Al-Zaytuna Mosque

Al-Zaytuna Mosque

Ez-Zitouna Mosque is the oldest in the Capital of Tunisia and the second mosque to be built in the Maghreb region after the Mosque of Uqba in Kairouan. The exact date of building varies according to source. Ibn Khaldun wrote that it was built in 731 AD by Ubayd Allah ibn al-Habhab. A second source states that the Umayyad Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik ordered the building; however, Ahmed In Abu Diyaf and Ibn Abi Dinar attributed the order to the Umayyad Emir Hasan ibn al-Nu'man who led the conquest of Tunis and Carthage. The mosque was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979 as part of Medina of Tunis.