A trader dreamed of it, and the foundations were waiting when he woke. This is a small mud mosque in Ghana.
It is the Larabanga Mosque, in northern Ghana, near Mole National Park. It is called the oldest mosque in Ghana, and one of the oldest in West Africa.
Tradition dates it to 1421. The story says a Muslim trader named Ayuba dreamed that he should build a mosque, and when he woke, the foundations were already there.
It is built in the Sudano-Sahelian style, of earth and timber, and whitewashed. It is small, about eight metres on each side.
Two pyramid-shaped towers rise from it. One holds the mihrab, and the other is the minaret.
Twelve buttresses support the walls, strengthened with horizontal timbers.
A baobab tree beside the mosque is said to mark Ayuba’s grave, and its leaves are used in healing.
In the 1970s, a repair with sand and cement trapped moisture in the earth walls, and termites attacked the timber.
In 2002, a storm destroyed the mihrab and the minaret. The World Monuments Fund placed the mosque on its Watch list, and a restoration followed, led by the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board.
The cement was removed, and the walls were plastered with earth again, in the traditional way.
Sources differ on the date, and the legends cannot be checked.
