Şahruh Bey Masjid

The Şahruh Bey Masjid of Çandır stands in the district's town center, on the right side of the Boğazlıyan–Çandır road. It was built with two minarets by Şahruh Bey, son of Alaüddevle Bozkurt Bey (r. 1479–1515), the last great ruler of the Dulkadirid principality. The Dulkadirids were a Turkmen beylik centered on Maraş that ruled over a wide swath of southeastern and central Anatolia from the 14th to the 16th century; the Şahruh Bey Masjid represents one of the northernmost surviving traces of this principality within present-day Yozgat. Today only the masjid's west minaret survives; a new mosque was later built in place of the original prayer hall. Square-based with a round shaft, the minaret's upper portion, rising above roof level, has a notably short body and is built of brick up to the balcony. A molded stone ring marks the transition from the short round shaft, via two tiers of moldings, to the balcony support. The balcony's railing and corbelled base are built of finely cut polygonal stone. Like other Dulkadirid-era minarets, this one is deliberately short, culminating — after its polygonal "honeycomb" transition zone — in a classic conical cap. The minaret stands as one of the few surviving concrete architectural traces of the period when the Yozgat region fell under Dulkadirid rule in the 15th century.