Ibrahim Han Mosque

The Ibrahim Han Mosque sits in the interior of the Fortezza, the Venetian fortress above Rethimno harbour. It was built inside the fortress walls by the Ottomans after they took the city in 1646, adapting the existing Venetian Cathedral of Saint Nicholas, and its broad dome remains largely intact while the surrounding structures have fallen into ruin.

The mosque gives the fortress interior an unexpectedly poignant character — a large Islamic building in the centre of a Venetian military complex, both abandoned, both slowly returning to the landscape. The ruin is open within the wider fortress admission. The dome's interior shows traces of the original decoration, and the scale of the building is impressive despite its ruined state.

things to do sight architecture
A story
The Ibrahim Han Mosque inside the Fortezza was converted from the Venetian Cathedral of Saint Nicholas after the Ottoman conquest of 1646. It is one of the few mosques in Crete that retains its dome intact, giving a sense of the interior volume that the building once had when it was both a cathedral and later a mosque. The shell of the building sits in the open interior of the fortress, surrounded by scrubby grass and the ruins of other vanished structures.