Bayraktar Mosque
A soldier's grave, a bomb, and a newspaper that promised an unmasking.
Listen to this place’s story in Peplos.
How the story begins
On the twenty-third of April, 1962, a small Nicosia paper told readers that the person behind the mosque bombings would soon be unmasked. By the next morning, both men who ran the paper were dead. Tradition says that when the city fell in 1570, a soldier raised the first Ottoman flag on these walls, and was killed and buried on the spot. So when bombs went off at this shrine and at the Omeriye Mosque, one night in March 1962, there was outrage.
The rest is in the app. Peplos plays the full story when you reach the place. You can also listen ahead of time.
Visiting
Constantinou Paleologou Avenue, on the Constanza Bastion, next to Ochi Market, Nicosia. Treat it as a place to see from outside. The Cyprus tourism page says it opens only on important Muslim holidays, with free entry (read November 2026), though worshippers were reported using it in January 2025. No regular hours confirmed.
On the way
Photos
Sources
- Niyazi Kızılyürek, Cumhuriyet's journalists: Ayhan Hikmet and Ahmet Muzaffer Gürkan, Yenidüzen, 27 April 2015
- Umut Ergüven, Unsolved murders in Cypriot press history, Journo, 23 April 2022
- Hasan Yıkıcı, bianet, 24 September 2010
- Habertürk interview report, 23 September 2010
- Nicosia Municipality, Bayraktar Mosque
- Cyprus Mail, A powerful message of unity and faith, 22 November 2003
- Samuel Hardy, Papers from the Institute of Archaeology, 2013
- Wikipedia, Bayraktar Mosque
- Cyprus Mail, Syrian detained over Bayraktar mosque attacks, 22 January 2025
This text was written by AI from open sources. An expert will still check it. Found a mistake? Write to us. Support
