Guide
The mosque stands in the village of Balat beside Miletus, in the district of Söke. It was built about 1404 by İlyas Bey of the Menteşe, and is known as the Friday mosque. Marble blocks from the ancient city of Miletus were used in building it, so that the mosque is faced inside and out with even marble blocks.
The building is square in plan. Above its pointed-arched north doorway, notable for its marble and stonework, is a three-line inscription of the year 806 of the Hijra, 1403.
The dome over the prayer hall, fourteen metres across, rests on an octagonal drum and is covered with tiles. The interior is lit by four windows in each of two tiers on every wall. Above the lower windows of the east wall, verses are worked in inlaid tile, and the upper windows are filled with stained glass in geometric patterns.
The marble mihrab, 5.20 by 7.35 metres, is ornamented with geometric designs and is among the finest of its time.
Opposite the mosque stands the domed, four-cornered tomb of İlyas Bey, dated 1404. The medrese and the soup kitchen surviving from the period of the Menteşe are in ruins; the medrese, of two storeys, was made up of vaulted rooms around a courtyard.
