Abū Madyan Shrine

The Abu Madyan shrine is a complex of mosque, madrasa, mausoleum and hammam at al-Ubbad outside Tlemcen in western Algeria, built around the tomb of the Andalusian Sufi master Abu Madyan Shu'ayb. Born near Seville around 1126, he studied mysticism in Fez and Mecca, then settled at Bougie, where disciples such as Ibn Arabi gathered around him.

His fame alarmed the Almohad authorities, and when Caliph Ya'qub al-Mansur summoned him to Marrakesh he died on the journey in 1198 and was buried at al-Ubbad.

Tlemcen adopted him as its patron saint, and Caliph Muhammad al-Nasir raised a mausoleum over his grave. In the fourteenth century the Marinid rulers of Tlemcen founded the mosque in 1339 and its madrasa eight years later, where Ibn Khaldun once taught.