Publication Date
11th - 12th century AH / 17th - 18th century AD
Type
Other
Language
Undetermined
Digital
Yes
Manuscript
No
Library
Museum With No Frontiers
Record ID
monument;ISL;ma;Mon01;35;ar
Library Location
Meknes, Morocco
Date
11th - 12th century AH / 17th - 18th century AD
Notes
The shrine that houses the tomb of Mawla Ismail was built near the tomb of the saint Sidi Abd al-Rahman al-Majzoub, the famous poet and Sufi who lived in the 10th century AH / 16th century AD. This royal funerary complex, far from the palace, attracts the visitor with its grandeur and rich decoration. It consists of three main groups. The first group, within which the entry door to the shrine opens, consists of a spacious entrance hall and its annexes. The plan of the hall is square, its sides reaching 9.88 metres, and its walls up to a height of 1.60 meters are covered with zellige decoration, crowned with a band of carved gypsum, devoid of epigraphic decoration. In the middle of the hall is a fountain that pours its overflowing water into an octagonal fountain. A door leads to the toilets arranged around a cistern. The second group consists of three spacious courtyards, with a trapezoidal plan. The very high walls (9 metres) of the first courtyard, up to a height of 0.56 metres, are decorated with tiles. While the floor of the second courtyard is simple and paved with monotonous tiles, extending above the walls to a height of 0.56 metres. The third courtyard is distinguished by its two porticoes facing each other on the eastern and western sides, and its center is decorated with a deep, circular fountain. On the wall of its eastern portico was a mihrab, while the minaret occupied the southwestern corner of it - the courtyard -. The third group consists of funerary halls and a courtyard. The spacious open hall located to the south is arranged within a trapezoidal plan and contains two domes. The square courtyard rises in the northeast of the complex, and its four sides are surrounded by porticoes reaching a height of 1.87 metres. Their columns are made of marble and distributed into groups, each of which consists of three columns crowned with capitals of different styles. Those - the columns - which correspond to a cylindrical part decorated with a double row of leaves with a thick pyramidal part decorated with a wide decoration, carved rather than carved, of palmettes and palmettes, belong to the Spanish-Moroccan style. A marble fountain occupies the center of the courtyard, which leads to three funerary halls of varying sizes: a waiting room, with a rectangular plan, richly decorated and decorated with a bronze chandelier; A main hall with a square design contains the tomb of Sultan Mawla Ismail, and finally a hall in rectangular shape, which includes bookcases. Today, thanks to its magnificence, the shrine has become a place reminiscent of the era of Sultan Mawla Ismail.
Sample Text
Kamal Lakhdar “Mausoleum of Mawla Ismail” in Discover Islamic Art. Museum Without Borders, 2026. 2026. https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=monument;ISL;ma;Mon01;35;ar
