TUNISIA: Great Mosque Kairouan
Kairouan is a Muslim holy town in Tunisia, located 160 km south of Tunis. An
historic halt on the North African trade routes, it became focus of a
concerted building effort by the Aghlabid emirs in the 8-9th centuries, who
are credited with its treasure trove of ancient mosques, shrines and
cisterns. Centrepiece is the Ja`ime Sidi Okba, the Great Mosque, whose
massive wooden doors in its thick buttressed walls access a vast courtyard
with a single grand minaret, 31 metres in height. Early mosques did not have
minarets, but as Islam spread, the many church steeples influenced their
inclusion into what is considered classic Islamic architecture. The lower
quarter of the minaret dates from AD 730 making it the oldest in the world.
The teak minbar in the prayer hall, carved by Iraqi craftsmen in the 9th
century, is also one of the oldest pulpits in Islam. The colonnade, along
three sides of the courtyard, is supported on hundreds of Roman, Byzantine
and Latin Christian columns filched from sites in Carthage and Sousse. No
two are alike and it is said that anyone trying to count them will become
blind. Then, as now, the Great Mosque remains a sacred destination for
Muslims unable to pefrom the hajj to Saudi Arabia. Ancient belief says that
seven trips to Kairouan is equal to one pilgrimage to Mecca. The Muslim
monuments of Kairouan were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1988.