BEHRAM-BEY MOSQUE

This mosque (Behram-Begova Džamija) is known by different names: Atik ("ancient"), Časna ("venerable") but especially Šarena ("colorful") because of its rich interior decoration. It was erected in 1888 on the site of an earlier 16th-century mosque, which was itself renovated on the initiative of a great local Sufi leader, Behram bey, in the early 17th century. It is of modest size (10 × 10 m on each side). As for its Moorish style, it reflects the architectural fashion imposed by the Austro-Hungarian power to distinguish itself from the Ottoman heritage. This is evidenced by its minaret of 22 m in height which ends with a bronze "kiosk" unusual in the Balkans. The mosque was part of a vast Islamic complex to which belonged the medersa Behram-bey and of which only the door (Kapija Behram-Begove Medrese) remains today. This is located 60 m north of the mosque, on the Skver traffic circle. The neo-Moorish building of this Koranic school was erected in 1907 on the site of a previous Ottoman medresa, the oldest in the country, founded in the early sixteenth century. During the socialist period, the medresa was closed in 1949, then destroyed in 1974 and only the door was preserved. In 1994, a new medresa taking the name of Behram-bey was rebuilt 1.5 km to the southwest, along the main street Rudarska. It has a mosque designed by Zlatko Ugljen, the same architect who built the Franciscan monastery of St. Peter and Paul in Tuzla.