The First Mosque The actual date of construction of the first mosque in
Djenné is unknown, but dates as early as 1200 and as late as 1330 have been suggested. The earliest document mentioning the mosque is Abd al-Sadi's
Tarikh al-Sudan which gives the early history, presumably from the oral tradition as it existed in the mid-seventeenth century. The
Tarikh states that a Sultan Kunburu became a
Muslim and had his palace pulled down and the site turned into a mosque. He built another palace for himself near the mosque on the east side. His immediate successor built the towers of the mosque while the following Sultan built the surrounding wall. According to 'a more recent interpretation' presented by the architectural historian Labelle Prussin, the mosque built by Koy Kounboro was razed by his successor Malaha Tampo, who built a new mosque; this was subsequently replaced by the
Songhay ruler
Askia Mohammed who "rebuilt the original mosque of Koy Kounboro" at the end of the 15th century. With the
Moroccan invasion at the end of the 16th century the Songhay mosque was again destroyed and "that of Tanapo rebuilt." This was the mosque referred to in the
Tarikh al-Sudan, the ruins of which were later observed and recorded by French explorers in the 19th century. According to Prussin, "(this) Moroccan mosque was far too sumptuous for the puritanical tastes of
Sheku Ahmadu, the Fulbe Massina ruler who controlled the city early in the nineteenth century, so in 1830 he removed its roof timbers and had a more austere structure built on the site of the original Kounboro mosque." This mosque was later replaced by a French-sponsored
madrasa at the same time as the new Great Mosque was built in 1909. Djenne ruins ancient mosque - Albert Rousseau.jpg|Photo taken by Albert Rousseau in 1893–94 Djenne ruins ancient mosque - H. Danel.jpg|Photo taken by H. Danel in or before 1904 Djenne Fortier 413 - Ruines de l'ancienne Mosquée.jpg|Photo taken by Edmond Fortier in 1906
Seku Amadu's mosque Ten years before René Caillié's visit, the
Fulani leader
Seku Amadu had launched his
jihad and conquered the town. Seku Amadu appears to have disapproved of the existing mosque and allowed it to fall into disrepair. This would have been the building that Caillié saw. Seku Amadu had also closed all the small neighbourhood mosques. Between 1834 and 1836, Seku Amadu built a new mosque to the east of the existing one on the site of the former palace. The new mosque was a large, low building, lacking any towers or ornamentation. French forces led by
Louis Archinard captured Djenné in April 1893. Soon after, the French journalist
Félix Dubois visited the town and described the ruins of the original mosque. At the time of his visit, the interior of the ruined mosque was being used as a cemetery. In his 1897 book,
Tombouctou la Mystérieuse (
Timbuktu the mysterious), Dubois provides a plan and a drawing as to how he imagined the mosque looked before being abandoned.
Present mosque In 1906, the town arranged for the original mosque to be rebuilt and for a school to be constructed on the site of Seku Amadu's mosque. The rebuilding was completed in 1907 using forced labour under the direction of Ismaila Traoré, head of Djenné's guild of masons. Dubois revisited Djenné in 1910 and was shocked by the reconstructed mosque. He believed that the French colonial administration were responsible for the design and wrote that it looked like a cross between a hedgehog and a church organ. He thought that the cones made the building resemble a baroque temple dedicated to the god of suppositories. By contrast,
Jean-Louis Bourgeois has argued that the French had little influence except perhaps for the internal arches and that the design is "basically African." Ismaila Traoré. head of Djenne's guild of masons and renowned throughout the
Sahel, was the architect for the reconstruction of the Djenné mosque. French ethnologist
Michel Leiris, in his account of travelling through Mali in 1931, states that the new mosque is indeed the work of Europeans. He also says that local people were so unhappy with the reconstructed building that they refused to clean it, only doing so when threatened with prison. Jean-Louis Bourgeois however, recorded that the rebuilt mosque was constructed by Djenné's traditional local guild of masons, traditionally responsible for the building and maintenance of the town's original mosque and of Djenné's other buildings, using traditional techniques and with minimal French involvement. A problem concerning the mosque arose from Djenné's local politics: most of the city's inhabitants – including the Islamic elite who were harassed by
Seku Amadu and humiliated by the destruction of the old mosque – wanted an exact rebuilding of the old mosque in their vision. The terrace in front of the eastern wall includes two tombs. The larger tomb to the south contains the remains of Almany Ismaïla, an important
imam of the 18th century. Early in the French colonial period, a pond located on the eastern side of the mosque was filled with earth to create the open area that is now used for the weekly market. Electrical wiring and indoor plumbing have been added to many mosques in Mali. In some cases, the original surfaces of mosques have even been tiled over, destroying their historical appearances and in some cases compromising the building's structural integrity. While the Great Mosque has been equipped with a loudspeaker system, the citizens of Djenné have resisted modernization in favor of the building's historical integrity. Many
historical preservationists have praised the community's preservation effort, and interest in this aspect of the building grew in the 1990s. The mosque is seen in the 2005 film
Sahara. == Design ==