Ferhat Pasha Mosque (Banja Luka)

 mosque, heritage, cultural heritage / national heritage, listed building / architectural heritage, Heritage at Risk

Ferhat Pasha Mosque (Bosnian: Ferhat-pašina džamija, Turkish: Ferhad Paşa Camii), also known as the Ferhadija Mosque, is a central building in the city of Banja Luka and one of the greatest achievements of Bosnia and Herzegovina's 16th century Ottoman Islamic architecture in Europe. The mosque was demolished in 1993 at the order of the authorities of Republika Srpska, and was rebuilt and opened on 7 May 2016.
Commissioned by the Bosnian Sanjak-bey Ferhat-paša Sokolović, the mosque was built in 1579 with money that, as tradition has it, were paid by the Auersperg family for the severed head of the Habsburg general Herbard VIII von Auersperg and the ransom for the general's son after a battle at the Croatian border in 1575, where Ferhat-paša was triumphant.
The mosque with its classical Ottoman architecture was most probably designed by a pupil of Mimar Sinan. There is no written data about the builders who erected the mosque, but from analysing its architecture it appears that the foreman of the works was from Sinan's school since the mosque shows obvious similarities with Sinan's Muradiye mosque in Manisa, which dates from 1585.