Great Mosque of Zaytuna

The Great mosque is located in the heart of the medina. It was erected on the remains of a Christian basilica. It was a defensive post, with two corner towers (north-east and south-east), also found in the Great Mosque of Mahdiyya. The façade is pierced by several entrances leading into the paved courtyard with four porticos (added in the tenth century) or to the prayer hall.

The prayer hall is made up of fifteenth naves perpendicular to the qibli wall and six bays covered with a framework supported by round horseshoe arcs resting on pillars with Antique capitals no doubt from the ruins of Carthage. The central nave and the bay in front of the qibla are wider. Where they intersect is where the dome of the mihrâb is located, with a square base, an octagonal drum and fluted dome on squinches. At the entrance of the prayer hall, under the portico, a second dome added in the eleventh century indicates the axis of the mihrâb. The outside of the dome is adorned, as in Fatimid Egypt[1], with niches, here embellished with ochre stone and red brick.

The layout and typology are obviously largely inspired by the Great Mosque of Kairouan and the Great Mosque of Cordova. The similarities between the Great Mosque of Kairouan and that of Zaytuna are so strong that it is possible to imagine these are the work of the same architect. Here the intersection of the central nave and bay of the qibli forms a perfect square for the mihrâb dome, which was not the case in Kairouan twenty-five years earlier. The axis of the mihrâb is also magnified by the presence, at the portico on the qibla side, of a higher and wider arch which, flanked by two narrower arches, strongly evokes the Roman triumphal arcs. Three columns flank each side of this central arch. This principle would later be applied at the Al-Azhâr Mosque in Cairo (970-972).

he mimicry between the two buildings can even be seen in their respective developments: the second dome at the entrance of the prayer hall would be added in a second construction phase in both mosques.

A square forty-three meters minaret was added on the north-east during the Hafsid period (1228-1574), based on the Almohad model[2]. Like that of the neighbouring Casbah Mosque (1235), it is embellished with stone entrelacs. It was rebuilt under the Husainid. The Hafsid period also dates the reconstruction of the library façade, to which was added twin bays. The doors of the prayer hall were also replaced, and the façade was adorned with a double colonnade.

After the Hilalian invasions, and especially during the Hafsid period, the Mosque of Zaytuna was clearly subject to Hispano-Moorish influence, itself inspired by Aghlabid constructions. This is visible by the stucco decorations, with geometric and floral ornamentations, occurring in the form of panels adorned with foliage scrolls encompassing vine leaves and multifoiled palmettes making up axed designs sometimes containing pine cones and rosettes. As to the geometric motifs, they consist of circles containing stars and squares arranged on the point.

he dome of the portico preceding the prayer hall is also emblematic of the Andalusian influence. Niches with multifoiled arcatures framed by two round arches are deployed on two levels. The round arches are made up of alternating multicoloured arch stones, also found in the prayer hall of the Great Mosque of Cordova. They also evoke Byzantine art. The use of niches as a decorative element is common in Islamic architecture. It is observed not only in tenth-eleventh century Tunisia but also in Egypt and Algeria[3].

[2]  See in Morocco the minarets of the mosques of Hassan Mosque (Rabat, twelfth century) and Kutubiyya (Marrakesh), and in Algeria that of the Mosque of Tlemcen (1136).

[3] East façade of the Great Mosque of Sfax (tenth century); façade of the Mosque of Sidi Ali Ammar; Qubba ibn al-Qhaoui and Banu Hammad Qal'a dating back to the eleventh century.