Al-Zaytūna

Al-Zaytuna, the Mosque of the Olive, is the oldest mosque in Tunis, standing in its medina on the site of a Byzantine building, perhaps a church. Tradition ascribes its foundation in 698 to Hasan ibn al-Nu'man; the Umayyad governor Ubayd Allah ibn al-Habhab rebuilt it around 732.

Its present form dates to the Aghlabid reconstruction completed in 864 or 865 under Emir Abu Ibrahim Ahmad, whose builders reused hundreds of antique columns from Carthage. The Zirids added the courtyard galleries and the Qubbat al-Bahu dome in 991. Under the Hafsids the mosque overtook Kairouan as the foremost seat of learning in the Maghreb; al-Mustansir restored it in 1250.

In 1534 Spanish troops sacked its libraries and scattered its manuscripts. The Ottoman Muradid and Husaynid dynasties restored its teaching role, and the Bakri family supplied its imams from 1624 to 1812.