Dictionary of islamic architecture

Dome of Baru Din, Great Mosque, Marakesh, Morocco
Morocco (Arabic: Maghrib)

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minaret, at the north end of the building (opposite
the mihrab), has a massive square base measuring
16 m per side containing a ramp which rises around
a square core. Although the tower is only 44 m high
its is known that its projected height would have
been approximately 70 m. The exterior of the tower
is decorated with a variety of blind niches with
cusped arches and a network of lozenges.
Although the Marinids were responsible for the
Great Mosque of Al-Mansura in Tlemcen (Algeria),
within Morocco their chief concern was the building
of madrassas in which they excelled. Fez in particular
contains a large number of Marinid madrassas the
most famous of which are the 
Attarin, the Sahrij and
the Bu 
Inaniya. The standard plan comprises rooms
arranged around a rectangular courtyard with a
central pool and decorated with tile mosaic and
stucco work. The main focus of each madrassa is the
prayer room which opens on to one of the shorter
sides of the courtyard.
Another development of the Marinid period is
the funerary complex which sees its first expression
in the necropolis of Challa near Rabat built in the
fourteenth century. The complex is a large garden
Khirbet al-Mafjar, mosaic in diwan
Khirbet al-Mafjar, mosaic in diwan (detail)
Morocco (Arabic: Maghrib)

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enclosed by a high wall fortified with buttress towers
and an Almohad-style gateway. Within the complex
there are tombs set within extensive areas of
vegetation. There are two funerary mosques within
the complex both with square decorated minarets
in the Almohad style. In the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries the Sa
adians built a similar
type of complex but on a grander scale with
decoration of unparalleled ornateness. A different
type of funerary-memorial complex is represented
by the city of Moulay Idriss built by the Sa
adian
ruler Moulay Ismail in the seventeenth century.
Here the tomb of Idris I forms the centre of a sacred
city which is restricted to Muslims.
The domestic architecture of Morocco represents
a wide va riety of architectural forms from semi-
permanent camps to the luxurious courtyard villas
of Fez, Rabat, Marakesh and Meknes. The simplest
form of dwelling is the thatched hut or gourbi which
may either be rectangular with a pitched roof or
circular in plan with a conical roof. In the Atlas
mountains there are villages of semi-permanent huts
built around a central keep, or kasba. Sometimes these
are purely for storage (tiremt) and have no
accommodation although there is usually a guard’s
house. Some of the more developed villages formed
walled enclosures with the keep functioning as a
residence for the ruling family. City houses were
enclosed courtyard structures with little external
decoration. Inside the wealthier houses contain some
of the most elo-quent examples of Islamic decoration
and recall the splendour of Muslim Spain.