The Great Mosque of Algeria. A link between the past and the present
The Great Mosque between History and the Present
The Great Mosque in the capital, Algiers, is the third largest mosque in the world, with a capacity of more than one hundred and twenty thousand worshipers and features a large prayer hall with an area of approximately 10 thousand square meters and the columns surround the mihrab made of white marble on the eastern side and its height is approximately 70 meters, as for its minaret it is the highest in the world, with a length of 265 meters with an observation platform at the top that allows visitors to enjoy the wonderful views of the Gulf of Algiers, and it also contains an Islamic school (for memorizing the Qur'an) A library with a huge collection of books amounting to almost one million books, it also has lecture halls and a museum.
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- The Great Mosque of Algiers is the third largest mosque in the world, with the capacity to accommodate over 120,000 worshipers.
- It features the tallest minaret globally at 265 meters, complete with an observation deck offering panoramic views of the Gulf of Algiers.
- Originally constructed in 490 AH by Almoravid ruler Yusuf bin Tashfin, the mosque stands as one of the oldest in Algeria and a rare example of Almoravid architecture.
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- The mosque's design includes a vast prayer hall with a 50-meter dome, intricate kufic inscriptions, and geometric decorations carved into wooden panels.
- During the French occupation, despite some efforts to destroy it, the mosque was preserved and partially restored by a French engineer who rebuilt its eroded pulpit.
- It serves both religious and cultural functions with facilities such as a Qur'an school, a million-book library, a museum, and a research center.
- Renovated by a Chinese company for $898 million, the mosque now welcomes tourists, worshipers, and researchers, highlighting Algerian and North African aesthetics throughout its structure.
It is the oldest mosque in Algeria, where it was built almost seven centuries ago during the era of the Almoravid state, which ruled Algeria in the fifth century AH, and was built by the founder of the Almoravid state "Yusuf bin Tashfin" in the month of Rajab in 490 AH and the minaret of the mosque was built long after it is close to 227 years by Sultan Tlemcen "Abu Tashfin bin Abu Hamo Musa I" and it is said that it was built on the ruins of an ancient Roman cathedral
As for the name of the mosque, it is also known as the "Old Mosque" because it is the oldest mosque in Algeria after the mosque "Sidi Okba" Biskra, the Great Mosque in Tlemcen and the Great Mosque in Nedroma. The Great Mosque of Algiers is one of the few remaining months of Almoravid architecture.
Inscriptions written in Kufic script were discovered in the mosque by chance on both the mihrab and the pulpit, and this discovery is very important because it took place nearly 90 years after the French invasion of Algeria, the pulpit has been known since ancient times and this Kufic inscription is repeated on it three times.
The body and design of the Great Mosque
The architecture of the Almoravid state is different from the architecture of any era of Islamic times and one of its most important features is that it was based in the body on the huge formation and decorated with luxurious architectural elements, for example, the Great Mosque in Algeria is characterized by being characterized by a rectangular prayer hall and not significantly high, but medium height closer to a few, but it is very large in size to accommodate more than a hundred thousand worshipers, and the mosque is covered with sloping roof units and overlapping with brick units Red.
In the mosque, specifically in the corridors from the inside, there are groups of overlapping arches perpendicular to the mihrab and parallel to it, and the shoulders of the arches rest on columns with a rectangular shape, as for the pulpit, its shape consists of seven steps linked to two beams - two feathers - sides in which geometric decorations on the wooden panels that make them up vary between triangles and squares.
As for the dome of the mosque, it has a diameter of fifty meters and is in the middle of the prayer hall.
The Great Mosque in the resistance to the French occupation
During the French occupation of Algeria, colonialism tried to destroy the mosque, but it was met with fierce resistance by the inhabitants of the capital, but it was also from the French themselves who was trying to preserve the shape and history of the mosque, so one of the French engineers was very interested in the Great Mosque, so he rebuilt the pulpit panels that had been eroded and installed them on an iron structure to keep those inscriptions witness to the oldest mosque in Algeria.
One of the most important features of the mosque is that it is the third largest mosque in the world in terms of daily reception capacity after the Grand Mosque in Mecca and the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, and that it was built on the Mediterranean coast, and it was reopened after five years of restoration and repair and opened for international tourists and visitors to the state from Algerians and others, and the door was opened for worshipers in Ramadan to perform prayers and Taraweeh and was restored by a Chinese architectural business company.
The mosque includes Arab and North African motifs in honor of Algerian culture, and the mosque includes what distinguishes it from other mosques, a helipad and a library containing almost a million books.
It also includes a museum of Islamic art and history, a conference hall, a Qur'an house and a research center on the history of Algeria, and the renovation and restoration work has cost approximately $ 898 million.
