The Juma-Jami Mosque is the largest and most magnificent mosque of Crimea and was founded by Khan Devlet I Giray in 1552. The Khan commissioned Istanbul architect Mimar Sinan to build the mosque.
Sinan was a famous Turkish architect and engineer of the Ottoman period. He designed more than 400 facilities, 131 of them were mosques (81 cathedral mosques and 50 small mosques).
The construction of the mosque represents a principle of ‘growing volumes.’ Sinian followed the example of St. Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople in his architecture. The mosque’s height is about 22 meters. It has an 11-meter dome. The walls of the building are made of big and well-featured blocks of shell stone, which is the main building material in Crimea.
The mosque used to have an ancient act which contained signs of 18 khans who reigned in Crimea before the peninsula’s merger with Russia. Crimean khans received the right (firman) to reign and headed to Bakhchisarai. They came ashore in Gezlev (Yevpatoria). Citizens gathered in the khan mosque (Jami means a mosque, Khan-Jami – the khan mosque) where the khan presented them his rights for power and signed the document. It is interesting that till 1927 the mosque had a Quran from 1414, i.e. it had been written 138 years earlier than the mosque was built. At the moment the Quran is stored in one of St. Petersburg's museums.
