Mosque of the Three Doors

This small neighbourhood oratory, also know as the Ibn Khayrun Mosque, was erected by a merchant from Andalusia who settled in Kairouan. It is one of the few well-preserved buildings from this period.

The mosque’s distinctive feature is its façade with three doors surmounted by horseshoe arches. This is the oldest decorated mosque façade in the Islamic world. In all likelihood it took its inspiration from the façade of the Bū Fatata Mosque in Sousse (AH 224–226/AD 838–841), where Kufic writing is carved in relief in a string-course hollowed out with sunk carving for the first time in Ifriqiya.

Marking the upper limit of the façade are 24 brackets, similar to those on the northern entrance of the western façade of the Great Mosque of Kairouan. Just below them are two string-courses in which the founder’s name and the construction date are inscribed in Kufic script. These two inscriptions in turn frame a string-course made up of rectangular panels in which pairs of rosettes alternate with vegetal motifs. A third, lower, course inscribed in Kufic gives the date of the renovation (AH 844/AD 1440), which took place during the Hafsid period (1228-1574). Three doors occupy the façade, the middle one higher and wider than the others. The doors are surmounted by arches resting on marble columns topped with capitals. The spandrels are decorated with floral motifs composed of three- or five-lobed leaves, some furled, others open.

There is a similarity between this façade and the façade of the Bāb al-Mardūm Mosque (San Cristo de la Luz, Toledo, tenth century), which boasts a Kufic inscription in brick, topped with corbels.

At the north-east corner stands a Hafsid era minaret set on a square base and pierced with gemel windows framed with ceramic tiles. It is modelled after Andalusian type minarets, a style that began to spread throughout Tunisia during the Almohad-Hafsid era.

The prayer hall, which for lack of a courtyard is reached directly from the street, is very simple: it is formed of three naves parallel to the qibla wall and three bays. The ceiling consists of brick groin vaults that come to rest on round horseshoe arches that are supported by columns, the prototype of which was perpetuated in Tunisia from Roman times.

One of the arcatures in the prayer hall of the oratory still has a carved wood springer[1] decorated with stylised floral motifs. It bears a striking resemblance to certain panels of the minbar in the Great Mosque of Kairouan, which itself is heir to Umayyad models. This confirms the oft-disputed Ifriqiyan origin of the structure, without denying the Mesopotamian influences and the similarity with the carved wood decorations created in the eastern regions of the Islamic world[2].

[2] See for example the woodwork on the Great Mosque of Khiva (Uzbekistan, tenth century) http://archnet.org/library/images/one-image.jsp?location_id=10922&image_id=77428.