Dzhumaya Mosque (Main Friday Mosque)

The mosque is one of the oldest and largest in the Balkans, as it is also one of the biggest.

An imposing rectangular building with a 33 m-by-27 m prayer hall. It reveals influences from Byzantine and old Bulgarian.

Architectural techniques:

two layers of brick laid on top of each layer of cut stone.

In contrast to later single-domed mosques, the Dzhumaya belongs to the so-called multi-domed mosques.

On one side the facade is covered in a carved wooden front that must have been added at a later date.

Unlike later mosques which had only one dome, the Dzhumaya Dzhamia has nine domes covered with lead.

-It has nine domes covered with sheets of lead.

-A painted minaret (23 metres tall) is erected at the northeast corner of the main facade, decorated with a diagonal square meshwork of red bricks( dusky pink Byzantine brickwork) on white mortar plaster which reminds us that the mosque was built sometime in the 14th century

-The interior of the mosque is decorated with floral ornament wall-paintings, such as twigs, blossoms and garlands that are intertwined with medallions quoting the Koran.

-The wall-paintings probably date back to the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century.

-Parallels can be drawn between the exterior and the interior of Dzhumaya Mosque and some of the oldest Ottoman religious monuments in Bursa, Edirne, and Sofia built in the 14th – 15th centuries.

-Through the entrance arch, worn by time but grand nonetheless, there is a light and ornately decorated interior with large chandeliers.

Its Turkish name is Hüdavendigâr Camii or Cuma Camii. The mosque is located in the centre of Plovdiv and was built in the place of Sveta Petka Tarnovska Cathedral Church soon after the town was conquered by the Ottoman army (1363 – 1364). During the reign of Sultan Murad II (1421 – 1451) the old building was demolished and replaced by the modern-day mosque. It was called Ulu Dzhumaya Mosque, i.e. main Friday mosque.