Dictionary of islamic architecture

Ottoman Minarets
The earliest minarets in Anatolia were built by the
Seljuks. Often these were pairs of towers with a stone
base and a brick shaft. Some mosques however were
built with single minarets such as the Alaeddin
Mosque at Konya.
The combination of tall pointed minarets and
large lead covered domes gives Ottoman
architecture its distinctive form. In most mosques
in the Ottoman Empire this was achieved with a
single minaret attached to the corner of a mosque.
However, in the major cities of the empire mosques
were built with two, four or even six minarets. At
some point it seems to have been established that
only a reigning sultan could erect more than one
minaret per mosque. A characteristic feature of
these minarets is the use of multiple balconies
which was first developed in the Uç Serefeli
Mosque in Edirne which was built in 1447.
Arabia
Outside Mecca and Medina minarets were fairly rare
before the nineteenth century. The few minarets that
do survive are either square or circular in plan often
with a slightly tapering profile. In southern Yemen
the larger mosques occasionally have large minarets
to distinguish them from the tall tower houses. In
northern Yemen minarets are rare outside the capital
San
a. The minarets of San
a are similar to those of
medieval Cairo although the external decoration is
characteristi-cally Yemeni.
East Africa
With the exception of the thirteenth-century
mosque of Fakhr al-Din in Mogadishu (Somalia)
minarets dating from before the nineteenth century
are rare. Nineteenth-century minarets include
those of Mombasa and the Shella minaret on Lamu
island.
One of the most curious structures in the area is
the Mbraaki pillar dated to circa 1700. This 14 m-
high structure has no means of access to the interior
although it is believed to be hollow. At the foot of
the minaret a mosque was excavated which is
believed to be of the same period making this the
oldest minaret in Kenya.
West Africa
The earliest minarets are those of the ninth- to
thirteenth-century settlements at Koumbi Saleh and
Tegadoust. Excavated remains indicate that these
had large square minarets. During the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries the characteristic West
African minaret developed. These minarets have a
massive square structure with tapering sides and
projecting wooden beams (torons). One of the most
famous minarets is that of the Kano Great Mosque
(destroyed 1937) which was over 20 m high on a
square base with battered sides. The Fulani
reformers of the nineteenth century objected to the
use of minarets and replaced many of them with
staircase minarets.
Far East
Minarets are not a traditional feature of Far Eastern
Islamic architecture and have only recently been
introduced on a large scale. In western China
minarets usually take the form of squat pagoda-like
structures, with a few exceptions such as the minaret
of the Huaisheng Mosque in Guangzhou which is a
tall tapering cylinder 20 m high.