مسجد Hacettepe

Hacettepe Camii serves the community of the Hacettepe district in Çankaya, central Ankara, home to Hacettepe University and its associated hospitals — a major academic and medical quarter of the capital. The mosque is frequented not only by residents of the surrounding streets but by students, doctors, nurses, patients' families, and visitors who find themselves in the area for classes, appointments, or hospital stays. It is a neighbourhood mosque of moderate scale with a single minaret, a central dome, and a small forecourt paved in stone. Inside, the prayer hall is carpeted in the familiar Turkish pattern, the mihrab is carefully finished, and a spacious upper gallery serves women worshippers. The imam is appointed by the Diyanet and his Friday sermons often address themes of direct relevance to a mixed academic and medical congregation — the Islamic ethics of medicine, the pursuit of knowledge as an act of worship, the care of the sick and dying, the importance of patience in the face of suffering. Women pray in a comfortable upper gallery, and Qur'an classes for children run throughout the year. Ablution facilities are clean and heated. During Ramadan the mosque runs a full programme of tarawih and community iftars, and its association with the nearby hospitals means that it also functions as a place where worshippers come specifically to ask for healing — for themselves, for relatives, for friends whose situations weigh upon them. The quiet streaming of supplicating hands at the far corners of the prayer hall, at any hour of the day, is a characteristic feature of the mosque's atmosphere. Near the entrance, a small sign in Turkish and English invites visitors to pray for those undergoing treatment in the neighbouring hospitals, and the careful list of supplications for the sick that has been compiled by the mosque's imam is available in printed form for any worshipper who wishes to take one home and recite them for a loved one in need. For Muslim visitors to Çankaya, Hacettepe Camii is both a reliable stop for the daily prayers and a quietly moving witness to the intertwining of faith, knowledge, and the deep human concerns of health and loss.