The Princes' Route · Stop 3

Hatuniye Mosque

The work of the only woman founder on this route. The neighbourhood still bears her title today: Hatuniye, from hatun, ‘lady’.

1510 Bülbül Hatun On the Yeşilırmak

Hatuniye Mosque. *Hüseyin Menç Archive (Kültürel Miras Boyutuyla Amasya, Photo 8).*

Bülbül Hatun

Wife of Sultan Bayezid II · Mother of Prince Ahmed¹

As you follow this route, you step on the traces of the same family in three different places. Bülbül Hatun stands at the centre of that family.

Husband Sultan Bayezid II — the complex that bears his name is the first stop on the route. Go to stop 1 →

Son Prince Ahmed — governor of Amasya. He had the Bayezid II Complex built in his father's name.

The founder speaks

Dramatisation

Bülbül Hatun wife of Bayezid II · mother of Prince Ahmed

BÜLBÜL HATUN

Tap the box to continue

This is a dramatisation. Every piece of information given in Bülbül Hatun's voice rests on the sources below; the manner of speaking is invented, the information is not. The drawing was made separately, inspired by the Ottoman miniature tradition — no historical miniature has been animated. The voice is your device's own machine voice; it is no one's real voice.

What does her account rest on?

Who she was, that she had the mosque built in 1510, where the mosque stands and how it is roofed — source 1.¹
The Hatuniye Mektebi to the east of the mosque — source 2.²
The complex her son Prince Ahmed had built in his father's name, completed in 1486 — source 3.³

📜 What do the documents say?

The mosque, in the Hatuniye neighbourhood on the bank of the Yeşilırmak, was built in 1510 by Bülbül Hatun, wife of Sultan Bayezid II and mother of Prince Ahmed.¹

Rectangular in plan and built of rubble stone, the mosque is covered by a dome that rests on two piers and pointed arches by means of transitional elements (bingi), and at the sides by two cross vaults on each side.¹

Not only a mosque. To the east of the mosque there was also the Hatuniye Mektebi, a school likewise built by Bülbül Hatun. The records describe it as a school of stone and brick, “soundly built”.²

While you are there, look for

Where the dome sits. It rests on two piers and pointed arches, by means of bingi.¹ Look for that transitional element between the dome and the wall.
The cross vaults at the sides. Two on each side.¹
The stone of the wall. Not dressed stone but rubble stone.¹ Compare it with the other mosques on the route.
The east side of the mosque. The Hatuniye Mektebi stood there.²
The river. The mosque stands right on the bank. Look across and you will see the bank where the first stop of the route is.

Key facts

Built: 1510¹
Commissioned by: Bülbül Hatun — wife of Bayezid II, mother of Prince Ahmed¹
Plan: Rectangular, rubble stone; dome + two cross vaults on each side¹
Building beside it: Hatuniye Mektebi, a school (to the east of the mosque)²
Location: 40.652057, 35.829143 — verified against OpenStreetMap
In the book: Kültürel Miras Boyutuyla Amasya, p. 37

📍 Open on the map

Sources

Every factual statement on this page rests on one of the sources below. Titles are given in their original Turkish so that they can be found; quotations from them are our translations.

“Amasya”, Türkiye İl İl: Dünü, Bugünü, Yarını — Yurt Ansiklopedisi, C. 1 (İstanbul: Anadolu Yayıncılık, 1982), 497.
Kader Dikbaş, Tokat ve Amasyalı Son Devir Osmanlı Uleması (Erzincan: Erzincan Binali Yıldırım Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Yüksek Lisans Tezi, 2018), 9. — Hatuniye Mektebi: “It is to the east of the Hatuniye mosque… it was built by Bülbül Hatun. It is of stone and brick, and the school is soundly built.”
Kültürel Miras Boyutuyla Amasya (Amasya: Amasya Üniversitesi, BAP Projesi SEB-BAP25-0233, 2026), 31. — That the Sultan Bayezid II Complex was built in the sultan's name by his son Prince Ahmed and completed in 1486.