The al-Nāqah Mosque, or ‘Camel’ Mosque, in Tripoli

The ‘Camel’ Mosque, located behind the seraglio in the old quarter of Tripoli, is the oldest mosque in the Libyan capital. Little is known about the origins of this small edifice and, in the absence of any precise information, various legends about its foundation have arisen in popular tradition inspired by the famous episode of Muhammad’s camel, which stopped during his hegira at the site where the first Islamic mosque was built in Medina. In Tripoli, the camel of Caliph ‘Umar (reigned 634–644) refused to get up at the site where the mosque was built. The building’s foundation is sometimes attributed to General ‘Amr ibn al-‘Ās, who led the Arab Muslim armies and conquered the city in 643. To buy their amnesty, the city’s inhabitants offered him a camel loaded with coins that the conqueror—he did not take the money for himself—used to build the first mosque in the city. However, the most commonly recounted story and by far the most plausible explanation for the mosque’s name is that of the visit of the Fatimid caliph al-Mu‘izz, when he left Ifriqiya to establish the seat of the Caliphate in Egypt in 973. Because of the warm welcome he received from the people of Tripoli, he decided to offer the city and its inhabitants one of the camels that was carrying his treasure, to extend and embellish the city’s great mosque.

The oldest historical testimony, that of the famous traveller al-Tijānī who visited Tripoli in 1307, attributes the edifice, which was then named jāmi‘ al-a‘dham, to the Fatimid dynasty and dates the construction of the minaret to 913 or 916, by the governor Khalīl ibn Ishaq (d.933). The edifice was however partly destroyed when the Spanish stormed the city in 1510 and wasn’t restored until 1610 by the Turkish governor, Safar Dey, who left an inscription commemorating his work.

The edifice is organized in an unusual way: the prayer hall is flanked by a square minaret to the east and extends to the west via a porticoed courtyard that adjoins the qibla wall. Another original feature of this mosque is its composite character: Libyco-Maghribi influences are combined with art from the various occupiers of the country. The ‘forest’ of columns (36 in all) that ornaments the prayer hall probably originates from the remains of the ancient city of Oea, which preceded Tripoli. These reused columns form an ensemble of granite and marble columns, which are smooth or fluted, of various sizes, and very often surmounted by Doric or Corinthian capitals with acanthus leaves. The composition they create does however follow the classical model of Libyan mosques: each four-column cluster forms a module surmounted by slightly pointed arches supporting one of the 42 small cupolas that cover the prayer hall. The central nave, which leads to the mihrāb, widens after the qibla wall.

The courtyard’s location allows it to be used as a summer mosque, following an age-old tradition in Libya: the qibla wall in the courtyard therefore has a mihrāb, which was preceded by a double portico that was used as a prayer hall. The portico was destroyed during the bombing in the Second World War. The square ten-meter high minaret is crowned by a series of 12 merlons surmounted by capstones laid in a herring-bone pattern. The minaret’s appearance is unique in Tripoline religious architecture; the only other examples of such minarets and influences are found in religious architecture in sub-Saharan areas.