Construction of Et’hem Bey Mosqueof, this gorgeous little mosque, was started in the early 1790s by Molla Bey, a task that wasn’t completed for another three decades when the building was finally finished in about 1820 by his son, Haxhi Et’hem Bey. Closed under Communist rule, the building reopened as a house of worship on January 18, 1991 without the permission of the authorities. Some 10,000 courageous people dared to attend, and remarkably the police did nothing to intervene, an event now hailed as a milestone in the rebirth of religious freedom in Albania. Take a look at the colourful frescoes outside and in the portico which depict trees, waterfalls and bridges, motifs rarely seen in Islamic art.
