Kesik Minare

About Kesik Minare

The Kesik Minare (Broken Minaret Mosque), also known as Korkut Camii or Cumanın Camii, stands on Hesapçı Sokak in Kaleiçi, the old town of Antalya. It was first built as a Roman temple in the 2nd century AD. In the 7th century it was converted into a Byzantine church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, was badly damaged during the Arab invasions of that century, and was repaired again in the 9th century. When the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum took Antalya in the early 13th century, the church became a mosque and the minaret was added. In 1361, when the crusader king of Cyprus took the city from the Seljuks, it was consecrated as a church once more, and it became a mosque again under Şehzade Korkut, son of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid II. A fire in 1896 destroyed the main building, and the surviving minaret is known as the Kesik Minare. Restoration began in 2018, and in 2019 the cone at the top and the roof were restored. The building officially reopened as a mosque on 5 March 2021, the day on which Antalya was conquered by the Seljuks, and welcomed worshippers for the first time in nearly 125 years.