Koutoubia Mosque

The Koutoubia Mosque is Marrakech's defining landmark — a 12th-century Almohad mosque whose 77-metre minaret is the tallest structure in the city and the model for the Giralda in Seville and the Hassan Tower in Rabat. The mosque was completed during the reign of the Almohad caliph Yaqub al-Mansur around 1195, and its minaret — decorated with carved stone, ceramic tilework, and a band of arched windows on each face — established the template for Moroccan mosque architecture that has been followed for eight centuries.

Non-Muslims cannot enter the mosque (as with virtually all mosques in Morocco), but the exterior and the surrounding gardens are public. The minaret is visible from much of the medina and serves as the primary navigational landmark in a city whose labyrinthine streets were designed to confuse invaders and continue to confuse tourists with equal efficiency. The gardens surrounding the mosque — palm trees, orange trees, and rose beds — provide a rare open space in the dense medina and are a popular gathering place for locals at sunset.

The four copper balls at the top of the minaret are said to have originally been gold, donated by the wife of Yaqub al-Mansur as penance for breaking her fast during Ramadan. Whether the legend is true (historians doubt it), the balls have been catching the light above the medina for over 800 years, and the muezzin's call to prayer from the Koutoubia — amplified by speakers now, but following a tradition that predates amplification by centuries — is the sound that defines Marrakech five times daily.