The Et'hem Bey Mosque is located in the center of the Albania

Albania

Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...

n capital Tirana

Tirana

Tirana is the capital and the largest city of Albania. Modern Tirana was founded as an Ottoman town in 1614 by Sulejman Bargjini, a local ruler from Mullet, although the area has been continuously inhabited since antiquity. Tirana became Albania's capital city in 1920 and has a population of over...

. Construction was started in 1789 by Molla Bey and it was finished in 1823 by his son Ethem Pasha

Ethem Pasha

Edhem Pasha was an Ottoman commander. He was the deputy of Gazi Osman Pasha during the siege of Plevna in 1877. He was the leading commander of the Ottoman army that defeated Greeks in Thessaly in the Greco-Turkish War...

 (Haxhi Ethem Bey), great-grandson of Sulejman Pasha

Sulejman Pasha

Sulejman Pashë Bargjini was a general of the Ottoman Empire. He was originally from Bargjin, but he settled in the village of Mullet, Albania and probably served as a Janissary, he was given the title Pasha. He founded the city of Tirana, now the capital of Albania, in 1614. At the time he had...

.

Closed under communist rule, the mosque reopened as a house of worship in 1991, without permission from the authorities. 10,000 courageous people dared to attend and remarkably the police did not interfere. The event was a milestone in the rebirth of religious freedom in Albania. Take a look at the frescoes outside and in the portico which depict trees, waterfalls and bridges - motifs rarely seen in Islamic art. Take your shoes off before entering the inner room.

During the totalitarianism

Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...

 of the Socialist People's Republic of Albania, the mosque

Mosque

A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...

 was closed. On January 18, 1991, despite opposition from communist authorities, 10,000 people entered carrying flag

Flag

A flag is a piece of fabric with a distinctive design that is usually rectangular and used as a symbol, as a signaling device, or decoration. The term flag is also used to refer to the graphic design employed by a flag, or to its depiction in another medium.The first flags were used to assist...

s. This was at the onset of the fall of communism in Albania.
The fresco

Fresco

Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...

es of the mosque depict trees, waterfalls and bridges; still life

Still life

A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...

 paintings are a rarity in Islamic art

Islamic art

Islamic art encompasses the visual arts produced from the 7th century onwards by people who lived within the territory that was inhabited by or ruled by culturally Islamic populations...

.

Tours of the mosque are given daily, though not during prayer service.

See also

• Timeline of Islamic history
• Islamic architecture
  Islamic architecture
  Islamic architecture encompasses a wide range of both secular and religious styles from the foundation of Islam to the present day, influencing the design and construction of buildings and structures in Islamic culture....
  
  
• Islamic art
  Islamic art
  Islamic art encompasses the visual arts produced from the 7th century onwards by people who lived within the territory that was inhabited by or ruled by culturally Islamic populations...
  
  
• List of mosques
• Islam in Albania
  Islam in Albania
  During the Ottoman rule, according to Ottoman data, the majority of Albanians were of Muslim affiliation . However, decades of state atheism which ended in 1991 brought a decline in religious practice in all traditions....