Mosquée al-Quaraouiyine جامعة القرويين

Information

🕒 Opening hours

Hours are indicative: please confirm with the place before travelling.

About

Founded in 859 by Fatima al-Fihriya, the al-Qarawiyyin Mosque in Fez houses what is regarded as the oldest continuously operating university in the world, and one of the great centres of Islamic learning. Enlarged without interruption since it was built, it now forms one of the largest architectural complexes in the medina.

Its architecture blends Islamic and traditional Moroccan registers: mosaics, carved woodwork and arcades. Sultan Abu Inan endowed the university with a library whose holdings exceeded 320,000 works and manuscripts by 1613, when Fez had established itself as the capital of learning in the Maghreb. More than 30,000 remain today, among them rare copies and manuscripts found nowhere else.

The building is hard to make out: over the centuries the surrounding houses have closed in on its perimeter and hidden its shape. It stands between the mausoleum of Moulay Idriss and Place Seffarine. As with the other mosques of Fez, the interior is open to Muslims only; other visitors can glimpse part of it from the doorway.