History
History
Founded in 670 by the conqueror Uqba ibn Nafi and rebuilt in the 9th century by the Aghlabids, the Great Mosque of Kairouan is the founding sanctuary of the Muslim West. Its fortress-like appearance, thick walls, massive buttresses, a three-tiered square minaret, protects a hypostyle prayer hall with more than 400 ancient columns.
The model for almost every mosque in the Maghreb, it preserves a mihrab tiled with lustreware panels from Baghdad and a 9th-century teak minbar, considered the oldest preaching pulpit still in place in the world.
Anecdotes & highlights
- Its minaret, begun around 730, is considered the oldest minaret still standing.
- The marble and porphyry columns come from Roman and Byzantine sites such as Carthage.
- A local saying held that seven pilgrimages to Kairouan were equal to the pilgrimage to Mecca : a popular tradition, not a canonical one.
