Moorish architecture
Moorish architecture is a style within Islamic architecture that developed in the western Islamic world, including al-Andalus and what is now Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. Scholarly references on Islamic architecture often refer to this architectural tradition in terms such as architecture of the Islamic West or architecture of the Western Islamic lands.
This architectural tradition integrated influences from pre-Islamic Roman, Byzantine, and Visigothic architectures, from ongoing artistic currents in the Islamic Middle East, and from the interaction between the cultures of al-Andalus and North Africa. Major centers of artistic development included the main capitals of the empires and Muslim states in the region's history, such as Córdoba, Kairouan, Fes, Marrakesh, Seville, Granada and Tlemcen. While Kairouan and Córdoba were some of the most important centers during the 8th to 10th centuries, a wider regional style was later synthesized and shared across the Maghreb and al-Andalus thanks to the empires of the Almoravids and the Almohads, which unified both regions for much of the 11th to 13th centuries. Within this wider region, a certain difference remained between architectural styles in the more easterly region of Ifriqiya and a more specific style in the western Maghreb and al-Andalus, sometimes referred to as Hispano-Moresque or Hispano-Maghrebi.
This architectural style came to encompass distinctive features such as the horseshoe arch, riad gardens, square minarets, and elaborate geometric and arabesque motifs in wood, stucco, and tilework. Over time, it made increasing use of surface decoration while also retaining a tradition of focusing attention on the interior of buildings rather than their exterior. Unlike Islamic architecture further east, western Islamic architecture did not make prominent use of large vaults and domes.
Even as Muslim rule ended on the Iberian Peninsula, the traditions of Moorish architecture continued in North Africa as well as in the Mudéjar style in Spain, which adapted Moorish techniques and designs for Christian patrons. In Algeria and Tunisia local styles were subjected to Ottoman influence and other changes from the 16th century onward, while in Morocco the earlier Hispano-Maghrebi style was largely perpetuated up to modern times with fewer external influences. In the 19th century and after, the Moorish style was frequently imitated in the form of Neo-Moorish or Moorish Revival architecture in Europe and America, including Neo-Mudéjar in Spain. Some scholarly references associate the term "Moorish" or "Moorish style" more narrowly with this 19th-century trend in Western architecture.
Historical development
Earliest Islamic monuments (8th–9th centuries)
In the 7th century the region of North Africa became steadily integrated into the emerging Muslim world during the Early Arab-Muslim Conquests. The territory of Ifriqiya, and its newly founded capital city of Kairouan became an early center of Islamic culture for the region. According to tradition, the Great Mosque of Kairouan was founded here by Uqba ibn Nafi in 670, although the current structure dates from later.Al-Andalus
In 711, most of the Iberian Peninsula, part of the Visigothic Kingdom at the time, was conquered by a Muslim army led by Tariq ibn Ziyad and became known as Al-Andalus. The city of Cordoba became its capital. In 756, Abd ar-Rahman I, a surviving member of the Umayyad dynasty, established the independent Emirate of Cordoba here. In 785, he founded the Great Mosque of Cordoba, one of the most important architectural monuments of the western Islamic world. The mosque is notable for its vast hypostyle hall composed of rows of columns connected by double tiers of arches composed of alternating red brick and light-colored stone. The mosque was subsequently expanded by Abd ar-Rahman II in 836, who preserved the original design while extending its dimensions. The mosque was again embellished with new features by his successors Muhammad, Al-Mundhir, and Abdallah. One of the western gates of the mosque, known as Bab al-Wuzara', dates from this period and is often noted as an important prototype of later Moorish architectural forms and motifs: the horseshoe arch has voussoirs that alternate in colour and decoration and the arch is set inside a decorative rectangular frame. The influence of ancient Classical architecture is strongly felt in the Islamic architecture during this early Emirate period of the peninsula. The most obvious example of this was the reuse of columns and capitals from earlier periods in the initial construction of the Great Mosque of Cordoba. When new, richly carved capitals were produced for the mosque's 9th-century expansion, they emulated the form of classical Corinthian capitals.In Seville, the Mosque of Ibn Adabbas was founded in 829 and was considered the second-oldest Muslim building in Spain until it was demolished in 1671. This mosque had a hypostyle form consisting of eleven aisles divided by rows of brick arches supported on marble columns. Of the brief Muslim presence in southern France during the 8th century, only a few funerary stelae have been found. In 1952 French archaeologist Jean Lacam excavated the Cour de la Madeleine in the in Narbonne, where he discovered remains which he interpreted as the remains of a mosque from the 8th-century Muslim occupation of Narbonne.
Ifriqiya
In Ifriqiya, the Ribat of Sousse and the Ribat of Monastir are two military structures dated to the late 8th century, making them the oldest surviving Islamic-era monuments in Tunisia – although subjected to later modifications. The Ribat of Sousse contains a small vaulted room with a mihrab which is the oldest preserved mosque or prayer hall in North Africa. Another small room in the fortress, located above the front gate, is covered by a dome supported on squinches, which is the oldest example of this construction technique in Islamic North Africa. The tall cylindrical tower inside the ribat, most likely intended as a lighthouse, has a marble plaque over its entrance inscribed with the name of Ziyadat Allah I and the date 821, which in turn is the oldest Islamic-era monumental inscription to survive in Tunisia.In the 9th century, Ifriqiya was controlled by the Aghlabids, an Arab dynasty who ruled nominally on behalf of the Abbasid Caliphs in Baghdad but were de facto autonomous. They were major builders and erected many of Tunisia's oldest Islamic religious buildings and practical infrastructure works like the Aghlabid Reservoirs of Kairouan. Much of their architecture, even their mosques, had a heavy and almost fortress-like appearance, but they nonetheless left an influential artistic legacy.
One of the most important Aghlabid monuments is the Great Mosque of Kairouan, which was completely rebuilt in 836 by the emir Ziyadat Allah I, although various additions and repairs were effected later which complicate the chronology of its construction. Its design was a major reference point in the architectural history of mosques in the Maghreb. The mosque features an enormous rectangular courtyard, a large hypostyle prayer hall, and a thick three-story minaret. The prayer hall's layout reflects an early use of the so-called "T-plan", in which the central nave of the hypostyle hall and the transverse aisle running along the qibla wall are wider than the other aisles and intersect in front of the mihrab. The mihrab of the prayer hall is among the oldest examples of its kind, richly decorated with marble panels carved in high-relief vegetal motifs and with ceramic tiles with overglaze and luster. Next to the mihrab is the oldest surviving minbar in the world, made of richly carved teakwood panels. Both the carved panels of the minbar and the ceramic tiles of the mihrab are believed to be imports from Abbasid Iraq. An elegant dome in front of the mihrab with an elaborately decorated drum is one of architectural highlights of this period. Its light construction contrasts with the bulky structure of the surrounding mosque and the dome's drum is elaborately decorated with a frieze of blind arches, squinches carved in the shape of shells, and various motifs carved in low-relief. The mosque's minaret is the oldest surviving one in North Africa and the western Islamic world. Its form was modeled on older Roman lighthouses in North Africa, quite possibly the lighthouse at Salakta in particular.
The Great Mosque of al-Zaytuna in Tunis, which was founded earlier around 698, owes its overall current form to a reconstruction during the reign of the Aghlabid emir Abu Ibrahim Ahmad. Its layout is very similar to the Great Mosque of Kairouan. Two other congregational mosques in Tunisia, the Great Mosque of Sfax and the Great Mosque of Sousse, were also built by the Aghlabids but have different forms. The small Mosque of Ibn Khayrun in Kairouan, dated to 866 and commissioned by a private patron, possesses what is considered by some to be the oldest decorated external façade in Islamic architecture, featuring carved Kufic inscriptions and vegetal motifs. Apart from its limestone façade, most of the mosque was rebuilt at a later period. Another small local mosque from this period is the Mosque of Bu Fatata in Sousse, dated to the reign of Abu Iqal al-Aghlab ibn Ibrahim, which has a hypostyle prayer hall fronted by an external portico of three arches. Both the Ibn Khayrun and Bu Fatata mosques are early examples of the "nine-bay" mosque, meaning that the interior has a square plan subdivided into nine smaller square spaces, usually vaulted, arranged in three rows of three. This type of layout is found later in al-Andalus and as far as Central Asia, suggesting that it may be a design that was disseminated widely by Muslim pilgrims returning from Mecca.
Western and central Maghreb
Further west, the Rustamid dynasty, who were Ibadi Kharijites and did not recognize the Abbasid Caliphs, held sway over much of the central Maghreb. Their capital, Tahart, was founded in the second half of the 8th century by Abd al-Rahman ibn Rustam and was occupied seasonally by its semi-nomadic inhabitants. It was destroyed by the Fatimids in 909 but its remains were excavated in the 20th century. The city was surrounded by a fortified wall interspersed with square towers. It contained a hypostyle mosque, a fortified citadel on higher ground, and a palace structure with a large courtyard similar to the design of traditional houses.The Islamization of present-day Morocco, the westernmost territory of the Muslim world, became more definitive with the advent of the Idrisid dynasty at the end of the 8th century. The Idrisids founded the city of Fes, which became their capital and the major political and cultural center of early Islamic Morocco. In this early period Morocco also absorbed waves of immigrants from Tunisia and al-Andalus who brought in cultural and artistic influences from their home countries. The well-known Qarawiyyin and Andalusiyyin mosques in Fes, founded in the 9th century during, were built in hypostyle form but the structures themselves were rebuilt during later expansions. The layout of two other mosques from this era, the Mosque of Agadir and the Mosque of Aghmat, are known thanks to modern archeological investigations. The Mosque of Agadir was founded in 790 by Idris I on the site of the former Roman town of Pomeria, while the Mosque of Aghmat, a town about 30 km southeast of present-day Marrakesh, was founded in 859 by Wattas Ibn Kardus. Both of them were also hypostyle mosques with prayer halls supported by rows of pillars.