page_title: Grand Mosque of Tangier
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Grand Mosque of Tangier / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: Tanger: An der Moschee
context_page_description: The Grand Mosque of Tangier is the historic main mosque of Tangier, Morocco, located in the city's old medina. While the design of the current mosque dates from the early 19th century during the Alaouite period, the same site has been occupied by a succession of religious buildings since Antiquity.
context_section_description: The mosque today is located on Rue de la Marine, just below the Petit Socco and above the sea walls of the medina. Opposite the mosque is a primary school, established by nationalists during the French protectorate. Many of the old annexes to the mosque are now gone or no longer serve their original purpose. The mosque itself is still in use, and as such it is closed to non-Muslims (like most mosques in Morocco). Across the street from the mosque is also a public fountain decorated with tile mosaic inside a horseshoe arch with carved stucco outlines. The fountain dates from the late 19th century and was restored in 1918 and 2003.
  The mosque is distinguished on the outside by its minaret and its entrance portal. The entrance portal is decorated with typical radiating geometric motifs, green colours, and a wooden canopy, mostly still dating from the time of Moulay Slimane. The minaret, at the mosque's western corner, is typical of Alaouite-era minarets, inheriting the traditional form of Moroccan minaret architecture. It has a large square shaft crowned by merlons and topped by a smaller, secondary shaft at its summit. Its facades are decorated with more geometric motifs and blind arches outlined in white stucco. In the negative space between the stucco outlines the surfaces are covered with green tiles or multicoloured tile mosaics.
  The interior of the mosque features a square courtyard with a central fountain, around which are indoor galleries and the main prayer hall. The galleries and prayer hall, like those of most Moroccan mosques, are interior hypostyle spaces marked by rows of arches. The galleries to the southwest and northeast of the courtyard are two aisles deep, while the gallery to the northwest (on the side of the main entrance) is only one row deep. The main prayer hall, which extends from the courtyard towards the qibla (direction of prayer) and the mihrab (niche symbolizing the direction of prayer), is three aisles deep. Behind the mihrab wall at the far end are a few rooms that were historically used, or are still used, as a library, imam's chamber, and funeral mosque (for conducting funerary rites before the burial of a body), all accessed from within the mosque. A newer extension to the mosque, likely from 1962, appears to extend from this main historic building towards the southwest.
caption: The mosque's main portal.
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