15 Facts About Moorish architecture

Moorish architecture is a style within Islamic architecture which developed in the western Islamic world, including al-Andalus, and what is Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia (part of the Maghreb).

The term "Moorish architecture" comes from the Western European designation of the Muslim inhabitants of these regions as "Moors".

Much later, particularly in the 19th century, the Moorish style was frequently imitated or emulated in the Neo-Moorish or Moorish Revival style which emerged in Europe, North African colonies and America as part of the Romanticist interest in the "Orient" and, notably, as a recurring choice for new Jewish Synagogue architecture.

The Mosque of Ibn Khayrun, dated to 866, possesses what is considered by some to be the oldest decorated external facade in Islamic Moorish architecture, featuring carved Kufic inscriptions and vegetal motifs.

Moorish architecture marked this political evolution with the creation of a vast and lavish palace-city called Madinat al-Zahra, located just outside Cordoba, whose construction started in 936 and continued for decades.

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Moorish architecture expanded the courtyard of Cordoba's Great Mosque and built its first true minaret.

Moorish architecture endowed it with some of its most significant architectural flourishes and innovations, which included interlacing multifoil arches, decorative ribbed domes, and a richly-ornamented mihrab with Byzantine-influenced gold mosaics.

In Morocco, the only notable remnants of Almoravid religious Moorish architecture are the Qubba Ba'adiyyin, a small but highly ornate ablutions pavilion in Marrakesh, and the Almoravid expansion of the Qarawiyyin Mosque in Fez.

Meanwhile, in the former territories of al-Andalus under the control of the Spanish kingdoms of Leon, Castile and Aragon, Andalusi art and Moorish architecture continued to be employed for many years as a prestigious style under new Christian patrons, becoming what is known as Mudejar art.

Moorish architecture hired European architects to design the city, resulting in a relatively unique historic city built by Moroccans but with Western European architecture, particularly in the style of its fortifications.

Domes of Ottoman influence were introduced into the design of mosques, but minarets generally continued to be built with square shafts instead of round or octagonal ones, thus retaining local tradition, unlike contemporary Moorish architecture in Ottoman Tunisia and other Ottoman provinces, where the "pencil"-shaped minaret was a symbol of Ottoman sovereignty.

Characteristic elements of Moorish architecture include horseshoe or "Moorish" arches, interlacing arches, central courtyards, riad gardens, intricately carved wood and stucco as decoration, muqarnas sculpting, and decorative tile work known as zellij.

Almoravid and Almohad Moorish architecture made more use of a general striated leaf motif, often curling and splitting into unequal parts along an axis of symmetry.

Various types of interlacing lozenge-like motifs are heavily featured on the surface of minarets starting in the Almohad period and are later found in other decoration such as carved stucco along walls in Marinid and Nasrid Moorish architecture, eventually becoming a standard feature in the western Islamic ornamental repertoire in combination with arabesques.

Moorish architecture'storically, there was a distinction between regular mosques and "Friday mosques" or "great mosques", which were larger and had a more important status by virtue of being the venue where the khutba was delivered on Fridays.