Gallery
Description
Property Name: Great Mosque of Kairouan
Inventory No: 216-7-1
Date of infill of the inventory form: 2007-10-24
Country (State party): Tunisia
Province: Kairouan
Town:
Geographic coordinates: 35° 40′ 52″ N
10° 6′ 14″ E
Historic Period: 9th century, 1st half
Year of Construction: 817
Style:
Original Use: Mosque
Current Use: Mosque
Architect: Unknown
Significance
The mosque is the landmark of the city and is an important example of the early Islamic architecture
Selection Criteria
i. to represent a masterpiece of human creative genius
ii. to exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning or landscape design
iii. to bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared
v. to be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture (or cultures), or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change
State of Preservation
Many different construction works were carried on in the mosque’s long history. It was first restored in 695 and then went through a major reconstruction in 724-43. The Aghlabids had rebuilt the mosque and it reached its present form in 862. It was again restored in the 11th century and in 1294, the arches of the arcades were remodeled and the Lalla Rayhana Gate was added. Finally, in 1977, Association de Sauvegarde de la Medina de Kairouan (ASMK) had started a rehabilitation program and has restored all of the cities major landmarks with the Great Mosque of Kairouan and reached its present condition.
References
Becker, Louisa. Images of Tunisia. Tunis: Karthago Editions Touristiques, 2003.
UNESCO World Heritage Site: http://whc.unesco.org/
Archnet Web Site: http://archnet.org/