The Mosques of the Arabs in Constantinople

Two mosques in Galata—the Mosque of the Arabs (Arab Djami) and the Mosque of the Leaded Store (Kurshunlu Maghzen Djamisi)—lay claim to be the earliest buildings consecrated to Moslem worship in Constantinople. Both are supposed to date from the period of the Arab sieges, many centuries before the Ottoman conquest. Their traditional claim to this honourable pedigree is of some antiquity. Evliya Effendi, in the middle of the seventeenth century, already attributes an Arab origin to four buildings in Galata, of which two are the mosques in question and the others a lead-roofed granary (Kurshunlu Maghzen), still used as such in his time, and the famous Galata Tower. All these, and in addition the Rose Mosque (Gul-Djami) in Stamboul, are supposed to have been built during the famous siege of Constantinople by the Arabs under Maslama.