Mirahori Mosque

The Iljaz Mirahori Mosque, or more simply the Mirahor Mosque, is a mosque in Korçë, Albania.

History

The mosque, identified by an inscription above its entrance as having been built in 1494–95, is one of the oldest in Albania. It features a square prayer hall topped by a single dome, a three-domed entrance porch, and finely crafted cloisonné masonry. Its minaret, lost in an earthquake in the early 1960s, was rebuilt after 2006. Historically, the mosque served as the core of a larger architectural complex that included an imaret, bakery, storage rooms, a han, a hamam, and a mekteb. Iljaz bej Mirahori, a Korça-born official who rose to prominence under Sultan Bayezid II, endowed five villages to finance this and other constructions. His goal was to elevate the small settlement into a Muslim town, which, according to Ottoman law, required the presence of both a Friday mosque and a marketplace for residents to be registered as townspeople rather than peasants. According to the writer Sami Frashëri, it was built on the foundations of an existing monastery, then called dedicated to Saint Paraskevi .
The Iliaz Mirahor Mosque was designated as a religious Cultural Monument of Albania.