Münir - Neriman İslamcıoğlu Camii

Perched among the residential avenues of Ankara, the Münir and Neriman Islamcioglu Camii remembers a generous couple whose family endowment paid for the construction of this neighbourhood mosque. Such charitable foundations, called vakıf in Turkish, form a living tradition that reaches back through the Ottoman centuries to the Prophetic teaching that a mosque built for the sake of God earns its builder a dwelling in paradise. The Islamcioglu family, whose surname means son of an Islamic teacher, carried their commitment into the capital of the modern Turkish Republic, adding one more prayer hall to the thousands that adorn Ankara's hills.

Ankara is a city of layered histories, from the Hittite citadel of the second millennium BCE period, through the Galatian, Roman, and Byzantine towns, to the early Ottoman mosques raised after the Seljuk Turks settled the Anatolian plateau in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The poet and saint Haji Bayram Veli, may God have mercy upon him, whose fifteenth century tomb still draws visitors beside the ancient walls, shaped the devotional life of the city through his circle of scholars and artisans. Ankara rose again as the capital of the Turkish Republic in 1923, and its modern expansion across the Anatolian steppe filled its suburbs with neighbourhood mosques like this one.

Architecturally the Islamcioglu Camii blends classical Ottoman proportions with late twentieth century Turkish building techniques. A central dome rises above the square prayer hall, supported on pendentives, flanked by a slender pencil minaret topped with a sharply tapered cap. The façade is finished in warm pinkish travertine, an Anatolian stone that takes on a soft glow at sunset, while the interior plaster is decorated with painted medallions of calligraphy naming God, the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, and the rightly guided caliphs. The mihrab and minbar are carved in pale marble, and the floor is covered in patterned Turkish carpet in shades of red and cream.

Daily prayers, Friday khutbas delivered in clear modern Turkish, Ramadan iftar tables open to travellers, and Quran classes for neighbourhood children weave the mosque into the district's civic life.