Ribāt of Monastir

This complex, which is linked to the ramparts of the city, lies along the shore of the sea near two other ribāt[1]. It was enlarged and transformed several times. The original ribāt presents a regular plan. Its façades are flanked at the corners by cylindrical towers; the one on the south-eastern corner is a look-out tower. The courtyard is surrounded with galleries onto which several rooms open. All that remains of this old monument is the southern wing, which contains the entrance porch, the south-western tower with a staircase in its core, the look-out tower with its façades divided into panels by mouldings and a crenellated parapet at the top, and the upper-storey prayer hall. This sanctuary is divided into seven naves perpendicular to the qibla wall, intersected by two bays. The division is created by rectangular pillars surmounted by semicircular arches that relieve the strain on the barrel vault ceiling. The mihrāb in the centre of the qibla wall opens with a semicircular arch that rests on two small corner columns topped with Byzantine corbels.

In the tenth century extensions were added to the ribāt on the southern and western sides. A structure separated from the original façade by a small courtyard was built to the south. Its construction date (AH 355/AD 966) appears on a stone inscription now displayed in the Louvre[2]. An entrance porch in the middle of the façade opens in a semicircular arch and gives access to a vestibule leading to rooms. The upper storey contains a prayer hall laid out in seven barrel vaulted naves perpendicular to the qibla wall and two bays, forming arches in both directions (semicircular and basket handle arches). These are supported by cruciform pillars. In the eleventh century this house was transformed into a ribāt for women.

An entrance porch and square towers were added on the western side. Enhancing the façade of this porch is an opening marked by an arch surmounted by five flat niches. They are framed by round horseshoe arches and surmounted in turn by cavetto mouldings and friezes of floral motifs.

A commemorative plaque in Naskhi script attests to the fact that works were carried out in the Hafsid era[3] to reinforce the monument’s defences to protect it against threats from the Christian states. Other towers, in particular bastions, were added as part of the restoration carried out by Husayn Bey (1823–1835).

The original plan of the ribāt influenced the architecture of other Aghlabid ribāts such as the one in Sousse. The shape of the look-out tower was adopted for certain Ifriqiyan ribāts, such as the Khadija burj, and minarets[4]. A distinguishing feature of the Monastir ribāt is the bent entrance (one of the oldest examples that has reached us), which would be copied later in the defence systems of the Muslim West during the Almohad, Hafsid and Ottoman periods. The principle of the enlarged central nave came into being in the Umayyad era[5] and was to be followed almost exclusively in all Ifriqiyan and Maghrebian prayer halls.

The decorative repertoire used in the ribāt is limited to flat niches framed by round horseshoe arches resting on abutments, which are closely related to the niches adorning the façades of other Ifriqiyan buildings[6]. In this ribāt one of the oldest uses of jagged merlons in Ifriqiya can be observed. This element of Sassanid military architecture, which already existed in Assyria, was to be in vogue in Mesopotamia and Egypt in the Abbasid period. It did not survive in military architecture in Ifriqiya but was sometimes used as a decorative element, as certain cedar panels in the minbar of the Great Mosque in Kairouan illustrate.

[2] Foundation plaque, Ifriqiya, 965, sculpted marble, Paris, Musée du Louvre, Department of Islamic Art, inv. MAO 742. http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=20141

[3] Under the reign of Prince Abū Farīs, in AH 827/AD 1424.

[4] See that of al-Abbasiyya (AH 185/AD 801)

[5] Al-Aqsā Mosque, Jerusalem (685-715); Great Mosque, Damascus, Syria (706-715).

[6] Façade of the Great Mosque of Mahdiyya (916), the oratory of Sidi Ali Ammar and the qubba of ibn al-Qhaoui in Sousse; Zirid façade of the Great Mosque at Sfax (850).