Zagan Pasha Mosque
The Zaganos Pasha Mosque is the largest mosque in the Northwestern Turkish town of Balikesir. It is the place where the founder of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, read his famous Balikesir Khutbah on February 7, 1923 in the times of the Turkish War of Liberation.
The mosque was built in 1461 by Zaganos Pasha who was of Albanian or Greek descent; he was the son of the right hand of Geroge Castriot Skanderbeg - Vrana Konti - and father-in-law of the famed sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. After his conversion to Islam, he helped Mehmed II to conquer Constantinople (since 1930: Istanbul) in 1453 and built the Zaganos Pasha Mosque in Balikesir eight years later.
