Great Mosque of Djenné: History and Architecture of the Djenné Mosque

The Great Mosque of Djenné is an adobe Islamic building in central Mali and one of Africa’s most famous buildings. At fifty-two feet high, it is the largest mud-brick building globally and is an example of Sudano-Sahelian architecture. It was first built in the thirteenth century, and along with the Old Towns of Djenné, the Great Mosque of Djenné was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988.

The city of Djenné in Mali is eighty-seven miles southwest of Mopti, the regional capital, and 390 miles northeast of Bamako, the national capital. It sits on the inland Delta of the Niger River, and during the rainy season, the area floods, and the city becomes an island. The centuries-old structure has a storied history:

• The gold trade: Djenné was founded between 800 and 1250 CE. Djenné is near the site of the ancient city of Djenné-Djeno (also known as Djenné-Jeno), one of the oldest known cities in sub-Saharan Africa. It was an essential stop in the trans-Saharan gold trade and a significant city of the Mali Empire, the Songhai Empire, and the Toucouleur Empire.
• Beginning of the Great Mosque: According to legend, the Great Mosque was built in the thirteenth century by King Koi Konboro, the twenty-sixth ruler of Djenné and the city’s first Muslim king. The Great Mosque became a center of cultural life and religion, particularly in Islam, with thousands of students studying the Qur'an.
• Expansion: Over time, more towers and surrounding buildings were added to the Malian mosque. By the sixth century, half of Djenné’s population could fit inside the mosque complex.
• Decay: Seku Amadu, a Fulani Muslim leader in West Africa, conquered Djenné in 1819 and ordered it to be demolished. According to French explorer René Caillié, who visited Djenné in 1827, the abandoned mosque had fallen into disrepair. Mud buildings require annual replastering of the exterior to prevent it from melting during the rainy season, and by that point, the Great Mosque had not been replastered for several years.
• Rebuild: The building was replaced in 1836. In the early twentieth century, after the French had colonized Djenné, the Great Mosque was rebuilt for a third time and completed in 1907. Ismaila Traoré, head of Djenné's mason guild, led the build with forced laborers. The only part of the original mosque that remains is a small building that houses the graves of local leaders.
• Legacy: As a site on the United Nations’ World Heritage List, the Great Mosque of Djenné is a beloved piece of Mali's cultural heritage. During the annual festival of the Crepissage de la Grand Mosquée, residents of Djenné contribute to the re-plastering of the mosque.

The Great Mosque is rectangular in its plan and is surrounded by an exterior wall.

• Walls: The walls of the Great Mosque comprise sun-baked mud bricks called ferey and sand and dirt-based mortar. The walls are coated with mud plaster, giving the walls a smooth look and protection from the elements. Decorative toron (alm sticks) just out from the walls and serve as scaffolding for the annual replastering.
• Platform: The entire mosque structure rests on a raised platform to protect it when the Bani River floods (the mosque is on the flood plain of the Bani River and the Niger River). The mosque has six sets of stairs from the platform.
• Mosque plan: The mosque is rectangular and features a prayer hall covered by a roof and an open courtyard. Ninety wooden pillars support the earthen roof, and the roof contains removable terra-cotta ceramic lids, which provide ventilation and can be closed in the evening for warmth.
• Prayer wall: The qibla (prayer wall) faces east towards Mecca. The wall also contains three large minarets that jut out and eighteen buttresses. The central minaret is fifty-two feet tall and features a mihrab (prayer niche), where the imam could lead prayers. The minarets each contain a spiral staircase, and at the top of each minaret is a cone-shaped spire topped with an ostrich egg. The prayer hall can fit 3,000 people.

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