Al-Anouar Mosque


The Al-Anouar Mosque, formerly also known as the Mosque of the Sheikhs, was the oldest mosque in Fes, Morocco. It was founded by Idris I at the same time as he founded the city itself, in the early 9th century. It was located slightly northeast of the current Mosque of the Andalusians, which surpassed it as the main mosque of the area. Today only remnants of the mosque have survived.

History

The mosque was the first mosque founded by Idris I, in 808 CE, when he founded Madinat Fas, the first city of what became Fes, centered on what is now the Andalous or 'Adoua quarter. The mosque was built next to a well where the sheikhs of the Berber tribes allied to Idris held their meetings. It had no minaret and did not have a particularly monumental appearance. The name "Al-Anouar" or "Al-Anwar" was an epithet sometimes given to Idris I, which is why the mosque also took on this name.
The mosque was eventually overshadowed and eclipsed by the Mosque of the Andalusians, founded nearby in 859-860, which quickly grew larger than the relatively primitive early Idrisid mosque. In 933, on the order of Hamid ibn Hamdan al-Hamdani the governor of Fes on behalf of the Fatimids, the khutba was transferred from the Mosque of the Sheikhs to the Andalusian Mosque, thus denoting the later as the main mosque of the district.
In the centuries since then, the Mosque of the Sheikhs has survived only as a small prayer space which has been significantly changed by subsequent repairs. A minor structure still stands on the site today, but only vestiges and archaeological remains of the original mosque have survived.