The most beautiful religious buildings Sahara

Excavations revealed traces of a mosque dating from Kankou Moussa in the th century. Counting 500 FCFA for visiting the site, there is unfortunately - for the moment - a lot of things to see.

Built by the Aghlabids and enlarged by the Hafsids, the Great Mosque of Gafsa is the third largest mosque in Tunisia. It would have seen the day between the year 800 and the year 909. As often in Tunisia, non-Muslims are only allowed to visit the courtyard. Its architecture is identical to that of Kairouan and the Zitouna mosque in Tunis. The court is surrounded by columns with capitals borrowed from other ancient monuments. Only the minaret is recent (and dates from the twentieth century), since the old minaret was in ruins.

Nefta is distinguished from Tozeur by its major religious role. Second holy city of Tunisia after Kairouan, it welcomes since the ninth century Sufi pilgrimages. The city has many religious buildings: two mosques and more than a hundred marabouts punctuate its landscape with their white domes. The most famous, located at the edge of the Corbeille, is the marabout of Sidi Bou Ali, a Sufi saint of the XIIIth century. It is the oldest place of pilgrimage of the city. Pilgrims still come from all over the country to venerate him.

The mosque of Bled el-Hadhar (or Blad El Hadhar) is built on Roman vestiges which were used as a basis for the construction of the minaret, it was enlarged in the twelfth century, its official date of construction was set at 1193. Although smaller in size, its shape resembles the Okba Mosque in Kairouan. Its courtyard is framed by four galleries. A median nave shares the prayer room, going from the entrance to the mihrab.

It was Augustus who erected this temple, originally located 40 km north of its present site. Earlier, Amenhetep II had built a temple here dedicated to Mandulis, also called Meru, a minor Nubian god, but also celebrated at Philae in the temple of Isis. His lion-like appearance associated him with Tefnut, the distant and dangerous daughter of Ra. Even later, he was linked to Apollo. Measuring 71.60 m long by 35.50 m wide, it was one of the largest sanctuaries in Nubia at the time, alongside Philae and Abu Simbel. The dismantling and relocation of the temple was the first work of its kind, and served as a model for all others of its kind in the region.

Two surrounding walls surrounded the temple; only one remains today.

Pylon: two upright positions indicate that masts once stood in front of this recent temple, typically of Roman date; it gives access to an open-roofed courtyard surrounded by 14 pillars.

Pronaos: once past the Ptolemaic portico, access is gained to a covered pronaos supported by eight columns.

Sanctuary: two vestibules precede the sanctuary, where Augustus is depicted giving offerings to various deities.

Enclosure: the enclosure provides access to the outer walls of the temple and to the now useless site of a nilometer.

To the west, a small chapel dedicated to Dedoun, a young Nubian god known as "the purveyor of incense", also appears at Philae.

Solitary and majestic, the mausoleum of Agha Khan III, buried in 1959 (2 years after his death), overlooks the Nile with its pared-down architecture, inspired by the Fatimid tombs of Cairo. Erected at the request of his wife Begum, whose house lies below, the ^48th Imam of the Ismailis (a dissident sect of Shiite Islam whose 4 million followers are mainly in Pakistan) rests here "in the name of a merciful and clement God", in a marble sarcophagus. The mausoleum is located on the other side of the Nile, which is particularly photogenic.

A length of 22 m, it presents 26 columns with capitals. There is a koutab (school) where children learn the Koran. The prayer room is closed to the visits (it only opens for Friday prayer), but the corner of des, with its half-subterranean niches, supported by twisted columns. This mosque marks the border between the two large districts of Ghadamès, the Beni Oulid and the Beni Ouazit. Columns, capitals and decor come from a church of the Byzantine era and were recovered to dress mosques and public squares.

This small mosque in the middle of the cemetery, each of which is a small stone, is the oldest in the city. Founded by the first Arab conquerors, it continues to be maintained, although the inhabitants no longer pray.

UNESCO participated here in the restoration of tombs, requesting the help of bricklayers who made the new bricks in the site of the site. Of the 132 tombs of this site, the most collapsed, some have been renovated. The dead were buried vertically in a burial chamber or burial mound, around which the masons reconstructed walls of pyramid form, ranging from 3 to 3,5 m ² on the ground and 3,5 m in length, on the height.

The mausoleum dates from the first century. C.C.

The mosque was built in the ^mid-16th century and restored in 1850. The prayer hall is supported by 24 columns in 4 rows. The shafts are reused from older monuments, as is the case in many buildings in the Delta. The ceiling of the prayer room features a central cupola. The entrance portal is comparable to that of the Hassan Nasr Allah mosque. The minaret is 23 m high and overlooks the nearby Nile.

The building is named after a high-ranking Mamluk dignitary who received his religious education in the mosque of Sultan Hassan in Cairo. He was buried in 1424 in the capital's northern Mamluk cemetery. The mosque was built during his lifetime and restored in 1703. The main portal, formed of three brick arches, is typical of the religious architecture of the Nile Delta region. The minaret is the only element of its architecture in the Mamluk style.

Built in 1995 only thanks to private donations, the Cathedral of Archangel Michael is the second largest cathedral in Egypt. Its 3,500 square meters can hold 3,000 worshippers. This cathedral is home to the Orthodox Christians. Beyond the nave richly decorated with oak wood icons, it impresses above all by its two 44-metre high towers. Its white dome rises above the cornice. It is located a few meters from the Nubian Museum.

With its leaning minaret, this austere mosque is dazzlingly white. The view is superb! A legend is attached to this troglodyte monument. This place would shelter the cave where took refuge a group of believers fleeing persecutions related to their faith. They would have woken up there after a sleep of... 309 years! The place presents another particularity just as enigmatic: the presence of several giant tombs of 5 meters whose origin remains to this day unexplained.

At the foot of the West Mountain, near Quseya. This is one of the most sacred places for the Copts of Egypt. Surrounded by an imposing medieval wall, it was built around a grotto where the Holy Family is said to have found shelter when they fled to Egypt, before returning to Palestine. The oldest church in the monastery dates back to 38 AD, and is believed to be the oldest in the Christian world. An important stopover for pilgrims following in the footsteps of the Holy Family in Egypt.

It dates from the ^14th century, but some parts, such as the minaret, were restored in the early ^20th century. It is in the neighborhood of the mosque that the last old houses of Tichit remain, beautifully decorated and with the typical architecture of Saharan ksour . In 2013, while Tichit hosted the Festival of Ancient Cities, the event allowed the rehabilitation of one hundred houses Tichittoises. The mosque has also benefited from this event, the large number of participants and guests have honored him.

It is the place of the Martyrs, where, in the sixteenth century, Saint Abayazid was born, who proclaimed freedom to all the convicts who came to a piquet planted in his place. This was where many of the cultivated personalities of Agadez were massacred by the French relief column from Zinder on 3 March 1917 to release the military post of Kaossen headquarters. Abayazid is buried in the mausoleum called albamban, a white dome construction in Coupole cemetery adjoining the airstrip, visible from the terrace of Azel Hostel.