Ramadan, the ninth month of the Muslim calendar, reminds believers that it was in this month that Muhammad received the first revelation. The Archangel Gabriel appeared before him and recited the first sura, which Muhammad had to repeat as proof that he understood and memorised it – since Arabic script was created only much later (or, according to another view, Allah revealed the primordial Arabic letters only afterwards). This moment is recalled in the muqabala (مقابلة = meeting, challenge), the ceremony during which the faithful gather in small groups in the mosque during Ramadan and recite Qur’anic suras to one another in turn.
A view of Bursa, with the Grand Mosque built between 1396–99 in the centre, and behind it Uludağ rising to 2500 metres above the city, which itself lies at 200 metres. In antiquity, this was the Bithynian Olympus.
The city of Bursa – Byzantine Prousa – was taken in 1326 by a branch of the Seljuk Turks who had been scattered by the Mongols, and was made the first capital of the Ottoman Empire. The life of the tribal chief, Ertuğrul Gazi, is spectacularly dramatised in the 90 episodes of the Turkish Netflix series Resurrection. And the historical road begun by his son Osman, the first Turkish sultan, is something we Hungarians can also testify to in a rather spectacular way. The tomb of Osman Gazi stands proudly in the fortress above Bursa. At its gate two Ottoman-era Turkish heroes stand guard day and night—just as similar-looking Hungarian heroes would guard the tomb of our Prince Árpád, had it not been swept away by Osman’s successors.
A short distance from the tomb there is a shop where the descendants of the Ottomans sell traditional fur coats, maces, and other objects reminiscent of the Hungarian conquest era. When the shopkeeper notices our camera, he picks up his tambur and plays a steppe Turkic nomad tune for us.
Feeling obliged after this musical courtesy, we take a look inside his shop, where we find Ottoman-era knives (bıçak), fur hats, and a wide selection of honeyed and preserved chestnuts—one of Bursa’s specialties. No need to rush for a plane ticket: you can buy all of this at the next Kurultáj.
Collectible plastic figurines of the mostly fictional heroes from the patriotic Turkish Netflix series Resurrection
Bursa’s Grand Mosque, the Ulu Cami, at the foot of the citadel, was built between 1396–99 by Sultan Bayezid I, the great-grandson of Osman, using the spoils of his brilliant victory in 1396 at Nicopolis over the united European army led by King Sigismund—the last army of medieval knighthood. He could not enjoy his triumph for long: in 1402 he was defeated by Timur the Lame at Ankara, and according to chroniclers he spent the rest of his life caged like a wild animal.
The Battle of Nicopolis, in a miniature by Jean Colombe and Nakkaş Osman
The mosque follows the Seljuk layout: the multi-column plan inherited from Arab mosques is covered by a multitude of small domes. Tradition says that after the victory, Sultan Bayezid vowed to build twenty mosques, which were eventually merged into a single one with twenty domes. The central square of the mosque is not covered by a dome but by glass—originally it was open to the sky—and this is where the whole interior gets its light.
Beneath it rises a large fountain. Many pray or quietly read the Qur’an beside it, while others entering the mosque perform their ritual ablutions. The French historian and traveller Baptistin Poujoulat visited the mosque in 1840 and wrote:
“In the centre of the Grand Mosque, a beautiful fountain with three basins serves for ritual washing. Muslims love to listen to the murmur of the water as they pray to Allah.”
It is unusual for the shadirvan, the ablution fountain, not to stand in the courtyard but inside the mosque itself. The anomaly calls for an explanation—and the best explanation is a good legend. According to it, when Bayezid bought the land for the mosque, a giaour—a Jewish or Armenian—woman refused to sell her house for religious use, so the mosque was built around her house. When she died, her heirs sold it at last, but the just sultan respected her will and placed the fountain where her house had stood.
The chief decoration of the mosque is the nearly one hundred monumental calligraphies created by forty great calligraphers of the 18th and 19th centuries.
The usual symbol of Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law, is the lion, often calligraphed from Qur’anic or prophetic sayings about him. Here, unusually, not the lion’s body but its face is written from the mirrored letters of Ali’s name.
In the spaces between the columns, various groups sit on the floor practising muqabala. In each group, one person recites—sometimes from a book, sometimes from memory—while the others follow the text in their own Qur’an. The polyphonic humming fills the entire vast space. Meanwhile, many people walk around, listen in on different groups, film them, meet acquaintances, greet one another warmly, and chat. No one seems disturbed. The atmosphere is as relaxed as at a village fair.
In one of the colonnaded spaces, young students of the local Qur’an course give a demonstration. Their audience is presumably made up of relatives and teachers.
Seeing our Western appearance, several people approach us—kindly and with genuine joy, quite unlike the atmosphere in the fundamentalist-tinged, tourist-weary mosques of Istanbul. It is obvious that few foreigners come to Bursa, but just as obvious that it is a fundamentally cheerful provincial city. They are especially delighted that we are Hungarian: “we are relatives, after all!”
A tall, lean imam walks toward us. Most likely the mosque’s imam, for he moves slowly and thoughtfully through the space, like a host making sure his guests are enjoying themselves and lacking nothing. Cheerfully and respectfully he asks whether we are Muslims. “No, but people of the Book,” answers Laci Gönczi. “That is wonderful,” the imam replies, “but Islam is the final revelation.” Laci mentions that he read about forty pages of the Qur’an back at the hotel. The imam beams. “If God wills, next time we meet you will already be Muslims.” “If God wills,” I reply.
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