ARCHITECT ATLAS
Loading atlas
Great Mosque of Touba

Great Mosque of Touba

Photo: zivax · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Location
Touba, Senegal
Client / Owner
Ahmadou Bamba
Year
Completed 1963
Access
Public
Typology
Spiritual
Style
—

The Great Mosque of Touba is a Sunni mosque in Touba, Senegal, and the center of the Mouride Brotherhood, a Sufi order founded by Ahmadou Bamba. Bamba established the congregation in 1887. Construction was conceived around 1924–1927 and approved by the French colonial authorities in 1926. Foundations were completed in 1932, work paused from 1939 to 1947, and the mosque was completed in 1963.

The mosque is 328 feet (100 m) long and 262 feet (80 m) wide and holds 7,000 worshippers. It has seven minarets, the central one 315 feet (96 m) tall and nicknamed Lamp Fall, and 14 domes, three large and eleven smaller. Other features include two ablution chambers, a library of 160,000 volumes, the caliph's audience hall and the Well of Mercy.

Bamba, who died in 1927, and his son Mamadu Mustafâ Mbacke, who directed construction, are buried there. The mosque hosts the Grand Magal of Touba pilgrimage.

Comments

  • Loading comments…
Be kind. Anyone can flag a comment for review.

Sign in

or

Your profile

3 to 24 letters, numbers, underscores or periods. It’s shown with your comments.

Contact us

Questions, corrections or ideas? Your message goes straight to the Architect Atlas owner.

Save to list

    Edit information

    We look the building up on Wikipedia for you. Architect Atlas lists buildings that have their own Wikipedia article: our test for notoriety and our source of truth.

        Typology
        Style (one to three)
        Photo (shown in a 4:3 frame)

        Drag and zoom to frame the building well. New photos are checked before they appear.

        Every change is checked before it goes live: facts against Wikipedia, photos by eye.