Naqah Mosque

Mosque Name: Nāqah Mosque

Country: Libya

City: Tripoli

Year of construction (AD): 973 362 (AH)

GPS: 32.895391 13.178872

Archnet: https://www.archnet.org/sites/3505

Gibson Classification: Parallel

Rebuilt facing Mecca: never

For a Link to the Qibla Tool Click Here

Description:

The ‘Camel’ Mosque, located behind the seraglio in the old quarter of Tripoli, is the oldest mosque in the Libyan capital. Little is known about the origins of this small edifice and, in the absence of any precise information, various legends about its foundation have arisen in popular tradition inspired by the famous episode of Muhammad’s camel, which stopped during his hegira at the site where the first Islamic mosque was built in Medina. In Tripoli, the camel of Caliph ‘Umar (reigned 634–644) refused to get up at the site where the mosque was built. The building’s foundation is sometimes attributed to General ‘Amr ibn al-‘Ās, who led the Arab Muslim armies and conquered the city in 643. To buy their amnesty, the city’s inhabitants offered him a camel loaded with coins that the conqueror—he did not take the money for himself—used to build the first mosque in the city. However, the most commonly recounted story and by far the most plausible explanation for the mosque’s name is that of the visit of the Fatimid caliph al-Mu‘izz, when he left Ifriqiya to establish the seat of the Caliphate in Egypt in 973. Because of the warm welcome he received from the people of Tripoli, he decided to offer the city and its inhabitants one of the camels that was carrying his treasure, to extend and embellish the city’s great mosque.

Restored in 1610, the mosque of Al-Nāqah is the oldest extant in Tripoli. The mosque is associated with founding stories dating to the conquest of Libya by Amr Ibn al-As (642) and also a Fatimid Caliph, al -Mu’izz. Both stories involve the funds for the construction of the mosque being presented on a camel (naqah), hence its name.

This hypostyle mosque has a sanctuary covered with 42 small domes rising over 36 columns. Some columns and capitals are reused from Roman buildings, and few are the same, lending a heterogeneous feel to the interior. It is roughly square, with the qibla wall (southeast) 44 m long and the adjacent northeast wall 19 m long.

Next to the sanctuary is a square, one-story sahn (courtyard) with a fountain in the middle. There is a riwaq (colonnade) on each side, originally doubled also on the qibla side (southeast) but destroyed in World War II. A square (5.6 m) crenellated minaret rises along the northeast wall of the sanctuary.