The Et’hem Bey Mosque, one of the crowning jewels of Albania’s cultural heritage and one of the symbols of the country’s capital Tirana, has been totally restored thanks to the contribution of the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA).
Prime Minister Edi Rama and Turkish President Erdogan attended Monday the inauguration of the Et’hem Bey Mosque, a religious site and a house of worship for the Muslim faithful, but also a tourist attraction in the capital Tirana.
The mosque, a first-category monument of culture, is part of the mosque complex buildings that make up the historic center of Tirana and is an architectural complex together with the Clock Tower. The Et’hem Bey Mosque is one of the oldest and most beautiful mosques in Albania and the only one that survived the communist regime.
Already transformed under a complete restoration project, the Et’hem Bey Mosque features the prayer hall, the portico surrounding it from the east and north, and the minaret. This restoration highlighted elements that had been damaged over time.
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Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at inauguration of Et’hem Bey Mosque:
Good evening and thank you!
It is a pleasure, but also a special honour for me to be here today, together with a great friend of Albania and Albanians, the Honourable President of the Republic of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. On behalf of the President I apologize for the delay because of the President’s very busy agenda, but on the other hand, I believe that the fact that you were waiting for him after the long delay is a touching evidence of a brotherly love, of a sincere love and to be honest, a much deserved love of yours for him.
You know the painful tragic history of religion in Albania. At the same time you know what places of worship went through, regardless of which religion they belonged to, throughout the period of communist barbarism. And of course in Albania after the fall of the dictatorship the wounds were manifold, the needs were countless, the troubles were innumerable, so this scar was overlooked for a long time.
But on the other hand I believe that these objects, mosques, churches, tekkes and all the places of worship, which for centuries were built generation after generation in the name of God, do not belong only to those who visit them to perform their rites, they also belong to the treasure of our culture, they belong to our historical memory, they belong to our soul and as such they must be taken care of, they must be revitalized, they must be made available to future generations.
For Albania, they are also the extraordinary and tangible evidence of a religious coexistence that has continuously defined us as a wonderful example that we have inherited from our ancestors and we have a duty to pass it on to our children. In our effort to revive this aspect of our cultural heritage, we have found in President Erdogan an irreplaceable partner.
Thanks to his special and direct care, thanks to the commitment of the Turkish cooperation agency, TIKA, thanks to the cooperation with historians, engineers, Turkish and Albanian restorers, today we have some of the most precious gems of our cultural heritage that belong to the Islamic religion restored to their former glory, as the Ethem Bey mosque has been restored to its glory, one of the landmarks of our history, but also one of the mirror images of our old traditional connection with fraternal Turkish people.
The mosques located in Berat’s medieval center, the magnificent mosque of Gjirokastra, which have also been restored and revitalized thanks to this cooperation are today not only places of worship, which serve the Muslim believers, but are also a reference point for all of us, for all communities and for all those who visit Albania in all its diversity.
This is an ongoing effort and I am concluding my speech by expressing my pleasure that thanks to the agreement and the work currently underway for the project on restoration of Lead Mosque in Shkodra, one of the germs of our cultural heritage, will kick off soon.
In the meantime, through the President’s support and Turkey’s TIKA we will go on with our work also through the precious assistance of the Minister of Tourism and Culture of Turkey and the entire ministry staff to go on with the beautiful effort to revive Berat, Gjirokaster and Shkodra.
Thank you very much for your attention and patience!
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Remarks by President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: In the name of Allah, most gracious and most merciful,
Honourable Prime Minister of Albania, my dear friend,
Dear Albanian sisters and brothers,
Honourable guests and friends,
Let me greet you all with the most beautiful greeting and with the most cordial feelings and the assurance of my highest consideration, “As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullah.”(May the peace and mercy of Allah be with you).
I thank Almighty God for bringing our hearts together at this square today.
I would like to thank each and every one of you for your patience, for your trust, and for the hospitality you have extended us so far.
I know many of you have travelled from Skopje. I know many of you have come from Shkodra. You have been waiting for hours and we are experiencing a very special and emotional day here in Albania today.
My brothers from Kosovo have also come here and I want to thank and convey my most cordial greetings to them.
In the meantime, we are sharing the happiness and the pleasure of the inauguration of these sites restored by TIKA. This morning we visited Laç and handed over the new houses built by the government of Turkey for the quake-affected families. We were pleased to see that the wounds caused by the September 21 and November 26 earthquakes were healed, and on this occasion, I express my condolences and pray to God to have mercy on the souls of those who passed away in the earthquake. Realistically, I felt very happy today when I saw that 522 apartment houses were being handed over to the quake-affected families and during that period I was constantly in contact with my friend the Prime Minister and finally we managed to finalize these works.
A little while ago I was in the Assembly of Albania, where I delivered a speech before the MPs and at the same time your representatives and we are now here to share this special pleasure, maybe very special, because we are inaugurating one of the greatest works right Tirana centre, with a donation from Turkey and mainly with restoration from TIKA contributions. This jewel in the heart of Tirana reflects the culture, the shared cultural values of Albania and Turkey.
Thank God this is now a unique work, showcasing a very fine and exquisite understanding of the art used in it, in the most widespread style in the Balkans, with colorful hand-painted ornaments, is among the most distinguished structures carrying the Ottoman -era methods and the contemporary elements. It is a work that mainly reflects whole generations of the architecture tradition and methods used during this mosque’s construction until nowadays and I hope that this will be passed down to the future generations. I believe that our Et’hem Bey mosque reflects another beauty in the heart of Tirana, but now and with its external lighting that has been installed, will render a fantastic and very fascinating view to anyone you see this mosque, so we as Turkey not only ameliorate the monuments of our cultural heritage but also provide support to Albania’s development. A total of 546 concrete works have been finalized through TIKA funding since 1996 and I very much hope and from now on we will continue to stand by our Albanian brothers. I hope that very soon, probably by the month of Ramadan, we will solve the problem of the Namazgja mosque.
Knowing that Albania is an ally, a close and sincere friend of Turkey in comparison and in relation to the Balkan countries, as long as this close cooperation will continue between us, there is no problem we cannot solve. Together with my friend, the Prime Minister of Albania, as long as we continue this side by side cooperation, you will see more such works that will be constructed, finalized and put at your service.
To conclude my speech, on the occasion of the inauguration ceremony of the Et’hem Bey Mosque, I wish, I wish from the bottom of my heart, to be useful. May it bring good luck to you and enjoy it!
On this occasion, dear brothers, allow me to thank all the Albanian authorities, which throughout this process have stood by us with their support and assistance. On this occasion, at the same time, I pray to God that with the Mosque now opened, the prayers, worships are accepted by the Almighty God.
Respect! With respect and love to all of you who have heard us so far!
*Simultaneous interpretation
