[1][2] In the mosque was kept the sacred sword of the Turkish Dervish, who first entered the city, climbed the bell tower and with the sword circled the four points of the horizon calling the faithful to prayer with the phrase: "There is only one God and his prophet is Muhammad".

[1] Throughout the period of the Turkish rule and up to 1912 when Crete was annexed by the Kingdom of Greece, the Dervish sword remained in the Saint Nicholas until the exchange of Muslim and Christian populations between Turkey and Greece in 1923, when the Muslim population that had to depart Crete and took it with them.

[1] The original bell tower of Saint Nicholas was located in the northeast of the church, but it did not survive and had to be rebuilt.

[1] For the conversion of the Catholic church into an Islamic mosque in the year 1645, the necessary additions of the mihrab, the minbar and the minaret were made.

[2] The minaret of Hünkar Mosque was built in contact with the southern side of the building and facing its western end; the western side of the minaret was built in contact with a pre-existing two-storey building of the monastery which was demolished some time later.