Hermitage of Almonaster la Real

The old mosque of Almonaster la Real was built inside the enclosure of the fortress, close to the main entrance in the enclosure's wall. It was constructed in several phases.

The building's quadrangular plan has certain irregularities. Its five naves are perpendicular to the qibla wall, an arrangement that can be found in other contemporary or slightly earlier Spanish mosques, such as the Great Mosque of Córdoba. The central nave and its lateral naves are bigger than the others. The arcades that demarcate the naves of this small mosque are mostly of the horseshoe variety, as was often the case in this period. The tops of the arches are irregular, making some of them into slightly raised, pointed arches instead of semicircular horseshoe arches.

All the mosque's arches are in brick laid on site with the exception of seven arches, whose soffits have a keystone. As a strengthening device, brick pillars were integrated into the adobe walls. The mosque, with its horseshoe arches in brick laid on site, can be compared with other Muslim oratories in the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa. This type of arch can be found in the Arab architecture in Toledo from the tenth century, and also in the al-Karaouine Mosque in Fez (Morocco). Arch-stones supporting keystones can also be found in Toledo in the Mosque of the Saviour, and in the mosque of Niebla. The arches rest on reused stone forming columns made of a block or several blocks, which are topped with reused capitals. They don't have bases. On the capitals sits a reused carved stone impost that originates from an earlier building.

The mihrab is indicated by a doorway formed by a brick horseshoe arch in a rectangular band (alfiz). The niche is enclosed by a semi-dome vault, formed initially by the horseshoe arch, and whose bricks are arranged in concentric circles. At the centre of the qibla wall, which is twice as thick as the rest of the wall, there is a small prayer niche with a slightly elongated semi-circular plan similar to those found in North African mosques. It can be compared with several Tunisian buildings, the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, and the Mosque of Ahmad Ibn Ţūlūn in Egypt. In Al-Andalus, it was comparable with the mihrabs constructed in the Alicante region. The niche is slightly inclined towards the East, and it faces exactly south-east, i.e. towards Mecca.

The mosque has a small courtyard to the north. To the west and away from the rest of the building, rises the Hermitage's bell tower, whose lower section may have belonged to the old minaret.

Small mosques were quite common in the average town at the end of the Emirate period, and became even more so after this period. After the Christian reconquest, the mosque was made into a church—a function it has maintained to the present day.