Grand Mosque of Bobo-Dioulasso

The Grand Mosque of Bobo-Dioulasso is a mud-brick mosque in Bobo-Dioulasso, the second city of Burkina Faso in West Africa. It is built in the Sudano-Sahelian style, with sloping buttresses along the walls and two pointed minarets bristling with wooden beams that stick out of the walls.

It is built from mud brick with projecting wooden beams. Sources disagree about the exact date of building, but the mosque is more than a century old. Its prayer hall was built in two stages, and a tin roof was added over part of the courtyard in 1983.

How the mosque began

A local story says the area once belonged to the Kingdom of Sia, which was in danger from the neighbouring Kénédougou Kingdom. Its king asked for help from a Muslim leader, Almamy Sidiki Sanou, who agreed to help on the condition that a mosque be built.

The attackers were stopped about 30 kilometers from the capital of Sia, and the mosque was built. One account gives the building dates as 1812 to 1832, while other sources place it later in the 1800s, so the exact year is uncertain.

What it is made of

The walls are made of mud brick, with wooden beams sticking out and running across them. There are two minarets. The prayer hall has two parts built at different times: an older eastern part with seven aisles and a newer western part with two more aisles.

Over time the mosque was repaired and enlarged several times. In 1983 a tin roof was added over part of the courtyard.

On the globe

The model shows a mud mosque with conical buttresses along white walls and two pointed minarets studded with wooden spikes.