Great Mosque of Sousse

File:Medina Sousse Nov 2021 019.jpg

In the year 800 the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid granted the governorship of Ifriqiya (roughly modern-day Tunisia) to Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab, who founded the Aghlabid dynasty that ruled the region for the next century, nominally on behalf of their Abbasid overlords. The Aghlabids were major builders and a relatively large number of early Islamic monuments built under their patronage have survived.{{Cite book |last= |first= |title=The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2009 |isbn=9780195309911 |editor-last=M. Bloom |editor-first=Jonathan |volume=1 |location= |pages= |language=en |chapter=Architecture; IV. c. 750–c. 900; C. Tunisia |editor-last2=S. Blair |editor-first2=Sheila}} The oldest mosque in the city (and the oldest preserved Muslim prayer hall in North Africa){{Cite book |last=Bloom |first=Jonathan M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IRHbDwAAQBAJ |title=Architecture of the Islamic West: North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, 700–1800 |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2020 |isbn=9780300218701 |location= |pages=25–26 |language=en}} is in the nearby Ribat of Sousse, founded in the 8th century and modified or rebuilt in 821.{{Cite book |last1=Binous |first1=Jamila |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wT7dBAAAQBAJ |title=Ifriqiya: Thirteen Centuries of Art and Architecture in Tunisia |last2=Baklouti |first2=Naceur |last3=Ben Tanfous |first3=Aziza |last4=Bouteraa |first4=Kadri |last5=Rammah |first5=Mourad |last6=Zouari |first6=Ali |publisher=Museum With No Frontiers & Ministry of Culture, the National Institute of Heritage, Tunis |year=2010 |isbn=9783902782199 |edition=2nd |series=Islamic Art in the Mediterranean |location= |pages= |language=en |chapter=VII. 3. a The Ribat}}{{Cite book |last=Mazot |first=Sibylle |title=Islam: Art and Architecture |publisher=h.f.ullmann |year=2011 |isbn=9783848003808 |editor-last=Hattstein |editor-first=Markus |location= |pages=138–139 |language=en |chapter=The Architecture of the Aghlabids |editor-last2=Delius |editor-first2=Peter}} As the city's population grew during the 9th century, the Ribat's mosque most likely became too small to serve the town's population, inciting the Aghlabid's sponsoring of a new congregational mosque for the community.{{Cite book |last=Bloom |first=Jonathan M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IRHbDwAAQBAJ |title=Architecture of the Islamic West: North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, 700–1800 |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2020 |isbn=9780300218701 |location= |pages=36–37}}

The Great Mosque of Sousse was commissioned by the Aghlabid amir (ruler) Abu'l-Abbas Muhammad I in 851. Its construction was supervised by Mudam al-Khadim, a freed slave and mawla of Abu'l-Abbas.{{Cite book |last=Johns |first=Jeremy |title=The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa |publisher=Brill |year=2018 |isbn=978-90-04-35566-8 |editor-last=Anderson |editor-first=Glaire D. |pages=601 |language=en |chapter=The Palermo Quran (AH 372/982–3 CE) and its Historical Context |editor-last2=Fenwick |editor-first2=Corisande |editor-last3=Rosser-Owen |editor-first3=Mariam}}{{Cite book |last=Marçais |first=Georges |title=L'architecture musulmane d'Occident |publisher=Arts et métiers graphiques |year=1954 |isbn= |location=Paris |pages=}}{{Rp|page=23}} The mosque's prayer hall was expanded southwards later in the same century. The portico in front of the prayer hall, on the south side of the courtyard, was added in the 11th century under the Zirid dynasty, who also restored or decorated the mihrab (niche in the southern wall symbolizing the qibla) and the domed tower-pavilion at the northeast corner. Another restoration took place in 1785, when the southern portico was renovated.{{Cite book |last1=Binous |first1=Jamila |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wT7dBAAAQBAJ |title=Ifriqiya: Thirteen Centuries of Art and Architecture in Tunisia |last2=Baklouti |first2=Naceur |last3=Ben Tanfous |first3=Aziza |last4=Bouteraa |first4=Kadri |last5=Rammah |first5=Mourad |last6=Zouari |first6=Ali |publisher=Museum With No Frontiers & Ministry of Culture, the National Institute of Heritage, Tunis |year=2010 |isbn=9783902782199 |edition=2nd |series=Islamic Art in the Mediterranean |location= |pages= |language=en |chapter=VII. 3. b The Great Mosque}}

Since 1988, the mosque is a part of UNESCO World Heritage Site encompassing the Medina of Sousse.{{Cite web |last= |first= |title=Medina of Sousse |url=https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/498/ |access-date=2022-12-29 |website=UNESCO World Heritage Centre |language=en}}

The mosque has a rectangular floor plan measuring about 57 metres wide and 50 metres long (or 59 by 51 metres according to another source), divided between a courtyard and a prayer hall. While the floor plan is not very different from that of the Great Mosque of Kairouan, the structure of the building is very different.{{Rp|page=24}} It is adjacent to the older Ribat of Sousse, which influenced the mosque's fortified appearance with crenellated walls and corner towers.[http://www.patrimoinedetunisie.com.tn/eng/monuments/mosquee_sousse.php The Great Mosque of Sousse.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200707184128/http://www.patrimoinedetunisie.com.tn/eng/monuments/mosquee_sousse.php|date=2020-07-07}} Ministry of Culture. Retrieved 8-1-2017.

The mosque courtyard (sahn) measures 41 by 22.25 metres. A long Kufic Arabic inscription runs in a cornice along the top edge of the walls around the courtyard, containing most Qur'anic excerpts. On the south side of the courtyard the inscription is now hidden behind an extra arcaded portico that was added in the 11th century (and restored in 1675) in front of the prayer hall's original arcaded façade. At the mosque's northeast corner is a cylindrical bastion topped by a domed octagonal pavilion, which was likely a sawma'a, a space at roof level where the muezzin could issue the call to prayer, serving the function that minarets did in later periods. The domed kiosk itself dates from the 11th century, during the Zirid period.

File:17 الجامع الكبير سوسة.JPG|The courtyard (looking west)

File:Sousse (105) (7996059202).jpg|Stairs to the roof, with the Kufic inscription band visible along the top of the wall

File:TUNISIE SOUSSE RIBAT 05.JPG|The domed northeast tower, seen from outside

File:Grande Mosquée de Sousse, 30 septembre 2013, (37).jpg|The façade of the prayer hall, south side of the courtyard

The prayer hall has 13 naves separated by rows of horseshoe arches. The hall was originally three bays (three arches) deep, but it was subsequently extended by demolishing the qibla wall (southern wall) and extending it for the length of another three bays. The present mihrab dates from the Zirid period, judging by the style of its decorations and Kufic inscriptions. Rather than being covered by flat wooden ceilings, as with many other mosques of the region, the prayer hall is covered with rubble stone vaults. The hall's original bays are covered with barrel vaults while the bays of the later extension are covered by groin vaults.{{Rp|page=72}} The dome in front of the original mihrab is still present, now in the middle of the prayer hall, and resembles the domes of the Great Mosque of Kairouan: it has an octagonal drum, scalloped squinches, a Kufic inscription, and carved floral decoration. The two tympanums of the arches on either side, below the dome, are covered in a carved checkerboard-like motif of lozenges filled with floral and rosette motifs.{{Rp|page=54}} The dome is one of the few domes to be built in front of a mosque mihrab during the Umayyad and Abbasid periods, the others being at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem (705) and at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus (715).Necipogulu, 1998, p.14.{{Full citation needed|date=December 2022}}

File:Prayer Hall of the Great Mosque of Sousse.jpg|Prayer hall, with the central nave leading to the mihrab (left)

File:Grande mosquée de Sousse 03.JPG|Mihrab of the mosque

File:Grande mosquée de Sousse 01.JPG|Minbar of the mosque, standing next to the mihrab

• List of the oldest mosques
• History of medieval Arabic and Western European domes

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Sousse

Category:Aghlabid architecture

Category:Religious buildings and structures completed in the 850s

Category:Mosque buildings with domes in Africa