Sarayonu Mosque, Nicosia

The Sarayonu Mosque, also known as the Mosque of the Serai, stands in the heart of North Nicosia’s walled city, just off Sarayonu Square, a site historically pulsing with civic and religious life. Its story is one of transformation-mirroring Cyprus’s complex past-blending Gothic, Ottoman, and Moorish aesthetics with changing social roles.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, under Lusignan and Venetian rule, the site was occupied by a Carmelite church, complete with a dome and a surrounding graveyard that allegedly held the remains of high nobility, including a King of Jerusalem and a Duke of Normandy. When the Ottomans conquered Cyprus in 1571, they repurposed the church into a mosque for the stationed soldiers, naming it Orduonu Mescidi ("masjid in front of the army camp"). This first iteration retained its Gothic exterior while adopting a more modest Ottoman interior.

Eventually, the old church structure was replaced by a new mosque-though accounts differ on when exactly. Some date its construction to 1690–91, credited to Kinci Ali Pasha, others to 1820–24 under another Ali Pasha. This mosque featured typical Ottoman architectural elements, with two sharp arches supporting its roof and a simple stone minaret.

In 1900, an earthquake demolished the mosque, prompting a redesign by British architect Fenton Atkinson. Allegedly drawing inspiration from Andalusia, Atkinson's version of the mosque was built between 1901 and 1903. The current building showcases a Moorish façade with horseshoe arches, Indian motifs, and a rectangular layout in line with Cypriot tradition. The minaret, however, remains from the Ottoman-era structure, standing apart from the mosque itself.

Amid Cyprus’s modern upheavals, the Sarayonu Mosque served as a marriage office during the 1963–64 conflict, before being restored as a mosque in 2004 under pressure from Turkish Islamist circles. Today, it stands as a symbol of the island’s layered Western, Ottoman, British, and Cypriot heritage.