The al-Qarawīyīn Mosque

Following a period of anarchy in Kairouan (between 818 and 825–6), Muhammad ibn ‘Abdallh al-Fihri, a rich tradesman, moved to live in Fez with his family. When he died, his two daughters Fatima and Maryam inherited a legacy that they decided to consecrate to charitable causes. In the Andalusian quarter, Maryam built the Andalusian mosque. Her sister Fatima bought a market garden and was given the consent of the Idrīsid Prince Yahyā ibn Idrīs to erect the initial centre of the future al-Qarawīyīn Mosque. To ensure the building’s upkeep and maintenance, she constituted a mainmort for all its treasures (waqf).

The first mosque was a simple oratory, and Friday prayers continued to be preached in the al-Shurafa’ Mosque. The prayer was only transferred there in 933. The mosque was given a minbar and henceforth called the ‘mosque of the Kairouans’. The former was set out in a quadrangular plan. A courtyard precedes the prayer-hall that was divided into four naves parallel to the qibla wall. A minaret, of which there remains no trace, stood opposite the mihrab, almost in the middle of the building’s north facade.

In the building’s current layout, cruciform pillars delineate the mosque’s perimeter until the mid tenth century. In 956, extension work was undertaken, with the contribution of the Andalusian Umayyad caliph, ‘Abd al-Rahmān al-Nasīr[2]. The original courtyard and minaret were replaced and the mosque’s surface area was doubled. The prayer room thus had seven naves parallel to the qibla wall, each composed of 21 bays supported by round horseshoe arches resting on square baked brick pillars. 

In 985, during a victorious expedition to Fez, al-Mansūr[3] had the dome built near the entry to the axial nave. His son gave the mosque a minbar and a basin, of which there remains no trace. In the next century, the Almoravids (1056–1147) turned it into the finest mosque in Islamic Morocco[4]. The restricted space was extended. The neighbouring houses were destroyed and the wall of the qibla and the axial nave knocked down. The oratory was extended to three naves on the side of the qibla and the axial nave, which is wider than the others, and elevated as in the Great Mosques of Kairouan and Córdoba and embellished with several domes. The Mosque was also given a fine mihrab and a minbar with decorations similar to those of the Kutubiyyah. The various decorative combinations attest to a virtually continuous exchange between the Muslim West and the East[5]. It is likely that ‘Alī ibn Yūsuf[6] invited the finest Spanish artists to adorn his sanctuaries and palaces. The distinguishing feature of the mosque is the arrangement of naves parallel to the qibla, like its contemporary, the Andalusian Mosque. Its shape was inspired by the grand Umayyad mosques of the East, particularly that of Damascus.

Seventeen doors give access to the mosque and its annexes. Apart from the ablutions room and the warehouse, the Almohads (1130–1269) melted down the old candelabra to make the one in the axial nave. The Marinids (1196–1549) organized a part of the minaret into a room for the muwaqqit, and they supplied ingenious instruments to set the prayer times—the most famous of these was the hydraulic clock invented by Ibn al-Habbak in 1286. They replaced the old courtyard mihrab, restored the north gallery, and fitted the oratory with several bronze candelabras. In 1350, the library commissioned by the sovereign Abū ‘Inān Fāris was constructed. The Saadiens added two facing pavilions to the courtyard, inspired by the Court of the Lions, the Alhambra, in Granada.

[1] Translation by G. Deverdun in Terrasse’s 1968 work, p. 77. This inscription merits a closer look, because it was carved later and placed inside the mosque.

[2] Who sent the ‘money from the booty won from the Christians’ (Terrasse 1968, p. 12).

[3] Al-Mansūr ibn Abī ‘Amir, Almanzor in medieval Spanish chronicles, was hādjib to the Umayyad sultan of Spain, Hishâm II and he directed the Umayyad kingdom between 978 and 1002, date of his death.

[4] The al-Qarawīyīn Mosque is one of the largest sanctuaries in Morocco. Only at the end of the twelfth century was a larger building constructed, in the form of the Hasan Mosque in Rabat (25,000m²). At the end of the tenth century, it was in third place, after the mosques of Hasan II in Casablanca and Hasan in Rabat.

[5] At the entry of the axial nave are two cupolas with apparent domes and zigzag patterns that are also found in Sousse (Tunisia). These twelfth-century Almoravid vaults are covered with large friezes or simple medallions framed by lambrequin arches, and adorned with a decoration combining kufic script and geometric and vegetal decorations. Inscriptions emerge from backgrounds adorned with finger-shaped palmettes, fleurons, knotwork, pinecones, and foliage.

[6] Almoravid king (reigned 1106–1142).