The Kığılı Mosque, also called the Pazar Mosque, was built in 1694-95 by a man named Hacı Hasan, according to the building inscription set into the window pediment on the east front. It has come down through a number of repairs with much of its original character intact and is still in use. It belongs to the single-domed class of mosque, measuring about 15 by 17 metres outside, and consists of the prayer hall and a single-balcony minaret at the northeast corner. It stands on ground that slopes from east to west.
The materials are worth noting: fine-dressed yellowish trachyte in the facade walls, the dome drum, the minaret and the mihrab, marble in the arches, lintels and jambs of the main door and the windows, and lead over the dome. The workmanship is clean throughout. The prayer hall is covered by a dome twelve metres across, carried on squinches at the corners. Light comes from eleven windows — one in the east wall, two in each of the others, and four in the dome drum. Decoration is concentrated at the main door, the windows, the birdhouse on the east front and the mihrab, and besides the building inscription there are further inscriptions on the mihrab, the door and the windows. The mosque is on Kulhan Sokak off Ahi Paşa Caddesi, within walking distance in central Niğde.
Getting there
- Access
- In central Niğde, reachable on foot.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Niğde as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from -0.2 °C in January to 22.6 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in May (48 mm) and lightest in July (6 mm). Long-term means for 1935-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
