مسجد Çukurova Üniversitesi 57. Alay Şehitleri

Standing within the landscaped campus of Cukurova University in the southern Turkish city of Adana, the 57th Regiment Martyrs Mosque honours the fallen soldiers of an Ottoman infantry unit who died defending the Gallipoli peninsula in 1915. The 57th Regiment, alay in Turkish, became a symbol of collective sacrifice in the national memory of modern Turkey, and mosques across Anatolia now carry its name in remembrance. The university chose this dedication for its campus mosque as an enduring reminder that learning and service walk hand in hand, and that the ultimate source of strength for students and soldiers alike is the mercy of God and the blessings invoked upon the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him and his family.

Adana itself is an ancient city on the Seyhan River, its history reaching from the Hittite kingdoms of the Bronze Age to the Roman and Byzantine periods, and flowering again under Seljuk and Ottoman patronage. The Sabanci Merkez Cami, one of the largest mosques in Turkey, watches over the city centre, while the Taskopru, a Roman stone bridge still bearing traffic after eighteen centuries, links the university quarter with the old town. Cukurova University, founded in 1973, has grown into one of the leading research centres of the eastern Mediterranean, and its campus mosque draws students, faculty, and staff for daily prayer and Friday gatherings.

Architecturally the building follows a simplified classical Ottoman form, with a central dome of concrete finished in pale grey lead, resting on pendentives above a square prayer hall, flanked by a single slender pencil minaret. The façade is clad in warm pink limestone, and the entrance is sheltered by a shallow portico of pointed arches. Inside, the hall opens wide and sunlit, its floor covered in patterned red and cream carpet, its mihrab cut in white marble with gilded Thuluth calligraphy above, and its minbar fretted in cedar with geometric openwork. A small upper women's gallery sits on a mezzanine.

Beyond prayer, the mosque hosts student Quran circles, lectures on Islamic ethics and medical bioethics, iftar tables during Ramadan, and commemorations for the soldiers whose memory the building honours.