Top

Kairouan, the First Maghreb Capital

Reading Time: 2 minutes

While the coastal strip of Tunisia is green and fertile, as soon as you get more than a few miles from the coast, you’re in the Sahara Desert.

Our first stop in the Sahara was the city of Kairouan. After the death of Muhammed in 632 CE, Islam spread quickly in North Africa. Within a few hundred years, Islam had reached Morocco, crossed Gibraltar to Spain, and also turned south back across Africa south of the Sahara.

After expelling the Byzantines from Tunisia, the Arabs made Kairouan their regional capital. Interestingly, they were not good seafarers and feared attacks from the sea. So they built their cities inland instead of on the coast.

The Great Mosque of Kairouan was built in the 9th Century and is one of the oldest mosques in North Africa. It is the fourth holiest site in Islam today.

Outside the Great Mosque of Kairouan
The water filtration system at the Great Mosque

The Great Mosque has a cistern below for collecting rainwater, with a simple but ingenious filtration system. As the water flows down the different levels, sediment falls to the bottom, leaving clear water to flow down to the cistern below.

We also visited the Zaouia of Sidi Sahabi, also known as the Mosque of the Barber. While Islam doesn’t have saints, they have something roughly equivalent and this mosque was built to honor a barber who greatly helped everyone around him in his lifetime. The interior of the Mosque features beautiful mosaics, as well as many intricate plaster carvings.

Detail of the plaster carvings inside the Mosque of the Barber

Leaving Kairouan, we then had a long drive to Tozeur, located in an oasis in the heart of the Sahara.

A local family heads to town
Farm workers heading to the fields
A shepherd tends his flock
Our roadside lunch stop. The menu is what's hanging next to the cook.
You know you're in the Sahara Desert when...
For a more in-depth look at what to see and do, where to stay and eat, etc., please visit the Tunisia Destination Page

Related Posts

Tunisia – It’s a Wrap

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The Star Wars Connection

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Berber Villages and the Rocky Sahara

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Tozeur & the Sahara Desert

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Carthaginian, Roman & Other Ruins

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Tunisia – Sidi Bou Said

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Comments:

  • Jeanne Havlicek

    May 29, 2023

    The interior of the mosque reminds me of the Mezquita in Cordoba, Spain, with the forest of columns!

    reply...

post a comment