Azerbaijan Destroys a Mosque in Artsakh
We have repeatedly addressed the cultural erasure policy of Azerbaijan. A number of Armenian villages and churches became targets of the Azerbaijanis, who damaged them in various ways or completely destroyed them. This time, Muslim mosques have also come into question.
Satellite imagery shows that the Shia mosque in Aygek (Yusifbeyli) village in the Kashatagh region of Artsakh was destroyed by Azerbaijan during the construction of the Khudafarin-Gubadli-Lachin highway. As far back as 2001, the Azerbaijani authorities included the mosque in Aygek village in the list of protected monuments, and in 2020, after the occupation of those territories, they organized visits for journalists.
The mosque was preserved under Artsakh’s control for about 30 years. The photos show that it was demolished in recent years, when Artsakh was already occupied by Azerbaijan.
The Monument Watch website states that the main reason for the confusion and the demolition of the structure is the appearance of the mosque building. Mosques located in the territory of historical Artsakh are primarily village mosques. These are structurally simple prayer houses that have a simple, almost inconspicuous exterior architecture. In plan, they are usually rectangular and single-nave. The mosques do not have the exterior appearance typical of an Islamic prayer house. The fact that the building is a mosque is indicated in some cases by the Arabic inscriptions above the entrance lintel, and inside by the niche called the mihrab. We should add that the rural mosques of Artsakh were hardly studied during the Soviet years, and for many of them, there was no factual data, such as photographs or drawings. Importantly, this is confirmed by Azerbaijani architects themselves, who also note that rural mosques are often indistinguishable.
During the Soviet years, few factual data about the rural mosques of Artsakh were preserved, and there were not many photographs or drawings related to them.