Dictionary of islamic architecture

See also:
coral, East Africa, Kenya, Shanga
Further reading:
H.N.Chittick, 
Manda: Excavations at an Island Port on the
Kenya Coast,
British Institute in Eastern Africa Memoir
9, in 2 vols., Nairobi 1984.
M.C.Horton, ‘Asiatic colonization of the East African
coast: the Manda evidence’, 
Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society
pt. 2: 201–12, 1986.
mandal
Mughal term for a pavilion or house.
manding (Mande)
West African language group which formed the ruling
class of the empire of Mali, now used to describe one of
the dominant urban architectural styles of the region.
The current distribution of the Manding peoples
covers an area including southern Mali, Burkina Faso
and the Ivory Coast. Prominent cities with Manding
architecture include Mopti, Djenné, Ségou, Bobo
Dioulasso, Wa and Kong.
Characteristic features of Manding architecture
are the use of mud brick, conical towers with
projecting toron, and elaborate decorated entrance
façades. Mud is the traditional building material of
the area and is used in several forms, either as
spherical hand-rolled lumps or as rectangular or
cylindrical bricks. Conical towers may either occur
as buttresses or as towers marking the position of a
mihrab in a mosque. It is thought that the conical
towers derive from the pre-Islamic ancestral pillars
of the region whilst the use of toron traditionally
suggests continual rebirth. Whilst the façades of
mosques and palaces are often decorated with
earthen pillars and projecting toron, the decoration
of house façades is normally restricted to the
entrances. Some of the most elaborate entrance
façades can be found at Djenné in Mali which is
usually considered the birthplace of the Manding
style. A traditional façade will consist of three levels
contained within two parallel buttresses. The first
two levels correspond to the two storeys inside the
house whilst the third level corresponds to the roof
level parapet. The first level consists of the doorway
covered by a steep sloping sill above which is the
second level containing a rectangular panel with a
square window in the middle. The third level consists
of a line of projecting toron made of split palm, a
panel containing four pillared niches and four
pointed crenellations on the top.