Ince Minaret Madrasa

The Ince Minaret Madrasa, now a museum, was built between 1258 and 1279 by the Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate vizier Sâhib Ata Fahreddin Ali, who later founded the Anatolian beylik (or territory) of Sâhib Ata.

The minaret was originally much taller than the section that survives today and had an unusually slender appearance in comparison to the minarets of other contemporary Seljuk mosques, hence the name of the structure.

The building has a highly ornamented stone façade which includes relief work of scripts, geometric patterning and vertical ribbon-like lines. The entrance is surrounded by a band of elegant thuluth (Islamic calligraphy) depicting Sura 36 and Sura 110, two chapters from the Qu'ran. The minaret was damaged by lightning in 1901 and was restored in 1956. The building now houses a museum of stone and wooden objects dating from the Seljuk and Ottoman periods.

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