The Great Sidi Oqba Mosque of Kairouan Tunisia travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises spa and resorts

Here i will present you the Islam’s fourth most holiest city (after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem) Great Mosque. It is located in Tunisia and is called Kairouan. The Sidi Oqba Mosque, or Great Mosque, stands at the northeast corner of the Medina in Kairouan, its massive minaret incorporated in the town walls.

Some History

The oldest and most important Islamic building in North Africa and the model for all later Moorish sacred architecture, it was originally built by Uqba ibn Nafi, the Arab commander who founded Kairouan, in 672. After being pulled down, rebuilt, altered and enlarged on various occasions it was given its present form about 836, in the reign of the Aghlabid ruler Ziyadet Allah. Since then it has been frequently renovated, notably in 1025, 1294, 1618 and 1968-73. It originally stood in the center of the town, but, as can be seen from the town plan, this has moved steadily southwestward.

By 698, following several more military campaigns in the Maghreb, the Arabs had driven the Byzantines from their garrisons in Carthage and become masters of the provinces of North Africa, called by them Ifriqiya. The town of Kairouan became the capital of this vast province. Governors were appointed to the province by the Ommayyad and Abassid caliphs (ruling from Damascus and Baghdad), and they exercised their rule from Kairouan. This tradition was continued over the centuries by the Aghlabid emirs (9th century), the Fatamid caliphs (10th century), and the Zirid emirs (11th century). During these centuries, the city became one of the most important cultural centers in the Arab world, witnessing a flowering of sciences, literature and the arts. Agriculture was favored by the execution of sizable irrigation projects and an active increase in trade with the surrounding regions added to the general prosperity. Kairouan grew in size and beauty and no where was this more evident than in the construction and continuing elaboration of its Great Mosque.

From the 11th century onward, however, Kairouan ceased to be the capital of Arab Ifriqiya. Tunis, Tlemcen, Fez, Marrakech and other North African cities usurped its political and economic prominence. Slowly the ancient city shrunk in size until it covered scarcely a third of the area occupied by the metropolis of the Aghlabids, the Fatamids, and the Zirids. Yet, as a holy city, Kairouan grew in importance with the passing centuries and its splendid mosque became a magnet for pilgrims from Muslim territories throughout Northern and Saharan Africa.

The Great Mosque, also known as the Sidi Oqba mosque, had its simple beginnings in 670 AD, during the time of Uqba ibn Nafi, the original founder of Kairouan. As the city expanded during the following three hundred years, the original mosque was torn down and rebuilt in 703, again in 774, and then significantly enlarged by rulers of the Aghlabid dynasty in 836 and 863. By the end of the 9th century the mosque had attained the size and proportions that it exhibits today, though numerous renovations and ornamentations were conducted during the 13th and 14th centuries by the Hafsid dynasty rulers and during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries (when the region was controlled by the Turks) by the Mouradite and Husseinite rulers.

Some Facts

The mosque covers an area 135m/443ft long by 80m/262ft wide. The entrance, on the west side, with the midha (room for ablutions), leads into the inner courtyard, off which open a number of doorways. In the form of a slightly irregular rectangle, it is surrounded on three sides by double- aisled colonnades of antique columns. Under the marble-paved courtyard, which slopes down gradually towards the center, are cisterns for the storage of rainwater. At the north end is the minaret, at the south end the magnificent facade of the prayer hall. The vestibule, two bays deep, with a ribbed dome, dates from the ninth century.

Seventeen carved wooden doors give admission to the seventeen-aisled prayer hall. The central aisle, which is wider than the others, leads straight to the mihrab (prayer niche) on the qibla wall, along which extends a wide aisle. The bay in front of the mihrab is crowned by a dome, one of the oldest stone-built domes in North Africa. The prayer hall, measuring 80m/260ft by 40m/130ft, is a forest of columns with beautiful shafts and capitals from ancient buildings, some from as far afield as Carthage and Hadrumetum (Sousse). Including those in the courtyard, the mosque contains a total of 414 columns.

The mihrab marking the direction of Mecca (though later measurements have shown that it is 30° off the true line) is faced with fine faience tiles, given a metallic sheen by the addition of metal oxides to the glaze - a process not known in the west when the tiles were imported from Baghdad in 862. The rear wall is clad with 28 decorated marble slabs measuring 60cm/2ft by 45cm/18in. The round-headed arch over the mihrab is borne on marble columns. To the right of the mihrab is the wooden minbar (pulpit), decorated with the finest intarsia work, which also dates from the ninth century and is thus the oldest surviving minbar in the whole Islamic world. (There are a reproduction and photographs of it in the Islamic Museum: see below.) The maqsura (the screen behind which the ruler could participate in worship) is a masterpiece of carving (1022).

Although non-Muslims have since 1972 been banned from entering the prayer hall, it may be possible to get a glimpse of the interior through an open door.

Google Earth Placemark - The Great Sidi Oqba Mosque of Kairouan Tunisia