Painted facades
Flowers and geometry.
Krešimir Bikić — CC BY-SA 3.0 · InDoRoN — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Julian Nyča — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Jocelyn Erskine-Kellie from London, UK — CC BY 2.0 · Deniiblis — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Martin Brož — CC BY 3.0 · Martin Brož — CC BY 3.0 · Martin Brož — CC BY 3.0
Travnik's best-known mosque, called the Painted or Colourful Mosque (Šarena džamija) for the painted decoration that covers its walls inside and out. It began as the Gazi-aga mosque of the late 16th century; in 1757 the governor of Bosnia, Ćamil Ahmed-paša, rebuilt it from the foundations, and for a time it carried his name. Ćamil Ahmed-paša built a small covered market (bezistan) with two entrances and shops beneath the mosque, with rows of shops around it, so the mosque stands on an arched stone arcade at street level, a rare feature. After a great fire in Travnik, the vizier Sulejman-paša Skopljak (1815-1818) restored it, and it became known as the Sulejmanija. Its facades are painted with flowers and geometric patterns in soft colours around latticed windows; inside are similar paintings, carpets, a chandelier, wooden galleries and a finely inlaid wooden door. Its stone minaret stands on the left of the building rather than the usual right and is believed to be older than the present structure. It is a working mosque: visitors can admire it from outside at any time and go in outside prayer times in modest dress, per visitor guides. It stands on the main street, a few minutes from the Plava Voda spring and the fortress.
Flowers and geometry.
An arched stone arcade.
Finely patterned wood.
Main street, central Travnik
Because its walls, inside and out, are covered with painted flowers and geometric patterns added during its restoration under the vizier Sulejman-paša Skopljak (1815-1818), which is also why it is called the Sulejmanija.
