[1] It was built as the minaret for the Great Mosque of Seville in al-Andalus, during the reign of the Almohad dynasty, with a Renaissance-style belfry added by the Catholics after the expulsion of the Muslims from the area.

[7] From the beginning, craftsmen from all over Al-Andalus and the Maghreb were enlisted in the mosque's planning, construction, and decoration, and the caliph himself was highly invested in the process and was said to have visited the site daily.

[6] His son, Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur, ordered construction on the minaret to continue upon his accession in 1184, but the work stalled again soon after and did not restart until 1188.

[6][7] Ahmad Ibn Baso had begun the base of the tower in cut stone and his work was continued by a Maghrebi Berber architect named 'Ali al-Ghumari, who was responsible for building the main body of the minaret in brick, and completed by Sicilian architect Abu Layth Al-Siqilli, who built the small secondary shaft at the top of the tower.

[7] The minbar was decorated in a Cordoban style, constructed from expensive wood and embellished with sandalwood, ivory, ebony, gold, and silver.

[7] The main northern entrance to the courtyard, the present-day Puerta del Perdón, contains a bronze-plated door with geometric decoration and floral knockers.

The two other vertical zones of the facades feature large panels of sebka motifs, each of which springs from a blind arcade of polylobed arches supported on marble columns.

[14] The top edge of the tower's main shaft was originally crowned by stepped or sawtooth-shaped merlons, as was common with other contemporary minarets in the region.

[8] The small secondary shaft at the top of the minaret also features sebka and blind arch decoration, though this is only visible from inside the belfry today.

The former mosque was not well-maintained by any of the groups inhabiting their own sections of the building during this period, and most of the records from the 13th and early 14th centuries describe its neglect, damage, and consequent destruction to make way for a new cathedral.

[20][21][22] In the 16th century Hernán Ruiz the Younger, who was commissioned to work on cathedral, constructed a new Renaissance-style belfry extension at the top of the tower, which houses the bells today.

The top of the square sections also features the inscription "TURRIS FORTISSIMA NOMEN DNI PROBERBI8", a reference to a passage of the 18th Proverb: "The name of the Lord is a fortified tower.

"[20] The finishing touch added to the summit of the belfry in 1568 is the rotating sculpture known as the Giraldillo (weather vane), from which the name "Giralda" is derived.

[10] It was designed by Luis de Vargas, a model was made by Juan Bautista Vásquez "el Viejo" and then it was cast in bronze by Bartolomé Morel.

[20] The sculpture, in the form of a woman carrying a flag pole, was probably inspired by the image of Pallas Athena, adapting it to a symbol of Christian faith.

These internal supports rest on a vertical metal axis which is inserted into the sculpture itself up to around breast height and which is anchored below to the summit of the tower.

This process began in 1999, when the Giraldillo was removed and brought to the Andalusian Historical Heritage Institute (Instituto Andaluz de Patrimonio Histórico) for restoration, while a replica was put in its place.