Al-Zaytuna Mosque
Al-Zaytuna Mosque, also known as Ez-Zitouna Mosque, and El-Zituna Mosque is a major mosque at the center of the Medina of Tunis in Tunis, Tunisia. It covers an area of 5,000 square metres with nine entrances. The mosque is known to host one of the first and greatest universities in the history of Islam. The courtyard is accessible via nine lateral doorways and forms a rectangle surrounded by galleries supported by columns made variously of marble, granite or porphyry and which were taken from ancient monuments. The exact date of building varies according to source. Ibn Khaldun and El-Bakri wrote that it was built in 731 C.E. by Ubayd Allah ibn al-Habhab. A second source states that the Umayyad Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik ordered the building; however, Ahmed In Abu Diyaf and Ibn Abi Dinar attributed the order to Hasan ibn al-Nu’man who led the conquest of Tunis and Carthage, and used it as a place of prayer.
Most scholars agree that the third possibility is the strongest by evidence as it is unlikely that the city of Tunis remained a long time without a mosque, after its conquest in 79 Hijri.Thus the closest date is 703 C.E., and what El-Habhab did was in fact enlarge the mosque and improve its architecture.Built in 1894, the minaret is 43 meters high and imitates the decoration of the Almohad minaret of the Kasbah Mosque with its limestone strap-work on a background of ochre sandstone. The dome was added by the Zirids around 991. A beautiful structure about 12 metres in height and 4 metres in width, the dome is considered to be one of the most beautiful domes in Tunis.
- Al-Zaytuna Mosque
- Location: Tunis
- Country: Tunisia
- Built : 731 C.E
