Dictionary of islamic architecture

See also: 
Mecca
Further reading:
H.A.A.Ba Salama, 
Tarikh al-kab
a al mu
azzama, 2nd
printing, Jeddah 1982.
R.A.Jairazbhoy, ‘The architecture of the Holy Shrine in
Makkah’, in 
Hajj in Focus,
ed. Z.I.Khan and Y.Zaki,
London 1986.
V.Strika, ‘A Ka’bah picture in the Iraq Museum’, 
Sumer
32: 195–201, 1976
A.J.Wensinck and J.Jomier, ‘Ka
ba’, in 
Encyclopedia of
Islam, new edn . 4: 317–22, 1978.
Kano
Major Islamic city in the Hausa region, northern Nigeria.
Kano is the most famous of a group of cities
including Zaria, Katsina, Gobir, Daura, Biram and
Rano which trace their origins back to the eleventh
century. At this time Kano was probably pagan,
although Muslim traders may have been living there.
During the fourteenth century the city was at least
superficially Muslim but it was not until the end of
the fifteenth century that Kano was firmly
established as an Islamic town. The Kano Chronicle
records how an Egyptian, Cabd al-Rahman, came to
Kano to confirm Islam in the town and build a Friday
mosque with a minaret there. During the eighteenth
century there was a large migration of people to Kano
from the city of Agades in present-day Mali. This
influx had a great effect on the culture and
architecture of Kano making it into a centre of
scholarship and trade.
The city is surrounded by mud-brick walls
which at their maximum extent enclose an area
more than 15 km in circumference. The area within
the walls includes not only the city itself but
agricultural and grazing land as well. The city wall
is pierced by several monumental gateways,
including the massive triple-arched Nasarawa Gate.
Inside the city are narrow streets leading on to
houses which consist of square or irregular-shaped
compounds. A typical compound (or gida) is
entered via a circular entrance vestibule that leads
into an outer courtyard which may contain huts for
unmar-ried sons and a reception room. At the back
of the rectangular reception room is a door leading
to the inner courtyard which contains the owner’s
house, huts for his wives, granaries, a well and a
bathroom. The best houses are located within the
fifteenth-century palace compound of the emir
known as the Gidan Rumfa which is a large area of
over 30 acres. This compound is entered via an
ancient gatehouse known as the Kofar Kwaru
which, with an internal height of 9 m, is the highest
internal space in Kano. Within the com-pound are
grazing land for the royal cattle, houses of retainers
and public reception rooms, as well as the
apartments of the ruler himself. Since the early
twentieth century the internal layout of the palace
has changed with circular entrance vestibules
(zaure) replaced with rectangular rooms (this
reflects a wider development in Hausa architecture
where rectangular buildings are replacing round
constructions). The most elaborately decorated part
of the palace is the royal audience chamber which
consists of rectangular rooms covered with domed
roofs supported on intersecting arches. Both the
soffits of the arches and the ceiling panels in
between are decorated with brightly painted
moulded abstract designs.
The famous Great Mosque of Kano (now
destroyed) may be the mosque erected by Cabd al-
Rahman in the fifteenth century although little of
the structure remains to confirm this. One of the
better known mosques of the town is the Yangoro
Mosque built by the famous master-mason Bala
Gwani. The mosque is divided into a series of small
rectangular domed bays (2.75 by 3.35 m) resting on
two-tier arches.
Kano

---

144