Minbar of the Kutubiyya Mosque

Made primarily of wood and decorated with a variety of techniques, the minbar is considered one of the high points of Moorish, Moroccan, and Islamic art.

[1][3] The Kutubiyya Mosque's historic minbar (pulpit) was commissioned by Ali ibn Yusuf, one of the last Almoravid rulers, and created by a workshop in Cordoba, Spain (al-Andalus).

[4] A hidden specially designed mechanism integrated into the new mosque allowed for the minbar to advance and retract, seemingly on its own, from its storage room next to the mihrab; a feature at which contemporary observers marvelled.

[1] In 1996-97 the minbar was partially restored by an international team of experts from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Ministry of Cultural Affairs of the Kingdom of Morocco.

The large triangular faces of the minbar on either side are covered in an elaborate and creative motif centered around eight-pointed stars, from which decorative bands inlaid with bone and coloured woods then interweave and repeat the same pattern across the rest of the surface.

[1] There is a 6 centimetres (2.4 in) wide band of Qur'anic inscriptions in Kufic Arabic script on blackwood and bone running along the top edge of the balustrades.

The steps of the minbar are decorated with images of an arcade of Moorish (horseshoe) arches inside which are curving plant motifs, all made entirely in marquetry with different colored woods.

Its surfaces are covered with more highly elaborate ornamentation including carvings and bands of fine wooden mosaics, forming somewhat different motifs from the rest of the minbar.

[1] Historical accounts describe a mysterious and invisible semi-automated mechanism in the Kutubiyya Mosque by which the minbar would emerge, seemingly on its own, from its storage chamber next to the mihrab and move forward into position for the imam's sermon.

[1] This mechanism, which elicited great curiosity and wonder from contemporary observers, was designed by an engineer from Malaga named Hajj al-Ya'ish, who also completed other projects for the caliph.

[2] The fact that the Almohad leader Abd al-Mu'min, who is reputed to have destroyed all Almoravid religious buildings in Marrakesh after he took the city, selected the minbar to be transferred and used at his newly built great mosque (the Kutubiyya) suggests that he saw it as a trophy and a significant artistic object in its own right.