Guide
The Kutbeddin Mosque on Demokrasi Caddesi in Şanlıurfa is best read through its inscriptions, of which it has three, and they are as much about repairs as about building. The one above the window in the iwan names Bican Ağa and Osman Ağa, with Bican Ağa standing out as the man who carried out the repair; it gives 1876 as the date and the verses were written by the poet Muhlis. The inscription inside the east door praises the master builder — that a hundred thousand bravos are due to him, that he worked hard to build it faithfully, that it should stand in pride by night and day, and that Hızır Hoca should come to its aid at every moment of its long waiting. That inscription is dated 1831, and according to Mahmut Karakaş it was brought here from somewhere else during repairs in the 1980s.
The inscription on the east door records that the mosque had lain in ruins for a long time before being repaired, but it does not name the person who repaired it. It mentions the caliph Omar and describes the restorer as bearing the same name, from which it is supposed that the work was done by Omar Pasha; the date given is 1778. Omar Pasha and his wife Ummu Gülsüm Hanım founded the Rizaiye Medrese in 1779, and that medrese operated within the Kutbeddin Mosque — which means that Mirimiran Ömer Pasha, son of Rizvan Ahmet Pasha, repaired the mosque before the medrese was built. The mosque is in the Kadıoğlu quarter of central Şanlıurfa.
