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Registered Wooden Mosques of Central Çorum

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Central Çorum has a group of historic mosques built on stone foundations with timber-framed walls or mud-brick walls laced with timber beams, covered with flat wooden ceilings and mostly fitted with wooden minarets. This page describes, from the published sources, five of them that are registered as cultural property: the Kunduzhan (Tabak), Kellegöz, Kale, Çakır and İnayetullah mosques. For the Velipaşa (Abdülbaki Paşa) Mosque of the same group and the Kulaksız Mosque, whose bağdadi (lath-and-plaster) dome rests on wooden columns, see their separate pages. In the villages of the central district, the Üçköy Mosque and the Çıkrık Village Mosque are further examples with wooden or bağdadi domes.

Shared features

According to Zeynep Tanrıverdi and Rabia Sena Keçelioğlu (2024), who draw on Abdulkadir Dündar’s Çorum Cami ve Mescitleri (Mosques and Masjids of Çorum, 2004), the most frequent plan among Çorum’s mosques is the longitudinal rectangular, single-aisled, timber-ceilinged type; the Abdülbaki Paşa, Kellegöz, Kunduzhan, İnayetullah and Çakır mosques are considered “links of one chain” within this group. The same classification gives the Kale Mosque as an example of the transverse rectangular, single-aisled, timber-ceilinged type. The authors report Dündar’s view that mud brick is the most common building technique in Çorum’s mosque architecture.

Serap Sevgi and Mesut Yılmaz (2026) write that in the Abdülbaki Paşa, Çakır, Kunduzhan, Kellegöz and İnayetullah mosques and the Hilmi Efendi Mosque in Sungurlu, the east, south and west walls are of stone or of mud brick with timber lacing, while the north façades are built in the half-timbered hımış technique; the prayer hall (harim) has a flat wooden ceiling and the gallery (mahfil) rests on wooden posts. Citing Dündar, they note that Çorum’s wooden minarets have polygonal shafts and a single balcony and usually stand at the north-east or north-west corner, between the prayer hall and the last-congregation porch. According to the article, the closing of the north side of the porch and the extension of the gallery to the north in the Çakır, Kunduzhan and Kellegöz mosques suggest that these buildings were repaired in similar periods; the authors state that some masjids in Çorum were enlarged in this way and turned into mosques, and that the addition of a pulpit and a wooden minaret was probably due to the need for Friday prayers.

Çiğdem Karaçay (2024) lists stained glass in the upper windows as a prominent decorative feature of the Abdülbaki Paşa, Çakır, Gülabi Bey, İnayetullah, Kale, Kellegöz, Kubbeli, Kulaksız and Kunduzhan mosques. Doğan Koşan (2025) cites the plaster (tatlı kireç, slaked lime) decoration of the İnayetullah, Kellegöz and Kunduzhan mosques among similar examples made by moulding.

Kunduzhan Mosque (Tabak Mosque)

The mosque stands in the Kunduzhan quarter, at Tabak 2. Sokak No. 15 according to the 2009 Çorum Cultural Inventory. The Inventory dates it to the Ottoman period and notes that it has no foundation inscription, but that a repair inscription dated AH 1284 is set above the entrance door on the north façade. Sevgi and Yılmaz, drawing on Dündar, state that the mosque is first recorded in 1595 and was repaired in 1867, 1895, 1980, 1990 and 2006: in 1980 the mud-brick walls were strengthened with brick and the façades were given a concrete render, and in the restorations of the General Directorate of Foundations (Vakıflar) in 1990 and 2006 the window arrangement was changed and the number of openings increased. The dating that Tanrıverdi and Keçelioğlu take from Dündar reads “16th century, repaired in the late 19th century”. The building was registered by decision A-4063 of 21 January 1983 and belongs to the General Directorate of Foundations.

According to the Inventory, the mosque consists of a single-aisled rectangular prayer hall extending towards the mihrab and a last-congregation porch to the north. Glazed wooden doors lead into the porch and from there into the hall. The flat wooden ceiling with a central rosette is decorated with lozenge patterns in applied laths (çıtakâri work), and the north part of the hall and the space above the porch form a gallery. The hipped roof has wide, chamfered eaves on all four sides. The Inventory describes the building as timber-framed on a stone foundation, whereas Sevgi and Yılmaz describe mud-brick walls laced with timber on stone foundations and a half-timbered north façade. The wooden minaret adjoining the west side of the porch is given a polygonal form with laths, has a ring moulding near the balcony and is capped by a pyramidal roof.

During the storm that struck the city on 11 July 2019, the wooden minaret collapsed. According to the İhlas News Agency, part of the roof was damaged and the entrance door was destroyed; after an inspection by teams of the regional directorate of foundations, the mosque was closed to worship the next day, and the provincial mufti said that work would be done to rebuild the minaret.

Kellegöz Mosque

The sources give different addresses: the 2009 Inventory places the mosque on Kale Sokak in the Tepecik quarter, while the Kültür Portalı entry gives Kale Sokak in the Kale quarter. According to Tanrıverdi and Keçelioğlu, it stands in the Kale quarter at the corner of Müftü Tevfik Sokak and Milönü Caddesi.

The mosque has no foundation inscription or endowment deed; a plaque in the mosque reads “Kellegöz Camii 1660”. Tanrıverdi and Keçelioğlu, drawing on Dündar, report that no masjid or mosque of this name appears in the hurufat registers, that the name appears on the 1892 map of Çorum, and that according to the 1973 Çorum Provincial Yearbook the mosque was repaired in 1908; Dündar concludes that the mosque is recorded under a different name in the registers. According to Sevgi and Yılmaz, the 1908 repair incorporated the last-congregation porch into the prayer hall and enlarged the gallery. The Inventory gives the registration as decision A-4063 of 21 January 1983, and Tanrıverdi and Keçelioğlu also give 1983, whereas Sevgi and Yılmaz give the year of registration as 1993. In August 2019 the local press reported that the minaret and walls had been renewed in a restoration carried out by the Tokat Regional Directorate of Foundations; the two articles give the year of restoration as 2020.

According to the Inventory, the mosque consists of a rectangular prayer hall running south-north, with a flat wooden ceiling and a hipped roof. It is entered through a flat-lintelled, double-leaf wooden door on the north. The ceiling is decorated with long rectangles of applied laths set at intervals in an east-west direction, with a central rosette bearing a twelve-pointed star in a twelve-sided frame. The upper windows are pointed-arched with stained glass on the inside and have plaster grilles on the outside. The Inventory describes the building as timber-framed on a stone foundation, while Tanrıverdi and Keçelioğlu, following Dündar, state that the walls are of mud brick on stone foundations and add that there are no lower windows on the west side because of the adjoining houses. The lower level of the gallery is divided into three: a glazed room on the west, and on the east a thirteen-step staircase to the gallery and the minaret; the central part of the gallery projects into the hall in a semicircle. The plaster mihrab has a rectangular frame and a border of plant motifs; the wooden pulpit to its west is dated by Dündar to the 17th century. The wooden minaret, which adjoins the north-east wall of the hall, has a polygonal shaft and can be entered from a door beneath the gallery, from the gallery itself and from the courtyard.

Kale Mosque

The mosque stands in the Kale quarter, in the Kaleiçi area inside Çorum Castle; according to Ömür Bakırer’s chapter in Çorum Tarihi (History of Çorum), it lies immediately behind the castle’s main gate (Çorum Tarihi, p. 77). The 2009 Inventory states that the mosque dates from the Ottoman period, that it has no foundation inscription, and that one of the upper windows of the west wall bears a repair inscription dated 1217; Bakırer gives the date as 1217/1802 and says it refers to a repair. Sevgi and Yılmaz, drawing on Dündar, report that the building, also known as the Alaaddin Masjid, was built of mud brick in the early 18th century, became a mosque when a pulpit was added in 1732, and was repaired in 1802 and, in the Republican period, by the General Directorate of Foundations in 1977 and 1992. The entry on kulturenvanteri.com, by contrast, takes the fact that the building is still called the “Alaaddin Mosque” and “Alaaddin Masjid” and stands inside the castle as a pointer to the reign of the Seljuk sultan Alaeddin Keykubad I (1220-1237), and states that it was built as a masjid and later converted into a mosque. The mosque was registered by decision A-1727 of 8 June 1979 and belongs to the General Directorate of Foundations.

According to the Inventory, the mosque has a near-square plan with a single aisle running parallel to the qibla; it consists of the prayer hall, a last-congregation porch added later on the north, and a balcony minaret. Galleries surround the hall on the east, west and north. A round-arched wooden door leads inside; the flat wooden ceiling has a plain rosette, and the hall is covered by a hipped roof. The upper windows are pointed-arched, with stained glass inside and plaster grilles outside; the lower windows are rectangular, with flat lintels and wooden grilles outside. Stone was used in the lower part of the building and mud brick and timber in the upper part.

The 2009 Inventory gives the building’s use as a mosque, while the Kültür Portalı entry records it as not in use. According to an Anadolu Agency report of September 2026, the second stage of Çorum Municipality’s castle restoration project has been completed, and the report states that the registered mosque inside the castle is also to be restored and opened to visitors as part of the city’s tourism offer.

Çakır Mosque

The mosque is in the Çepni quarter, on Kubbeli I. Sokak according to the Inventory; according to Tanrıverdi and Keçelioğlu it stands at the junction of Kubbeli 1. Sokak and Taşhan Caddesi, with its entrance on Taşhan Caddesi. The Inventory writes that the mosque is thought to have been built around the middle of the 19th century and that a Turkish plaque reading “Çakır Cami 1950”, which records a repair, hangs on its east wall; Tanrıverdi and Keçelioğlu add to this estimate that the building appears as a masjid on the 1892 map of Çorum. According to the same article, in 1995 the Çorum Governorate asked the General Directorate of Foundations whether the mosque should be demolished, and by decision 4041, taken at a meeting held in Ankara on 26 June 1995, the mosque was registered as immovable cultural property because it bears local features. According to the Inventory, it is owned by the Çepni Quarter Association for the Upkeep of the Mosque (Cami Yaşatma Cemiyeti). Tanrıverdi and Keçelioğlu, citing Dündar, report that in 2003 the mosque was painted inside and out and its outer walls were faced with marble up to the windows; they add that in this work the south windows were painted white with oil paint and lost their original character.

The mosque consists of a square prayer hall and a last-congregation porch to the north, closed on three sides; Tanrıverdi and Keçelioğlu give the hall’s dimensions as about 8.60 x 8.20, and note that the trapezoidal courtyard to the north was later roofed over and that the space above the porch was closed and joined to the gallery. The flat wooden ceiling, with a central rosette, is decorated with long, thin rectangles of applied laths running east-west. The lower windows are rectangular with flat lintels; the upper ones are pointed-arched with stained glass inside and round-arched with plaster grilles outside. The hipped roof is covered with Marseille-type tiles. The Inventory describes the building as timber-framed on a stone foundation, whereas Tanrıverdi and Keçelioğlu describe mud-brick walls with timber lacing on stone foundations and a north wall built in the hımış technique. A twelve-step staircase in the north-west of the hall leads to the gallery. The plaster mihrab has a rectangular frame with an undecorated border; according to Sevgi and Yılmaz, its semicircular niche has an eyebrow arch. The wooden pulpit is dated by Dündar to the 18th century. The wooden minaret west of the porch has a polygonal shaft formed with laths, a ring moulding at the top of the shaft and a pointed cap (külah), and can be reached both from the porch and from the gallery. In October 2024 the local press reported that residents of the quarter had asked for the wooden minaret to be restored, saying it was worn and in danger of collapse.

İnayetullah Mosque

For a detailed account see İnayetullah Mosque. The mosque stands in the Karakeçili quarter, at the junction of Karakeçili Sokağı and Kültür Sokağı. It has no foundation inscription. Tanrıverdi and Keçelioğlu give the Turkish inscription in the mosque as “İnayetullah Cami Y. Tarihi 1903” (date of construction 1903), while Sevgi and Yılmaz read the date 1902 on the inscription at the south-west corner of the south façade. A stained-glass window above the mihrab bears the date 1318/1900, and the 1973 Çorum Provincial Yearbook records that the mosque was built by the local people in 1318/1900. Sevgi and Yılmaz note that the İnayetullah Foundation was registered with the General Directorate of Foundations in 1926, and suggest that the building, a masjid later turned into a mosque, may have been built before 1902. According to oral sources, the mosque was repaired by local tradesmen in 2003. It was registered by a 2020 decision of the Ankara Regional Board for the Protection of Cultural Property; according to Tanrıverdi and Keçelioğlu, its registration record describes the state of preservation as “medium”.

The mosque consists of a single-aisled rectangular prayer hall running north-south, a last-congregation porch to the north and a north courtyard. Its walls are of mud brick laced with timber on stone foundations, and the north façade is built in the hımış technique. The flat wooden ceiling of the near-square hall has no central rosette and is decorated with squares and rectangles of applied laths, with fan motifs in the corners. The central part of the gallery, which has wooden railings, projects in a curve on the mihrab axis. The lower windows are rectangular with flat lintels; the upper windows are pointed-arched with plaster grilles outside and have stained glass on the south façade. The five-step wooden pulpit dates from the early 20th century. Sevgi and Yılmaz give the height of the wooden minaret, which is incorporated into the porch, as about 21 metres; they write that reinforced-concrete and masonry additions built later on the west and north sides have damaged the mosque’s original entrance and window arrangement.

According to a local press report of October 2026, the contract for a restoration coordinated by the Tokat Regional Directorate of Foundations was signed on 23 September 2026, and the 420-day work is planned to be completed on 17 November 2027. The report states that later additions will be removed, decayed timber elements replaced, and the wooden minaret dismantled and rebuilt according to the project.

Sources

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