Chinguetti Mosque

Chinguetti Mosque
مسجد شنقيط
Religion
Affiliation	Islam
Branch/tradition	Sunni
Location
Location	Chinguetti, Adrar, Mauritania
Shown within Mauritania
Geographic coordinates	20°27′48″N 12°22′0″W / 20.46333°N 12.36667°W / 20.46333; -12.36667
Architecture
Type	mosque
Style	Moorish
Groundbreaking	13th-14th century

Look up Mosque in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

The Chinguetti Mosque (Arabic: مسجد شنقيط, romanized: Masjid Shinqīṭ) is a mosque in Chinguetti, Adrar Region, Mauritania. It was an ancient center of worship created by the founders of the oasis city of Chinguetti in the Adrar region of Mauritania in the thirteenth or fourteenth century.^[1] The minaret of this ancient structure is supposed to be the second oldest in continuous use anywhere in the Muslim world.

Architecturally, the structure features a prayer room with four aisles as well as a double-niched symbolic door, or mihrab pointing towards Mecca and an open courtyard. Among its most distinctive characteristics are its spare, unmortared, split stone masonry, its square minaret tower, and its conscious lack of adornment, keeping with the strict Malikite beliefs of the city's founders. The mosque and its minaret is popularly considered the national emblem of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.

The mosque was restored through a UNESCO effort, but it, along with the city itself, continues to be threatened by intense desertification.

See also

• Lists of mosques 
• List of mosques in Africa

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Chinguetti Mosque.

• Archnet article on the Chinguetti Mosque
• 2008 World Monuments Watch List of 100 Most Endangered Sites: Chinguetti Mosque
• Palin's Travels - Chinguetti

This article about a mosque or other Islamic place of worship in Mauritania is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e

This page was last edited on 4 March 2024, at 18:06