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Great Mosque of Sanaa

Great Mosque of Sanaa

Photo: Rod Waddington from Kergunyah, Australia · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Location
Old City of Sanaa, Yemen
Client / Owner
Muhammad
Year
Completed 630
Access
Public
Typology
Spiritual
Style
—

The Great Mosque of Sanaa is part of the UNESCO-listed Old City of Sanaa. Early Islamic sources say Muhammad commissioned it, and the article lists groundbreaking as 630 and suggests a founding date of 633. The Umayyad caliph al-Walid I expanded it in the early 8th century. The article names no architect, and the infobox lists the style as Yemeni.

Builders reused spolia from the Himyarite Ghumdan Palace and the Axumite church of al-Qalis. The central courtyard measures 260 by 200 feet (80 by 60 m), with carved and painted wooden ceilings and flat stone arcade roofs. Two minarets rise above it, and the west minaret dates to Arwa al-Sulayhi's restoration of 1130.

A 16th-century Ottoman domed building in the courtyard served as a treasury, then waqf storage and a library. The article says a claimed link to the Ka'ba is disputed. The mosque is active.

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