Four sixty-metre minarets
A main dome on four half-domes in the Ottoman manner, redrawn with modern lines and fully lit after maghrib.
Jelican9 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ayratayrat — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ayratayrat — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ayratayrat — CC BY-SA 4.0
This is the one place where you walk into the grounds of Turkey's Presidential Complex on nothing more than a passport, and walk out again without anyone asking why you came. The mosque opened for prayer on 3 July 2015 at the public edge of the Beştepe complex, and its four minarets, each sixty metres tall with two balconies, are visible from far down the western road out of Ankara. One main dome resting on four half-domes: the classical Ottoman formula you know from Istanbul, redrawn with cleaner lines, paler stone and no centuries of restoration on top. Inside, the hall is built for roughly three thousand worshippers across a little over five thousand square metres, split between the main floor, a lower level and the gallery that holds the women's section. The calligraphy is by Hüseyin Kutlu, one of Turkey's leading living calligraphers, and the ornament by Semih İrteş, so the dome and mihrab deserve a few quiet minutes before the phone comes out. The verses chosen for the walls circle the themes of justice, truth and right rule, which need no translation for an Arab visitor. Two lifts and ramps between the ablution area and the prayer hall make this unusually easy with elderly relatives or a pushchair for a mosque of this size. Entry is free and the mosque is open for all five prayers, but remember you are entering a presidential zone: there is a checkpoint at the complex entrance, they ask for ID or a passport, bags are checked, and the mosque can close to visitors during official events. Photographing the mosque and its courtyard is fine; the presidential buildings around it are not. It sits about five kilometres west of Kızılay by road, and the nearest metro, Söğütözü on the M1, is a couple of kilometres away, so a taxi is the practical answer (fifteen to twenty minutes from Kızılay), though EGO buses do stop outside the neighbouring Nation's Library. Worth the trip? If you want Ankara's greatest mosque by history, this is not it: the building is new, and most of its appeal is scale and setting. It earns its place when you pair it with the Presidential Nation's Library next door, open around the clock to registered readers (you sign up at the door with ID or a passport), and the wide, shadeless plaza between them is best avoided at noon in August and approached just before maghrib, when the minarets light up. In an Ankara winter the white marble under snow is genuinely lovely, provided you dress for temperatures that drop below freezing.
A main dome on four half-domes in the Ottoman manner, redrawn with modern lines and fully lit after maghrib.
Dome and mihrab lettered by one of Turkey's leading living calligraphers, with a programme of wall verses chosen around justice and truth.
The Presidential Nation's Library beside it opens around the clock to readers who register with ID or a passport, turning a half-hour stop into a full evening.
Papatya Sokak 51, Beştepe, Yenimahalle
Kocatepe. It is in the city centre minutes from Kızılay, larger, and Ankara's religious landmark since the 1980s. Beştepe Millet is newer, further out and involves a security check at the gate; go if you want a look at the Presidential Complex from outside or an evening in the Nation's Library next door.
No. Only the mosque, the library and the plaza between them are open to the public; the presidential buildings are off limits, photographing them is not allowed, and security will steer you back if you wander.
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