Mosque Kwsbyndark Fy Batwft

Yemisli, a small village in the Sirnak province of southeastern Turkey close to the Syrian and Iraqi borders, shelters within its hills this mosque known locally in Kurdish as Masjid Kospindark in Batufa, the mosque of Kospindark in the Batufa area. The region belongs to the Bohtan district historically famous for its Kurdish principality and its distinctive scholarly tradition, and its mountains and deep valleys shelter villages whose families have tended orchards, vineyards and flocks of sheep for generations. Kurdish Islamic heritage in Bohtan was anchored by scholars such as Mullah Khalil Siirdi and the medreses of Cizre and Botan, whose graduates carried Qur'anic memorisation, Arabic grammar and jurisprudence into villages across the highlands. Sirnak itself has witnessed many difficult recent decades, but its villagers continue to rebuild their mosques, schools and community life with patient determination. Architecturally the Batufa mosque is modest, a single storey building of roughcast stone and plastered walls, with a small dome raised over the prayer hall, a short minaret whose loudspeaker carries the adhan across the terraced fields and a simple courtyard paved in local stone. Inside, the mihrab is framed in carved timber, a small shelf holds well thumbed Qur'ans and rihal stands rest against the walls for study. Woven Kurdish rugs, patterned in deep crimson and green, cover the floor. Five daily prayers gather villagers who tend grapevines, walnuts and wheat, Jumu'ah khutbah is delivered in Kurdish with Arabic Qur'anic recitation and Ramadan evenings bring iftar shared across families with stewed beans, nani tiri flatbread and grilled mountain trout. Eid mornings fill the forecourt with families in colourful Kurdish dress, and children receive sweets and small coins afterwards. Visitors should dress modestly, leave shoes on the stone threshold and speak with soft respect when passing the elder residents. Nearby landmarks include the old Kurdish principality town of Cizre with its historic bridges, the Bohtan river valley, the ancient ziggurat sites along the Tigris frontier and the mountain meadows of the Hakkari range that stretch southwards into Iraqi Kurdistan. The imam, himself a graduate of the old Cizre medrese, still teaches Kurdish pupils the classical grammar works of Ibn Malik and the adab treatises of al Bukhari, perpetuating a regional scholarly tradition that has survived the upheavals of the late twentieth century thanks to such patient village teachers across the Bohtan hinterland.