Sidi (Sayyidî) al-Halwī Mosque

This mosque is characteristic of the architecture of the Marinids. A perfectly symmetrical rectangle deeper than it is wide; it is similar to the Hasan Mosque in Rabat (where depth-to-width ratio is 1.31), which itself takes its inspiration from the Great Mosque in Cordoba (where the ratio is 1.40).

The monumental porch that shelters the entrance door is framed by a ceramic mosaic frieze made of eight-pointed rosettes framing a geometric string-course, which surmounts an inscription mentioning the date of construction and the name of the donor. Jutting out from the facade is a canopy held up by thirteen brackets, which rest on a string-course inscribed with an epigraph in Kufic script. The canopy is topped with a green-tiled roof. The shape of this avant-corps derives from the doorways of the Mosque of Tinmal; this particular feature is found in no other earlier mosque in Algeria or Morocco. The door is positioned in line with the mihrāb and opens out into a square courtyard bounded by porticos.

In the prayer hall, which has two side entrances, there are five naves perpendicular to the qibla wall, which are supported both by pillars (at the ends of the naves) and by columns. As in Tinmal, some naves end at a distance of one bay from the mihrāb, delimiting a T-shaped plan, a layout already used in the Abū Dulaf Mosque in Samarra (Iraq) and the Great Mosque of Kairouan. The arches of the bays rest on marble columns. By virtue of its plan and facade, this monument is very similar to the Mosque of Sayyidī Abū Madyan d’al-‘Ubbād, near Tlemcen (1338).

The mihrāb has a hexagonal niche and a small dome covered with muqarnas. Its octagonal plan is inspired by the Almohad mihrābs in Tinmal and Kutubiyya in Marrakech. Small domes covered with muqarnas are of Iranian origin; the Great Mosque of Tinmal in Morocco erected by the sovereign ‘Abd al-Mu’min has one. The capitals that surmount the columns of the mihrāb are somewhat similar to those of the Madinat al-Zahra and Qarawiyyīn Mosques in Fez, which in turn were inspired by the ancient composite capital. The springers that surmount them are decorated with string-courses adorned with sculpted vegetal elements; similar ones existed already in the Great Mosque of Kairouan and in the Alhambra in Grenada. These magnificent capitals and columns may come from the unfinished palace of Mansura.

The coffered cedar ceilings have geometric interlacing patterns that form rosettes, octagons, lozenges and squares. This decoration is reminiscent of those of the contemporary Bū Inaniyya madrasa in Fez and the Taller del Moro palace in Toledo. The Marinids inherited this kind of ceiling from the Almohads, who were the first to use it, notably in the Kutubiyya in Marrakech.

The minaret standing in the north-western corner of the mosque resembles that of the Saiyyidi Abū Madyan (Sidi Bū Madyan) Mosque. It is quadrangular and comprises two parts, the main tower and the lantern-turret; the latter is decorated with a large string-course with a design of diamond shapes. There are recesses encircled by cut arcades with geometric spandrels. The tower’s structure and decoration call to mind Abd al-Wadid minarets. Decoration on ceramic, inherited from the Almohad minarets of the Kutubiyya and the qasaba of Marrakech, is typical of Marinid art as encountered in the minarets of Bū Inaniyya and in the Great Mosque in Fez.