Koutoubia Mosque

Etymology

The mosque's name derives from the Arabic word kutubiyyin (كُتُبيين), which means "booksellers". The Koutoubia Mosque, or Bookseller's Mosque, reflects the bookselling trade practised in the nearby souk. At one time as many as 100 book vendors worked in the streets at the base of the mosque.

Almohad conquest and reform of Marrakesh

The city of Marrakesh was founded around 1070 by the Almoravid dynasty to be their capital, but was captured in 1147 by the Almohads under their leader Abd al-Mu'min. While the Almohads decided to make Marrakesh their capital too, they did not want any trace of religious monuments built by the Almoravids, their staunch enemies, as they considered them heretics. They reportedly demolished all the mosques in the city, including the main mosque, the Ben Youssef Mosque, arguing that the Almoravid mosques were not aligned with the proper qibla (direction of prayer).

Since the former Almoravid grand mosque (i.e. the original Ben Youssef Mosque) was already closely integrated into the surrounding urban fabric, it was not practical for the Almohads to rebuild an entirely new mosque with a significantly different orientation on the same site. It's possible that they did not even demolish the mosque but merely left it derelict. The Almohads may have also wished to have the city's main mosque located closer to the kasbah and royal palaces, as was common in other Islamic cities. As a result, Abd al-Mu'min decided to build the new mosque right next to the former Almoravid kasbah, the Ksar el-Hajjar, which became the site of the new Almohad royal palace, located west of the city's main square (what is today the Jemaa el-Fnaa).

Almohad versus Almoravid qibla alignment

The issue of the qibla alignment of the Kutubiyya and other Almohad mosques (and of medieval Islamic mosques generally) is a complex one which is often misunderstood. The justification given by the Almohads for the destruction of existing Almoravid mosques was that their qibla was aligned too far toward the east, which the Almohads judged to be incorrect as they preferred a tradition that existed in the western Islamic world (the Maghreb and al-Andalus) according to which the qibla should be oriented toward the south instead. This alignment was actually further away from the "true" qibla used in modern mosques everywhere today, which points directly towards Mecca (i.e. towards the shortest possible path across the Earth's surface between the mosque and Mecca). Qibla orientations varied throughout the medieval period of Morocco, but the Almohads generally followed an orientation between 154° and 159° (numbers expressed as the azimuth from the true north), whereas the "true" qibla in Marrakesh is 91° (nearly due east). This true qibla was eventually adopted in modern times and is evident in more recent mosques – including the current Ben Youssef Mosque, rebuilt in 1819 with a qibla of 88° (slightly too far north but very close to 91°).

Medieval Muslims did possess sufficient mathematical knowledge to calculate a reasonably accurate "true" qibla. A more easterly qibla orientation (pointing approximately toward Mecca) was already evident in the royal mosque of Madinat al-Zahra (just outside Cordoba) built later in the 10th century, as well as in the orientation of the original Almoravid Ben Youssef Mosque (founded in 1126), estimated to be 103°.

The first Kutubiyya Mosque

The most commonly accepted chronology of the mosque's construction is the one originally proposed by French scholars Henri Terrasse and Henri Basset during their study of Almohad monuments in the first half of the 20th century, with further refinements by Gaston Deverdun in his 1959 book about Marrakesh. According to this view, Abd al-Mu'min began construction of the first Kutubiyya Mosque in 1147, the same year that he had conquered the city. The date of the first mosque's completion is unconfirmed, but is estimated to have been around 1157, when it is known with some certainty that prayers were conducted in the mosque, as it was in 1157 that a celebrated copy of the Qur'an attributed to the hand of Caliph Uthman, previously kept in the Great Mosque of Cordoba, was transferred here.

Architecture

Architectural details of the first mosque and the second mosque are almost identical except for the orientation. Hence, what is true of one holds true for the other, though the first mosque is now only visible as archaeological remains. The mosque is a characteristic Almohad design, and its various elements resemble those of many other mosques from the same period. The mosque's floor plan is a slightly irregular quadrilateral due to the fact that its northern wall corresponds to the former southern wall of the first mosque and its different orientation. The current mosque is roughly 90 metres (300 ft) wide, 57 metres (187 ft) long on its west side, and 66 metres (217 ft) long on its east side. Aside from the minaret, the mosque is generally built in brick, although sandstone masonry is also used for parts of the outer walls. The same materials and construction methods are also evident in the first mosque.

Exterior

The mosque is located in a large plaza with gardens, and is floodlit at night. The wall on the northern side of the first mosque abutted the old Almoravid fortress wall (the Ksar el-Hajjar). There are eight entrances to the mosque: four on the west side and four on the east side. The eastern side faces the street where book shops were located, hence the name "Booksellers' Mosque". There is a private entrance for the imam on the south side of the mosque, leading to a door on the left side of the mihrab. Historically, the first Kutubiyya Mosque also had a private entrance next to the mihrab which was used by the ruler to enter directly into the maqsura.

Courtyard (sahn)

The rectangular sahn or courtyard is in the northern part of the mosque. It is 45 metres (148 ft) wide, the same width as the nine central naves, and 23 metres (75 ft) long or deep. There is an ablution fountain at the center of the courtyard. Nowadays trees are also planted in a grid pattern throughout the courtyard. The decoration is otherwise limited to the arches running along the edges of the courtyard, with some of the arches are highlighted with a polylobed molding carved around them.

Prayer hall

The interior prayer hall is a hypostyle hall with more than 100 pillars which support rows of horseshoe arches that divide the hall into 17 parallel naves or aisles which run perpendicular to the southern wall, or roughly north to south. The pillars and arches are made of brick covered in white plaster. The nine naves in the middle correspond to the width of the courtyard to the north and run the length of six arches, while the four outermost naves run continuously along the east and west sides of the courtyard (corresponding to the length of four extra arches), thus extending the prayer hall around either side of the courtyard. The naves are all covered by berchla or Moroccan wood-frame ceilings on the inside and sloped green-tiled roofs on the outside.

Overall design

The minaret is designed in Almohad style and was constructed in rubble masonry using sandstone. It was historically covered with Marrakshi pink plaster, but in the 1990s, experts opted to expose the original stone work and removed the plaster.

The mosque is located about 200 metres (660 ft) west of Jemaa El Fna souq, a prominent market place which has existed since the city's establishment. It is situated on the Avenue Mohammed V, opposite Place de Foucauld. During French occupation, the network of roads was developed with the mosque as the central landmark, in the ville nouvelle. To the west and south of the mosque is a notable rose garden, and across Avenue Houmman-el-Fetouaki is the small mausoleum of the Almoravid emir Yusuf ibn Tashfin, one of the great builders of Marrakesh, consisting of a simple crenelated structure.

In the mosque's esplanade, which backs onto Jemaa el Fna, the ruins of the first Kutubiyya Mosque can be seen. A part of the perimeter of the Ksar al-Hajjar, the original stone fortress built in 1070 by Abu Bakr ibn Umar, the Almoravid founder of the city, was also uncovered on the northern side of the original mosque. Also visible today at the northeast corner of these ruins and in other areas around the adjacent plaza are various remains attributed to the palace of Ali ibn Yusuf, built next to the fortress and completed in 1126, before being demolished by the Almohads to make way for their new mosque. Directly east of the current mosque is a 19th-century walled residence known as Dar Moulay Ali, which now serves as the French consulate.

Also on the same esplanade is a small white domed building, the Koubba (or Qubba) of Lalla Zohra. This is the tomb of Fatima Zohra bint al-Kush (also called Lalla Zohra), a female mystic who died in the early 17th century and was buried here near the mosque.