Emek Köşe Camii

Emek Köşe Camii sits at a modest street corner in central Ankara — the Turkish word köşe meaning corner, and emek meaning labour, together producing a name that neatly captures the spirit of a neighbourhood mosque built and sustained by the hands of ordinary working people. The mosque is a single-minaret structure of late twentieth-century Turkish provincial style, its dome low, its stone walls neatly dressed, and its forecourt paved in warm terracotta tiles. Inside, the prayer hall is larger than it appears from the street, with seating space for several hundred worshippers and a comfortable upper gallery for women. The mihrab is finished in restrained Kütahya tilework, and the minbar is of carved wood painted in dark green and gold. The imam delivers the Friday sermon in clear, accessible Turkish, and his recitation of the Qur'an during the five daily prayers is sincere and unhurried. The mosque is well-used by local shopkeepers and office workers who time their breaks around the adhan, and in the later afternoon one often finds elderly men sitting on the stone bench in the forecourt exchanging unhurried conversation as they wait for asr. Women's Qur'an circles meet in the annex on weekday mornings, and children attend religious classes in the summer holidays. Facilities for ablution are clean and heated, and there is a small lost-and-found box kept by the door — a gentle sign of a mosque with longstanding community habits. During Ramadan the congregation swells considerably, and the entrance steps become a place of meeting for friends who break their fast together on the benches outside. In the late afternoons of autumn, when the light across the Anatolian plateau acquires its particular amber quality and the leaves of the plane trees begin to turn, the forecourt of Emek Köşe Camii is one of the places in central Ankara where one can most perceptibly feel the turning of the seasons that the old lunar calendar so carefully marks. For anyone travelling through central Ankara, Emek Köşe Camii is an accessible and welcoming place to pray, and the warmth of its regulars makes a first visit feel very much like returning to a familiar place.