LARGE MOSQUE

Its 27 m high minaret, surrounded by ouadi palm piles, is known worldwide. The mosque dominates the entire city and was built at the beginning of the th century by Saint Zakarya. It is the seat of important religious events, including Friday's great prayer, and nights of prayers, the day of Muslim holidays. According to legend, a first minaret was built and collapsed, a second had the same fate. Zakaria then invited the incentive to no longer use forced workers or the most miserable money, according to him for the fall of minarets. Result: the third minaret kept good. As early as 1450, a first building was born, we do not know if there was a minaret, Zacharia would have resumed it around 1530 and other changes that did not leave traces of trace. The present minaret was rebuilt between 1844 and 1847. According to the study by P. Cressier and S. Bernus, the very local architectural style of this mosque would have borrowed the structure of the minaret at M'Zab and not in Mali, with Malian mosques of the same style being later. Piles that exceed one metre of the wall serve as scaffolding to cover the minaret with a crépi of deck. Traditionally, the population was involved in regular refit of crépi every 3 years; nowadays it seems difficult to mobilise it and crépi dates back more than eight years, the minaret suffering serious damage. The crépi of the minaret is made of islets and straw but without animal excrement. There are also two cemeteries reserved for members of the Sultan's family. Inside, in the old part, in the north-west, lies the place reserved for the sultan, the maqsura, close to the mihrab, this small niche which from outside is visible as a half-conical outgrowth of the building. Small niches can be seen in the walls used to receive oil lamps. The minaret visits, a spiral staircase of 99 steps leads to a narrow narrow gazebo from where the view over the city is very beautiful. One only has to ask the Sultanate, the building facing the north of the mosque. The custodian of the mosque is usually a visiting person. We normally give an offering called takoute. Women can also visit it, just take off their shoes before entering and respectfully behave as in any place of worship.