History of the Building

Patron, Date and Architect

Al-Bahramiyya Mosque is the main beneficiary of the foundation of Behram Pasha, the governor of Aleppo, which was established in 1580 and registered in 1583. Behram Pasha, known as Halhalli (Bangled), was born in Gaza to Kara Shahin Mustafa Pasha, a Bosnian recruit, who served as governor of Gaza and of Yemen (1556-60) and then of Egypt (1560-64), with the honorary rank of vizier. [1] Behram himself held the governorship of several cities in Anatolia and the Arab lands including Diyarbakir, Yemen, Sivas, Erzurum and Aleppo. He also participated in military campaigns, including the Cyprus campaign of 1570-71 and the Safavid campaigns of 1578-79 and 1581-82. Behram Pasha died in 1585 and, as stipulated in his will, he was buried in Aleppo, in a mausoleum at the south side of his mosque. [2]

In addition to his complex in Aleppo, Behram Pasha built charitable buildings in Diyarbakir and Urfa and supported them with numerous revenue-generating properties and lands. [3] The patron’s mosque in Diyarbakir, dated by inscription to 1572-73 and attributed to the Ottoman architect Sinan (1490-1588), the head of the Imperial architectural office in Istanbul, is particularly relevant to the architectural study of al-Bahramiyya Mosque because of the close affinities between the two structures.

Footnotes

[1] The trust deed and the Aleppine sources give Mustafa Pasha’s name as his father’s name -- Mustafa Basha ibn ‘Abd al-Mu’in. See At-Tabbakh, I’lam al-Nubala’, 3:175, Al-Ghazzi, Nahr adh-Dhahab, 2: 41. More information on Mustafa Pasha’s life and career can be found in Blackburn, Mustafa Pasha, Kara Shahin, 720.

[2] For more biographical information on Behram Pasha see Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 467, Watenpaugh, The Image of an Ottoman City, 84 and Süreyya, Sicill-i Osman-i, 4: 32. Behram Pasha’s older brother, Radwan Pasha, was also buried next to him in 1586, after serving as the governor of the city for one year.

[3] For more information on Behram Pasha’s buildings in Diyarbakır and Urfa see Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan, 467-468.