Queen Safiya Mosque: 450-Year-Old Masterpiece
- Radwa Nabil Abdulaziz Kassm
- May 29, 2020
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 14, 2020
One of the first Mosques named after a queen. The story behind it is exceptional and controversial like the woman it’s named after. Let’s travel back in time, 450 years ago.
Our story begins at the slave market and its heroine is a thirteen-year-old girl named Sofia Bilougi. Her brilliance altered her life from a girl at the slavery market to a queen on the royal throne. She was able to engrave her name in history books. So let me tell you the story of Queen Safiya and her Mosque in Dawodia.
"Their plot is colossal"
“Pure one” is what her name means, but her history is stained with blood. Yes, she is the queen who killed eighteen heir to the throne so that her husband Mohamed Khan would rule after the death of his father Murad III.
Isn’t it ironic that a tyrant would build a mosque? Well, she didn’t. It was her Mamluk, Othman Agha who started building the mosque. Sadly, he died before it was completed. So, she filed a lawsuit stating that he was her slave and that he has no right to build a mosque. That’s how she snatched the efforts of her Mamluk, opened the mosque and named it after herself. How humble!
Queen Safiya Mosque was built in 1610 A.D/406 A.H and its style resembles the mosques in Istanbul for it consists of a massive dome, its walls are full of patterns and it has a wide sahn.
It also contains three breathtaking semicircular staircases leading to its three entrances. What makes this mosque stand out though, is that it’s built above ground level to protect it from groundwater.
Queen Safiya was able to engrave her name in history with her power. If you visit the Daoudia area near Mohamed Ali Street, you will find a mosque built in Red Stone, like mosques in Turkey.
Although it is now closed due to a landslide that occurred as a result of the 1992 earthquake, it is still holding to this day. Do you think that the strength and durability of the Queen Safiya Mosque, despite all the factors that would have caused it to be destroyed, is a metaphor for the strength of the woman it was named after?
Salma has always loved writing for as long as she can remember. She started chasing her dream and applied in Al-Alsun major to enhance her writing skills and to increase her chances at working in journalism as she was exposed to many translation courses and other courses that upgraded her talent. She hopes she can change someone’s life someday with her writing because she believes that words can change lives.
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