Great Mosque

Mahdia Grand Mosque was built on a rocky outcrop. Has initiated 916 years built during the reign of the Fatimid Caliph al-Mahdi (ruled between 909 and 934). Was left from that era, only the entrance and the northern gallery in the courtyard. And built everything else during the restoration, which took place in the sixties.

Consists of a prominent entrance arch broken horseshoe document on Edadtin. The interface is designed and entrance of foreign bunk niches with arches separated by protruding decorations. Lower in the region came Niches taken while flat half a cylindrical shape at the top.

This entrance is the oldest example of the entrances prominent religious architecture in the Maghreb. It reminds us of the triumphal arches and entrances Romania Umayyad forts. It is redolent symbolic and spiritual values ​​of the Shiite sect. The emulated the example of this example in architecture in Fatimid Egypt and borrowed in a number of mosques built during the reign of the state combined. The use of decorative elements Niches He quoted from Alogalbah and Abbasid architecture. But it is used here for the first time in Tunisia African, to spread later in throughout the region. Also found on the facades of buildings, the city of Palermo in Sicily, which date back to the era of the Muslims and then the Normans. This decoration and moved from Sicily to the south of Italy to reach religious buildings in Pisa. For his part, took refuge in art Mudejar heir of Islamic Art in Spain to these niches to decorate buildings harmonious: the Church of Santiago del Arrabal de Toldeo (1245-1247) and the Church of Santiago de Talavera (fourteenth century) and the Tower of St. Lorenzo Sahagon (thirteenth century - the sixteenth century ).

There are two towers on the corners of the facade, used the Kkhozanin water and possibly appeal to the adhan. Like the early Fatimid mosques, not to Jamana minarets.

Great Mosque current scheme similar to the scheme in the tenth century. It is a form a rectangle, and consists of a prayer hall preceded by a long courtyard surrounded by four corridors. The original northern corridor alone, which consists of the pillars of stone sculpted assigned arcs broken surpassing topped domes cross joists. The corridors of the other three were built during the restoration campaigns between the years 1961 and 1965 and was in the middle of the yard, according to the excavations conducted during the sixties, Corridor is unique in the Tunisian religious architecture. This was a cross-aisle roofed domes tributaries based on the pillars with arches, has reached between the entrance and the prayer hall. The prayer hall is divided into three bays direction parallel with the wall and nine tiles. The roof is broken brackets surpassing based on double columns.

The wing, which is characterized by the pivotal Boamdth Quartet, with traces of the wall tribal T-shaped plot, which reminds us of the Great Mosque of Kairouan (836). Has been used subsequently to this arrangement in religious architecture in Fatimid Cairo. The intersection of these two Alderban Tatlah dome containing a mihrab style Zari. They were dug in the apse semi-circular grooves topped shells. The dome above is grounded in the half on a horseshoe arch is based on the two lateral