dzhumaya Mosque

The Dzhumaya Mosque is the main Muslim temple in Plovdiv. The mosque’s Turkish name is Cuma Camii.

The Dzhumaya Mosque is located in the center of Plovdiv and was built in the place of the cathedral  “St. Petka Tarnovska”, shortly after the conquest of the town by the Ottoman army at the end of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom (1363 – 1364). During the reign of Sultan Murad II (1421-1451), the old building was demolished and today a mosque called the Ulu Dzhumaya mosque (Turkish: the main Friday mosque) was erected.

The Dzhumaya Mosque is one of the oldest Ottoman religious buildings on the Balkans. It is also one of the largest. Its construction technique shows Byzantine and Old Bulgarian architecture – two layers of bricks upon a single layer of stone.

Unlike the later single-dome mosques, the Dzhumaya has nine domes, covered with lead sheets. In the northeastern corner of the main façade stands the minaret, decorated with a diagonal square mesh of red bricks on a background of white mortar plaster.

The interior of the mosque is lavish, having frescoes with plant ornaments such as twigs, flowers and wreaths, between which are depicted medallions with quotes from the Qur’an.
The frescoes probably date somewhere between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. Architectural analogies of the Plovdiv Dzhumaya mosque can be made with some of the oldest Ottoman religious monuments in Bursa, Edirne (Turkey) and Sofia, built between the 14th and 15th century.