Al-Muhdhar Mosque with it’s Beautiful Minaret

Tarim – Hadhramaut, Yemen

Coordinates: 16.054655, 48.999190

Nearby Places

• Qasr al-‘Ishshah 0.12 Km NE (49°)
• Tomb of Hz. Abdallah ibn Alawi al-Haddad رحمة الله عليه‎ 0.66 Km SW (234°)
• Tarim, city of Prophets and Saints 0.77 Km NE (65°)

The Al-Muhdhar Mosque is one of the historical Yemeni mosques in the ancient city of Tarim, the province of Hadramaut, attributed to Omar Al-Muhadhar bin Abdul Rahman Al-Saqqaf, a Muslim leader who lived in the city during the 15th-century.

Architecture

The building is characterized by Islamic geometric design. Its layout consists of an open courtyard surrounded by four corridors, the biggest of which contains the qibla, which is adorned with three exquisite frescoes decorated with geometric, floral and scriptural motifs.

Minaret

In the centre of the qibla corridor, there is the iconic minaret, which is about 40 meters high and the highest in the city. It is square-shaped, and there is a staircase reaching to the top inside. It was built around 1914 CE (1333 AH) and is built of adobe. It is considered as one of the most important architectural sites and destinations for visitors and researchers of the city of Tarim.

Al-Ahkaf Library

Al-Ahkaf Library occupies the ground floor of the mosque building, which was built to accommodate the need to store a large number of manuscripts in the city of Tarim and neighbouring cities. Tarim has been considered as a distinguished Islamic scientific centre since the 10th-century in Wadi Hadramaut region.