Great Mosque of Sousse

The Great Mosque is at the eastern end of the medina, near the rampart, about 50 metres from the ribāt. It is a rectangular structure comprising a courtyard lined with porticos on columns onto which the prayer hall opens. Several doors in the side façades lead into it. There is no minaret; this may be because the look-out tower of the ribāt is very close by. Towers occupy the north-east and south-east corners of the courtyard[1]. The north-eastern tower is surmounted by a small domed edifice that can be reached via a staircase in the courtyard. The three porticos with horseshoe arches resting on very short pillars date from the first construction phase. The fourth portico, on the prayer hall side, which rests on columns, was doubtless added during the Zirid period and renovated under the Muradites (AH 1086/AD 1675), judging by an inscription in Naskhi script and the architectural style.

The upper zone of the three Aghlabid porticos and the prayer hall is adorned with a Kufic inscription written in bevelled letters on a scooped-out string-course. This kind of decoration would be used again on the façade of the Bū Fatata Mosque (838–841, Sousse), in the Zitouna Mosque[2] and in Fatimid Egypt[3].

The T-shaped prayer hall[4] is made up of thirteen naves and six bays; the mihrāb bay and the central nave with its double columns are wider than the others. The central nave is also enhanced by two cupolas, one of which is in front of the mihrāb. Architecture in Sousse would follow the T-shaped layout, which had already been used in the Great Mosque of Kairouan (670 and 836) and the Abbasid mosque of Abū Dulāf (Samarra, Iraq, 847–861), and would adopt the principle of two cupolas in the prayer hall[5], which was subsequently to appear in Fatimid Egypt[6].

The original core structure, which dates from the time of Abū al-‘Abbas Muhammad, comprised thirteen barrel-vaulted naves and three bays resting on round horseshoe arches running in both directions, placed on cruciform pillars. Under Ibrahim II (875–902) the surface area of the prayer hall was increased by the addition of three bays and a new mihrāb preceded by a dome on squinches. The decoration of this semi-cylindrical mihrāb is in the Zirid style, as testified to by the niches resting on columns that decorate the half dome and the inscriptions in flowery Kufic letters on the reused ancient columns flanking the niche.[7] The mihrāb closely resembles those of the Great Mosques of Mahdiyya and Monastir and the one in the oratory of the Sayyida Ribāt in Monastir.

The dome of the original mihrāb (875) rests on a square base graced with a Kufic inscription, as in Kairouan. Shell-shaped corner squinches, which also exist in the neighbouring ribāt and in Kairouan, provide the transition between the base and the dome. The side pediments of the bay of the dome are decorated with floral motifs (rosettes, palm leaves and foliage) circumscribed in squares laid point to point, which call to mind the lustre tiles on the mihrāb of the Great Mosque of Kairouan and contemporaneous woodwork and stuccowork[8].

The dome, though inspired by the principle of Kairouan style domes, departs from it by virtue of the absence of a drum. This type of dome, which features in the entrance porch of the ribāt of Sousse (821), would be reproduced in the architecture of the Tunisian Sahel. On the outside, the area of the squinches corresponds to an eight-sided drum[9].

The austere, massive appearance of the building is reminiscent of the architecture of ribāts. It is strikingly similar to hydraulic and underground architecture such as that of the cisterns of Ramla[10] and Sofra (Sousse, pre-Islamic period). This style would become typical of the architecture of the Tunisian Sahel[11].

[2] 856–864

[3] Salih Talaï Mosque, Cairo, 1160, spandrels of the façade.

[4] 41 m x  26 m.

[5] Great Mosque of Zitouna, 856–864, Great Mosque of Sfax, 859.

[6]  Al-Azhar Mosque, Cairo, 970–972.

[7] We may observe the use of this writing on an element of the minbar from the Andalusian Mosque, Morocco, 985, Fez, Batha Museum, inv. SN.

[8] See the minbar of the Great Mosque of Kairouan.

[9] These drums crop up again in Fatimid Egypt, for example, in the tombs of the Aswan cemetery.

[10] Palestine, early eighth century, in the courtyard of the White Mosque.

[11] Ribāt of Monastir (796), Great Mosque of Mahdiyya (tenth c.).