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30-468: Although the tower and the mosque were commissioned by Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur , the monument is known as the "Hassan" Tower or the al-Hassan Mosque. How the monument came to be given this name is unknown, although the name's use is attested as early as the 13th century. One suggestion is that it may have been the architect's name, but this is not substantiated. The patron who constructed the Hassan Tower

60-675: A major fortress, Paderne Castle and the surrounding territory near Albufeira, in the Algarve – which had been controlled by the Portuguese army of King Sancho I since 1182. Having inflicted other defeats on the Christians and captured major cities, he returned to the Maghreb with three thousand Christian captives. Upon Al-Mansur's return to Africa, however, Christians in Iberian Peninsula resumed

90-497: A red ochre colour over the centuries. It has a square floor plan like other minarets in the region, measuring 16 meters per side. The current structure is 44 m (144 ft) tall but its intended height – based on knowledge of the regular proportions of other Almohad minarets – was at least 64 m (210 ft), possibly 80 m (260 ft) to the top of its second tier (the smaller lantern tower usually topping minarets) and finial . This would have made it slightly taller than

120-560: Is Yaqub al-Mansur, ruler of the Almohad Caliphate , a Berber Muslim empire in the Maghreb and Iberia . Al-Mansur had made the decision to construct a new fortified imperial capital, called al-Mahdiyya or Ribat al-Fath , on the site of what is now the medina (old city) of Rabat, with new walls extending over a vast area beyond the old Kasbah . This project also included the construction of an enormous mosque for this capital, of which

150-551: Is named after Al-Mansur, and is best known for its therapeutic hot springs. Rubble masonry Rubble masonry or rubble stone is rough, uneven building stone not laid in regular courses . It may fill the core of a wall which is faced with unit masonry such as brick or ashlar . Some medieval cathedral walls have outer shells of ashlar with an inner backfill of mortarless rubble and dirt. Square rubble masonry consists of stones that are dressed (squared on all joints and beds) before laying, set in mortar , and make up

180-503: Is the Bimaristan of Marrakesh , the first hospital in Morocco to be ever built, Al-Mansur embellished it with luxurious ornaments and sculptures, it had gardens, water canals attached to it and it was Funded personally by Almohad's government, it is said that Averroes worked there for some time. Al-Mansur protected the philosopher Averroes and kept him as a favorite at court. Like many of

210-637: The Battle of Alarcos , on 18 July 1195. It was said that Al-Mansur's forces killed 150,000 and took money, valuables and other goods "beyond calculation". It was after this victory that he took the title al-Mansur Billah ("Made Victorious by God"). During his reign, Al-Mansur undertook several major construction projects. He added a monumental gate to the Kasbah of the Udayas in Rabat and he may have been responsible for finishing

240-666: The Giralda of Seville in Al Andalus (modern day Spain ), was modeled on the minaret of the Koutoubia Mosque in Marrakesh , but also drew influence from the ancient Egyptian Lighthouse of Alexandria for its height and method of ascendancy, a series of ramps. Yaqub al-Mansur conducted other works in Rabat, most notably the construction of new city walls and gates and additions to the Kasbah of

270-576: The Qur'an , said recorded statements and absolute consensus . Mansur's father Abu Yaqub appointed Cordoban polymath Ibn Maḍāʾ as chief judge, and the two of them oversaw the banning of all non-Zahirite religious books during the Almohad reforms ; Mansur was not satisfied, and when he inherited the throne he ordered Ibn Maḍāʾ to actually undertake the burning of such books. He died on 23 January 1199 in Marrakesh. He

300-591: The UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List on July 1, 1995, in the Cultural category. It was granted World Heritage Status in 2012 as part of the larger site encompassing historic Rabat. The mosque is strategically placed on the high south bank of the Bu Regreg river to provide an imposing spectacle visible for miles around. Since the area surrounding was suburban at the time of construction and lacked

330-578: The Almohad caliphs, Al-Mansur was religiously learned. He favored the Zahirite or literalist school of Muslim jurisprudence per Almohad doctrine and possessed a relatively extensive education in the Muslim prophetic tradition ; he even wrote his own book on the recorded statements and actions of the prophet Muhammad . Mansur's Zahirism was clear when he ordered his judges to exercise judgment only according to

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360-399: The Hassan Tower was to be the minaret . Construction of the mosque began in 1191, though the year 1195 is sometimes also cited due to historical reports by Mármol claiming that the creation of Ribat al-Fath was intended to commemorate al-Mansur's victory at the Battle of Alarcos . (The name Ribat al-Fath , at any rate, is believed to have been chosen after this victory.) The tower, like

390-429: The Udayas . Despite all this work and expense, the Almohad capital remained at Marrakesh and was never actually moved to Rabat. After Yaqub al-Mansur's death in 1199 the mosque and the new capital remained unfinished and his successors lacked the resources or the will to finish it. The structure was left with only the beginnings of its walls and 348 columns. While there is evidence that some tiled roofing had been added to

420-446: The back, parallel to the qibla wall, and the other two on either side of the prayer hall, allowing daylight and fresh air to flow in through the arcades . This was another unusual feature, as most mosques had only one main courtyard, but the motivation for this design was likely due to the mosque's size and the need to bring more light into its unprecedently large interior. The tower is made of sandstone which has progressively turned

450-537: The construction of an even bigger fortified capital in Rabat, where he attempted to build what would have been the world's largest mosque . However, construction on the mosque and on this new citadel stopped after his death. Only the beginnings of the mosque had been completed, including a large part of its massive minaret now known as the Hassan Tower . Some of Rabat's historic gates, most notably Bab er-Rouah , also date from this time, one of Al-Mansur's famous works

480-480: The construction of the current Kutubiyya Mosque in Marrakesh . He also created a vast royal citadel and palace complex in Marrakesh which subsequently remained the seat of government in the city for centuries afterward. This royal district included the Kasbah Mosque (or El-Mansuriyya Mosque) in Marrakesh and was accessed via the monumental gate of Bab Agnaou, both dating from al-Mansur's time. He also embarked on

510-653: The construction technique emplekton and made particular use of it in the construction of the defensive walls of their poleis . The Romans made extensive use of rubble masonry, calling it opus caementicium , because caementicium was the name given to the filling between the two revetments . The technique continued to be used over the centuries, as evidenced by the constructions of defensive walls and large works during medieval times. Modern construction frequently uses cast concrete with an internal steel reinforcement. That allows for greater elasticity, as well as providing excellent static and seismic resistance, and preserves

540-400: The mosque before it was abandoned, almost all materials that could be carried away were eventually stripped from the site for reuse in construction elsewhere. In addition to being incomplete, the mosque sustained some damage in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake . In the 20th century colonial French and Moroccan archeologists excavated the site and carefully reconstructed what was left. In the 1960s

570-728: The offensive, capturing many of the Moorish cities, including Silves , Vera , and Beja . When Al-Mansur heard this news, he returned to the Iberian Peninsula, and defeated the Christians again. This time, many were taken in chained groups of fifty each, and later sold in Africa as slaves. While Al-Mansur was away in Africa, the Christians mounted the largest army of that period, of over 300,000 men, to defeat Al-Mansur. However, immediately upon hearing this, Al-Mansur returned again to Iberia and defeated Castilian King Alfonso VIII Alfonso's army in

600-517: The original Giralda in Seville. Instead of stairs, the tower is ascended by ramps, which would have allowed the muezzin to ride a horse to the top to issue the call to prayer. At the center of each of the six floors would have been a vaulted chamber surrounded by the ramps and lit by the horseshoe-shaped windows set into the sides of the tower. Its exterior is decorated with panels of sebka patterning as well as engaged columns and capitals carved from

630-523: The outer surface of a wall. Irregular rubble, or sack, masonry evolved from embankments covered with boards, stones or bricks. That outer surface was used to give the embankment greater strength and make it more difficult for enemies to climb. The Sadd el-Khafara dam , in Wadi Al-Garawi near Helwan in Egypt, which is 14 meters high and built in rubble masonry, dates back to 2900–2600 BC The Greeks called

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660-417: The population to regularly fill the mosque, historians have been led to believe that it was meant to serve the Almohad troops who gathered here before setting off on campaigns and possibly even to serve double-duty as both a place of worship and as a fortress. The mosque's total dimensions were enormous for the time: 183 by 139 meters (600 by 456 ft). If completed, it would have been the largest mosque in

690-453: The same sandstone as the tower itself, although today it also retains one marble capital of Andalusi spolia . [REDACTED] Media related to Hassan Tower at Wikimedia Commons Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb ibn Yūsuf ibn Abd al-Muʾmin al-Manṣūr ( Arabic : أبو يوسف يعقوب بن يوسف بن عبد المؤمن المنصور ; d. 23 January 1199), commonly known as Yaqub al-Mansur ( يعقوب المنصور ) or Moulay Yacoub ( مولاي يعقوب ),

720-450: The site of mosque's ruins was transformed to accommodate the construction of the Mausoleum of Mohammed V at its southeastern corner, alongside a modern mosque and another pavilion which occupy the rest of the southern side of the complex. The modern mausoleum and mosque were designed by Vietnamese architect Cong Vo Toan and completed in 1971. The tower and the site of the mosque was added to

750-588: The time, slowed construction significantly and contributed to the mosque's unfinished state. Scholar Christian Ewert has speculated that since the new capital and its mosque were intended as a staging area for troops going to Al-Andalus, some of the motivation for this unusual design feature may have been a desire to evoke the columns of the Great Mosque of Cordoba, the most celebrated mosque in Al-Andalus. The plan originally included three small inner courtyards, one in

780-531: The western part of the Islamic world, larger even than the Great Mosque of Cordoba . The mosque's perimeter was further enclosed by another wall that stood about 50 meters distant from the mosque itself on all sides except on the northern side where it stood over 100 meters distant. The walls of the mosque were made of lime concrete on top of a rubble stone base. The interior of the mosque was in hypostyle format and

810-616: Was buried temporarily in his palace in Marrakesh before being taken to his final burial place in Tinmal , where previous Almohad caliphs and Ibn Tumart were also buried. His victory in Alarcos was remembered for centuries later, when the tide of war turned against the Muslim side. It is recounted by the historian Ibn Abi Zar in his 1326 Rawd al-Qirtas ("History of the Rulers of the Maghreb"). The town of Moulay Yacoub , outside of Fez , Morocco,

840-466: Was divided by rows of columns into 21 aisles running perpendicular to the qibla wall (the southern/southeastern wall in the direction of prayer). The most central aisle and the two aisles along the far sides were wider than the others. Notably, the mosque was given cylindrical stone columns rather than the brick piers more commonly seen in Almohad architecture. These columns were to be formed from drums of differing height, an idea that, while innovative at

870-592: Was immediately proclaimed the new caliph. Al-Mansur vowed revenge for his father's death, but fighting with the Banu Ghaniya delayed him in Africa. After inflicting a new defeat on the Banu Ghaniya, he set off for the Iberian Peninsula to avenge his father's death. His 13 July 1190 siege of Tomar , center of the Portuguese Templars , failed to capture the fortress. However, further south he in 1191 recaptured

900-567: Was the third Almohad Caliph . Succeeding his father, al-Mansur reigned from 1184 to 1199. His reign was distinguished by the flourishing of trade, architecture, philosophy and the sciences, as well as by victorious military campaigns in which he was successful in repelling the tide of the Reconquista in the Iberian Peninsula . Al-Mansur's father was killed in Portugal on 29 July 1184; upon reaching Seville with his father's body on 10 August, he

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