Dictionary of islamic architecture

See also:
Alhambra, Córdoba, Mudéjar, Spain
Sfax
Walled city located on the east coast of Tunisi.
Sfax rose to prominence under the Aghlabids in the
ninth century. The city walls, built in the late seventh
century, were renewed in the ninth and provided
with huge square and polygonal towers. The Great
Mosque is similar to that of Qairawan and is the only
mosque to have the same arrangement of a square
minaret on the north side aligned with the mihrab.
See also:
Aghlabids, Tunisia
Shanga
Islamic trading city in the Lamu archipelago off the north
Kenya coast, East Africa.
Shanga is one of the most intensively investigated
early Islamic sites in East Africa with an occupation
stretching from the mid-eighth to the fourteenth
century. It is not mentioned in any major historical
sources except for a passing reference in the Pate
Chronicle, so that all information comes from
excavations carried out in recent years.
The earliest phase, dated to the eighth century,
is represented by a large rectangular wooden
enclosure containing a well and surrounded by
roundhouses made of wattle and daub on timber
frames. In the second period (ninth-tenth century)
a rectangular wooden mosque was built in the
central area. Whilst roundhouses continued to be
built on the west, on the east side the houses were
now rectangular. In the third phase (tenth-eleventh
century) the enclosure and mosque were rebuilt in
coral stone and a monumental stone building was
erected in the centre. At this same time many of the
houses outside were also built out of coral stone.
The fourth and fifth periods, lasting from the
eleventh to the end of the twelfth century, is marked
by the decline of the settlement and the
reintroduction of wooden architecture in the centre
Plan of ninth-century monumental buildings, Shanga, Kenya (after Horton)
Shanga

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of the site. The sixth phase of occupation (early
fourteenth to fifteenth centuries) is represented by
the reintroduction of stone buildings using a new
technique of fossil coral instead of the previous reef
coral. Many of the ruins of this period still survive,
and consist of remains of over 200 houses, three
mosques and a large number of tombs.