page_title: Tarim, Yemen
section_title: Mosques and libraries
hierarchical_section_title: Tarim, Yemen / Architecture / Mosques and libraries
caption_attribution_description: The minaret of the Al Mihdhar Mosque at Tarim, Yemen, is measured 53 metres (175 feet) high
context_page_description: Tarim is a historic town situated in the Hadhramaut Valley of South Yemen, in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula. Tarim is widely acknowledged as the theological, juridical, and academic center of the Hadhramaut Valley. An important focus of Islamic learning, it is estimated to contain the highest concentration of descendants of the Prophet Muhammad anywhere in the world. The city is distinguished for producing numerous Islamic scholars, including Imam al-Haddad. Additionally, Tarim is also home to Dar al-Mustafa, a well-known educational institute for the study of traditional Islamic Sciences.
context_section_description: It is estimated that Tarim contains up to 365 masājid (mosques); one, the Sirjis mosque, dates back to the seventh century. From the 17th to the 19th century, these mosques played a decisive role on the influence of Islamic scholarship in the area. Tarim's Al-Muhdhar Mosque is crowned by a mud minaret measuring 46 metres (151 feet), the highest in Yemen. The minaret was designed by the local poets Abu Bakr bin Shihab and Alawi Al Mash'hūr. Completed in 1914, the al-Muhdar mosque is named in honor of Omar Al-Muhdar, a Muslim leader who lived in the city during the 15th century.
  Tarim also features the massive al-Kaf Library which is attached to Al-Jame'a Mosque and houses more than 5,000 manuscripts from the region covering religion, the thoughts of the Prophets, Islamic law, Sufism, medicine, astronomy, agriculture, biographies, history, mathematics, philosophy, logic, and the eight volumes of Abū Muhammad al-Hasan al-Hamdānī’s Al-Iklil (crown). Many go back hundreds of years and often contain vibrantly colored illustration. Between 300 and 400 manuscripts are believed to be unique in the Islamic world, according to the scholar Abd al-Qader Sabban. What distinguishes these manuscripts is that the majority belong to Yemeni authors and editors who resided in the Wadi Hadhramaut area. Nevertheless, there are others that belonged to scholars from Morocco, Khurasan, and other Muslim regions. In 1996, estimates for the annual number of visitors to the Al-Kaf Library exceeded 4,780 individuals.
caption: The minaret of the Al-Muhdhar Mosque at Tarim is 53 metres (174 feet) high, and recognized to be one of the tallest earth structures in the world
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