Saray Mosque

About Saray Mosque

Mosque

The Palace Mosque, also known as the Shah Mosque or the Shirvanshahs' Palace Mosque (Saray məscidi), is a 15th-century mosque inside the Palace of the Shirvanshahs complex in the Old City of Baku, forming part of the UNESCO World Heritage-listed palace. It was built in 845 AH (1441/1442 CE) under the Shirvanshahs, a date recorded in the ornamental inscription that encircles the shaft of its minaret, one of only two fully preserved inscriptions in the complex by which the whole palace is dated. The mosque has a rectangular plan with a main prayer hall, a small prayer room for women and service rooms. It has two portals: the northern one, facing the burial vault of the Shirvanshahs, is the more solemn, while the eastern one led down to an underground exit intended for the inhabitants of the palace. The two-tier windowed prayer hall is covered by a dome on spherical pendentives, with the mihrab at its southern end, and a smaller dome crowns the women's room, so that from outside the mosque reads as a severe prismatic block topped by two slightly pointed domes. The minaret is notable for the finely modelled stalactite details of its balcony. The mosque is visited on the Palace of the Shirvanshahs ticket and is one of the most beautiful and complete examples of Shirvan religious architecture.

Where:

Baku, Azerbaijan