Great Mosque Of Kairouan, Tunisia- Zoefact

By Author: Ridzi Arora
Total Articles: 25
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It is a mosque located in Kairouan, Tunisia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is one of North Africa’s most impressive and largest Islamic monuments. The original mosque was totally demolished, and in the 9th century, much of what stands today was constructed by the Aghlabids. Founded in the year 50 AH (670AD/CE) by the Arab general Uqba ibn Nafi at the founding of the city of Kairouan, the mosque occupies an area of more than 9,000 square meters (97,000 sq ft). It is one of the oldest places of worship in the Islamic world, and a model in the Maghreb for all subsequent mosques. A hypostyle prayer hall, a marble-paved courtyard, and a square minaret are part of its perimeter, approximately 405 meters (1,329 ft).

The mosque, as it stands today, was constructed between 817 and 838 by the Aghlabid governor of Kairouan, Ziyadat Allah. The building was erected on the site of an older mosque, originally founded at the time of the 670 AD Arab conquest of Byzantine North Africa by Uqba ibn Nafi. About 690, shortly after its ...
... completion, the mosque was demolished by the Berbers, originally led by Kusaila, during the occupation of Kairouan. The Mosque of Uqba, in addition to its theological prestige, is one of the masterpieces of Islamic architecture, notable for the first Islamic use of the horseshoe arch, among other items. The minaret is the oldest in the Maghreb, and there are 414 pillars supporting horseshoe arches in its impressive prayer hall; non-Muslims can peer into it from the inner courtyard, but can’t enter.

The popularity of the Uqba Mosque and the other holy sites in Kairouan has helped the city to develop and expand. The mosque is situated in the intramural district of Houmat al-Jami, north-east of the medina of Kairouan (literally “area of the Great Mosque”). Although the current mosque retains virtually no trace of the original seventh century building, it is still generally referred to as “Mosque of Sidi Uqba”, or, “Mosque of Uqba Ibn Nafi.” Historically, great importance has been given to it as the first mosque in the first city of Islam in the West. In 703, the Ghassanid General Hasan ibn al-Nu’man rebuilt the mosque. Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, Umayyad Caliph in Damascus, commissioned his governor Bishr ibn Safwan to carry out construction work in the region, including the renovation and expansion of the mosque around the years 724-728 AD, with the gradual increase of the population of Kairouan and the consequent increase in the number of faithful.

The building is a massive quadrilateral that is slightly irregular, covering some 9,000 m2. It is longer on the east side (127.60 meters) than on the west side (125.20 meters), and shorter on the north side (72.70 meters) than on the south side (78 metres). The principal minaret is north-centered. The exterior has a traditionally unadorned Aghlabid style, with its buttressed walls. When you walk into the vast, marble-paved courtyard, enclosed by an arched colonnade, impressions shift. The courtyard was built to capture water, and the paving slopes to an intricately decorated central drainage hole that delivers the rainwater collected to the cisterns below in the 9th century. The decorations have been crafted to filter the water’s dust. Both of the two wells’ marble rims have deep rope-grooves worn by millennia of water drawing up from the depths.

A number of important additions, including the inclusion of a nearby wide courtyard and the building of a pool now known as the Old Cistern, were made between 703 and 816. (Al-Majal al-Qadim). This time is most frequently attributed to the building of the minaret, although some scholars consider it to be part of the later work of Ziyadat Allah. The next major reconstruction came in 836, when Ziyadat Allah completely rebuilt the sanctuary, including the dome above the mihrab. From the outside, with its 1.90 meters thick massive ocher walls, the Great Mosque of Kairouan is a fortress-like structure, a composite of well-worked stones with intervening rubble stone courses and baked bricks. In 856, by adding a double-arcaded portico to the sanctuary with a domed entry bay, Abu Ibrahim Ahmed started the work that would bring the mosque to its twentieth-century configuration. The portico enveloping the interior of the courtyard is also often assigned to this period; however, some texts cite Ibrahim Ibn Ahmad (874-902) as its builder.

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