The story of Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque

In 1898, under Austro-Hungarian rule, this became the first mosque in the world to receive electric lighting. But its story starts in 1530, when Gazi Husrev-beg, the Ottoman governor of Bosnia, built it as the heart of his endowment, together with a school, a madrasa, a covered market and a bathhouse. The architect's name is unknown, but most scholars think it was Acem Ali Tabrizi, a builder of Persian ancestry, and masons were brought in from Ragusa at the Beg's request.

It is the largest historical mosque in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and it is still the city's central mosque. Gazi Husrev-beg rests in the mausoleum beside it. In his endowment deed he wrote that the most beautiful charitable deed is one that continually renews itself.

During the siege of Sarajevo the mosque was deliberately targeted and badly damaged. Reconstruction began in 1996, and a completely new interior was painted by the calligrapher Hazim Numanagić.