Kruszyniany Mosque is a small wooden mosque which is located in the village of Kruszyniany which is part of the Podlaskie Voivodeship, within the northeastern part of the Republic of Poland. This still active mosque, is a unique representation of the Tatars who practice Islam here, and who settled in the area after King John III Sobieski assigned the village as their home during the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.Being from the Turkic and Mongol group of people who lived in Asia and Europe, the Muslim Tatars who nowadays are living in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus are also known as Lipka Tatars, and they are descendants from the people who were fighting in the war against the Ottoman Empire.As the Kruszyniany Mosque is considered to be the oldest Tatar mosque in Poland, it is built entirely from wood on the plan of a rectangle which is 10 meters (33 feet) wide and 13 meters (43 feet) long. The earliest record dates back to 1717, even though there are some sources which suggest that most likely there have been another religious place of worship in its place.
