The oldest mosques in the world can refer to the oldest, surviving mosque building or to the oldest mosque congregation. There is also a distinction between old mosque buildings in continuous use as mosques and others no longer used as mosques. In terms of congregations, there are early established congregations that have been in continuous existence, and early congregations that ceased to exist.
The major regions, such as Africa and Eurasia, are sorted alphabetically, and the minor regions, such as Arabia and South Asia, are sorted by the dates in which their first mosques were reportedly established, more or less, barring those that are mentioned by name in the Quran.
To be listed here a site must:
be the oldest mosque in a country, large city (top 50), or oldest of its type (denomination, architectural, etc.);
be the oldest congregation of its type (denomination).
Mentioned in the Quran
The following are treated as the oldest mosques or sanctuaries[1] mentioned in the Quran:[2]
Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām,[a] the holiest sanctuary, containing the Ka'bah, a site of the Ḥajj ('Pilgrimage'), the Qiblah[9] (direction of formal prayers of Muslims), and the first mosque[10][11] in Islamic thought.[12][13] Rebuilt many times, notably 1571 by the Ottomans, and the late 20th century by the Saudis, further enlargement under way since 2010.
Al-Masjid al-Aqṣá,[2] the former Qiblah,[15] site of the significant event of Night Journey(Isra and Mi'raj)[16], considered the third holiest site in Islam. The Qur'an does not specify the precise location of "the furthest place of prayer", and its meaning was debated by early Islamic scholars.[17][18][19][20] Eventually, a consensus emerged its identification with the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.[19][21]
The term Al-Aqsa properly refers to the whole Temple Mount compound (seen as a single mosque).[b] The mosque compound should not be confused with the silver-domed congregational mosque or prayer hall facing Mecca, commonly referred to in English as Al-Aqsa Mosque, and also known as Al-Qibli Mosque (see below).
The first mosque built by Muhammad in the 7th century CE, possibly mentioned as the "Mosque founded on piety since the first day"[28] in the Quran.[citation needed] Largely rebuilt in the late 20th century.
By tradition, the burial site of several followers of Muhammad who, during his lifetime, fled to the Aksumite Kingdom to escape persecution in Mecca.[30] It was recently[when?] renovated by TIKA, a Turkish cooperation organization.[31]
Believed to be the first mosque in the Maghreb. The current mosque dates from a total reconstruction starting in 836 under the Aghlabids, with further restorations and additions in later periods.[36]
The Mosque was built in 675 by Abu al-Muhajir Dinar, the governor of Ifriqiya, from 674 to 681 on behalf of the Umayyads. It was established near a Byzantine basilica, and contains many ancient materials (ornaments, columns, etc.). It is also rather oriented towards the South, a unique fact in the Maghreb, which evokes the first mosques of the Mashreq.
There are some doubts about the exact foundation date: usually attributed to 698 but it could have been a bit later in 734.[38][39] The current mosque dates from a total reconstruction in 864 under the Aghlabids,[40] with further modifications and renovations in later eras.[38]
Some doubts exist about its foundation;[44] with possible alternative of 877 CE, based on an inscription discovered in the 20th century.[45][46] The present building dates from multiple later expansions and reconstructions, with the oldest elements dating from the 10th century.[44] Significantly expanded under the Almoravids between 1135 and 1143.[47]
There are doubts about its foundation; and the oldest parts of the present building date from the 10th century.[44] It was mostly reconstructed by the Almohads between 1203 and 1207.[48]
Oldest Islamic monument in Tripoli,[49] though its history is not well-known.[50] Likely built by the Fatimid caliph al-Mu'izz, though it may be older.[49] Reconstructed in AH 1019 (1610/1611).[50]
Founded under the Almoravids, decoration completed or redone in 1136 by another Almoravid ruler. Important renovation and additions took place in 1236 under the first Zayyanid ruler.[51]
This section is missing information about names and other details of mosques in certain rows. Please expand the section by making an edit requestto include this information . Further details may exist on the talk page.(March 2025)
Opened in October 1983 with the support of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Argentina.[67] It is a very simple building with a subtle Islamic style in its facade.[68]
Second holiest site in Islam (after Al-Haram Mosque) and Muhammad's mosque, which houses his tomb in what was initially his and his wife Aisha's house. Largely rebuilt and greatly enlarged in the late 20th century, whilst retaining at its heart the earlier construction of the Ottomans, and landmark green dome atop the prophet's mausoleum.
Original foundation attributed by some to AH 7 (628/629). A construction or renovation dated to 1529 CE is recorded by an inscription above the mihrab.[82][83]
Though most of the structure is dated to the 11th or 12th century,[84] it is popularly believed to have been founded by the Caliph Omar in the 600s.[85]
Originally built by Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, who was an uncle of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and was named in memory of Muhammad. Rebuilt many times since.
The second oldest mosque in Taiwan. The original building was built in 1949, then moved to a new location where the second building was built in 1951, and the third and final building built in 1992.
Built by Arab traders, the qibla is faced to Bait al Mukaddas (Jerusalem). The mosque was abandoned by devotees after the qibla was changed in 623 CE to Makkah and another mosque constructed at the same time.[95][96][97][98][99]
Considered to be the first mosque to be built in Tamil Nadu, and the second mosque in India. Constructed by Yemeni merchants and trade settlers in the Pandiya Kingdom and ordered by Bazan ibn Sasan, Governor of Yemen at the time of Muhammad.[102]
Built by Khan Jahan Ali, it is considered to be the second-oldest mosque in Bangladesh. The fortified structure contains eighty-one domes, sixty stone pillars and eleven mihrabs.
Fourth holiest site and the national mosque of Syria. It was originally built after the Muslim conquest of the city in 634. The current structure dates to 715.
Built as a Greek Orthodox cathedral, converted to a mosque in 1453, and then a museum in 1931.[119] In 2020, it was again converted into a mosque by order of a Turkish court.
Originally built by Abd al-Rahman I in the then Emirate of Córdoba, it underwent successive extensions in the 9th and 10th centuries. After the Castilian conquest of Cordoba in 1236, it was converted into the city's cathedral, which it remains to this day.[122][123]
Built in the then Caliphate of Córdoba,[131] this building is a rarity in that it is in much the same state as it was when it was originally built.[132] Originally a square structure with nine domed bays, a semi-circular apse was added in 1187, after it had been converted into a church.[133]
Probably constructed by Abu-l-Qasim Ahmad ibn al-Husayn ibn Qasi, governor of Silves and a rebel leader against the Almoravid dynasty. These are the only ruins of such Muslim fortress to have been identified in Portugal, excavated by Portuguese archaeologists since 2001.[136]
Unique and most identifiable former mosque in Portugal, in what was then the Almohad Caliphate, although a mixture of Almohad and Manueline post-Gothic architecture. Rebuilt in the second half of the 12th century with some elements from the 9th century.[137]
Only the minaret remains, built in the then Almohad Caliphate. Mosque comparable in size to Great mosque of Cordoba,[138] mostly destroyed by earthquake in 1365. Minaret used as a church bell tower was built higher in the 16th century.
Only parts of the original minaret remain, built in the Kingdom of Portugal, incorporated in the church bell tower. It's 22.7 m (74 ft) tall and 4.2 m (14 ft) wide. Across it lies an old Muslim cemetery of Jardim dos Amuados.[139]
Only the minaret of the medium-size mosque in Plaza Abul Beka neighborhood remains in the then Almohad Caliphate. Minaret was expanded and used as a bell tower. The mosque was converted to a church but destroyed in the 1600s during Morisco Revolts. Ronda was a Muslim city for 700 years. The city had 7 or 8 mosques; none survive today.[141]
Considered the oldest mosque in North Macedonia. However, as a result of the various renovation works, the building has been altered to such an extent that it is no longer in its original state.[143]
Several sources state that a mosque was founded in 1860 at 2 Glynrhondda Street, Cardiff, Wales. This has been rejected by an academic paper as a transcription error.[154][155]
The first in Metropolitan France, served for burial prayers for Ottoman diplomats, North African military personnel, and Turkish and Arab students. It fell into disrepair when France and the Ottoman Empire went to war in 1914.[156]
Erected by the Imperial German Army administration for Muslim Allied prisoners of war in the POW camp in Wünsdorf, later used as refugee camp. In 1930 torn down due to lack of a congregation.
A mosque of the community of Finnish Tatars. It is considered to be the oldest mosque in Scandinavia. Finland's first Muslim cemetery was established in the 1830s for Russian troops.[158]
Founded by Pakistani-Norwegians aided by Danish Muslims. Followed by the first Shi'i mosque, Anjuman-e Hussain, in 1975; and the first Sunni Barelvi mosque in 1976.
^According to historian Oleg Grabar, "It is only at a relatively late date that the Muslim holy space in Jerusalem came to be referred to as al-haram al-sharif (literally, the Noble Sacred Precinct or Restricted Enclosure, often translated as the Noble Sanctuary and usually simply referred to as the Haram). While the exact early history of this term is unclear, we know that it only became common in Ottoman times, when administrative order was established over all matters pertaining to the organization of the Muslim faith and the supervision of the holy places, for which the Ottomans took financial and architectural responsibility. Before the Ottomans, the space was usually called al-masjid al-aqsa (the Farthest Mosque), a term now reserved to the covered congregational space on the Haram, or masjid bayt al-maqdis (Mosque of the Holy City) or, even, like Mecca's sanctuary, al-masjid al-ḥarâm,"[22]
^National Geographic Society (U.S.); de Blij, H.J.; Downs, R.; John Wiley & Sons (2007). Wiley/National Geographic College Atlas of the World. Wiley. p. 49. ISBN978-0-471-74117-6. Retrieved June 15, 2022. Al 'Aqsa is the second oldest mosque in Islam after the Kaaba in Mecca and is third in holiness after the mosques in Mecca and Medina. It holds up to 400,000 worshippers at one time.
^"The Spiritual Significance of Jerusalem: The Islamic Vision. The Islamic Quarterly. 4 (1998): pp.233–242
^Khalek, N. (2011). Jerusalem in Medieval Islamic Tradition. Religion Compass, 5(10), 624–630. doi:10.1111/j.1749-8171.2011.00305.x. "One of the most pressing issues in both medieval and contemporary scholarship related to Jerusalem is weather the city is explicitly referenced in the text of the Qur'an. Sura 17, verse 1, which reads [...] has been variously interpreted as referring to the miraculous Night Journey and Ascension of Muhammad, events recorded in medieval sources and known as the isra and miraj. As we will see, this association is a rather late and even a contested one. [...] The earliest Muslim work on the Religious Merits of Jerusalem was the Fada'il Bayt al-Maqdis by al-Walid ibn Hammad al-Ramli (d. 912 CE), a text which is recoverable from later works. [...] He relates the significance of Jerusalem vis-a-vis the Jewish Temple, conflating 'a collage of biblical narratives' and comments pilgrimage to Jerusalem, a practice which was controversial in later Muslim periods."
^ abFrederick S. Colby (August 6, 2008). Narrating Muhammad's Night Journey: Tracing the Development of the Ibn 'Abbas Ascension Discourse. SUNY Press. p. 15. ISBN978-0-7914-7788-5. Archived from the original on July 15, 2020. Retrieved March 14, 2018. If Muslims interpret the qur'anic phrase "the sacred place of prayer" in diverse ways, one encounters even more debate over the destination of the night journey, the "furthest place of prayer". From the earliest extant Muslim texts, it becomes clear that a group of Muslims from the beginning interpreted "furthest place of prayer" with the city of Jerusalem in general and its Herodian/Solomonic Temple in particular. It is equally clear that other early Muslims disputed this connection, identifying the "furthest place of prayer" instead as a reference to a site in the heavens. Eventually a general consensus formed around the idea that Muhammad's journey did indeed take him to Jerusalem. Even if the night journey verse were thought to refer first and foremost to the terrestrial portion of Muhammad's journey, nevertheless for centuries scholars and storytellers also continued to connect this verse with the idea of an ascent through the levels of the heavens.
^Grabar, Oleg (1959). "The Umayyad Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem". Ars Orientalis. 3: 33–62. ISSN0571-1371. JSTOR4629098. Bevan has shown that among early traditionists there are many who do not accept the identification of the masjid al-aqsd, and among them are to be found such great names as al-Bukhari and Tabarl. Both Ibn Ishaq an al-Ya'qubi precede their accounts with expressions which indicate that these are stories which are not necessarily accepted as dogma. It was suggested by J. Horovitz that in the early period of Islam there is little justification for assuming that the Koranic expression in any way referred to Jerusalem. But while Horovitz thought that it referred to a place in heaven, A. Guillaume's careful analysis of the earliest texts (al-Waqidi and al-Azraqi, both in the later second century A.H.) has convincingly shown that the Koranic reference to the masjid al-aqsa applies specifically to al-Ji'ranah, near Mekkah, where there were two sanctuaries (masjid al-adnai and masjid al-aqsa), and where Muhammad so-journed in dha al-qa'dah of the eighth year after the Hijrah.
^Busse, H. (1968). The sanctity of Jerusalem in Islam. Judaism, 17(4), 441. "Tradition varies as to the location of the Ascension; Syrian local tradition was able to prevail, by maintaining that the Ascension started in Jerusalem rather than in Mecca, directly following the Night Journey".
^Long, David E. (1979). "2: The Rites of the Hajj". The Hajj Today: A Survey of the Contemporary Pilgrimage to Makkah. SUNY Press. pp. 11–24. ISBN978-0-8739-5382-5. With thousands of Hajjis, most of them in motor vehicles, rushing headlong for Muzdalifah, the potential is there for one of ... There is special grace for praying at the roofless mosque in Muzdalifah called al-Mash'ar al-Haram (the Sacred Grove) ...
^Danarto (1989). A Javanese pilgrim in Mecca. Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University. p. 27. ISBN978-0-8674-6939-4. It was still dark when we arrived at Muzdalifah, four miles away. The Koran instructs us to spend the night at al-Mash'ar al-Haram. the Sacred Grove at Muzdalifah, as one of the conditions for the hajj . We scrambled out of the bus and looked ...
^Jones, Lindsay (2005). Encyclopedia of religion. Vol. 10. Macmillan Reference USA. p. 7159. ISBN978-0-0286-5743-1. The Qur'an admonishes: "When you hurry from Arafat, remember God at the Sacred Grove (al-mash' ar al-haram)," that is, at Muzdalifah (2:198). Today a mosque marks the place in Muzdalifah where pilgrims gather to perform the special saldt ...
^O'Kane, Bernard (2016). The Mosques of Egypt. American University of Cairo Press. p. 2. ISBN9789774167324.
^Bloom, Jonathan M.; Blair, Sheila S., eds. (2009). "Kairouan". The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture. Vol. 2. Oxford University Press. p. 366. ISBN9780195309911.
^ abChater, Khalifa (2002). "Zaytūna". In Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Vol. XI. Brill. pp. 488–490. ISBN9789004161214.
^Daoulatli, Abdelaziz (2018). "La Grande Mosquée Zitouna : un authentique monument aghlabide (milieu du IXe siècle)". In Anderson, Glaire D.; Fenwick, Corisande; Rosser-Owen, Mariam (eds.). The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa (in French). Brill. p. 248. ISBN978-90-04-35566-8.
^Lamine, Sihem (2018). "The Zaytuna: The Mosque of a Rebellious City". In Anderson, Glaire D.; Fenwick, Corisande; Rosser-Owen, Mariam (eds.). The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa. Brill. pp. 269–293. ISBN978-90-04-35566-8.
^Nagy, Péter T (2023). "al-Qarawiyyīn Mosque". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, Three. Brill. ISBN9789004161658.
^Terrasse, Henri (1968). La Mosquée al-Qaraouiyin à Fès; avec une étude de Gaston Deverdun sur les inscriptions historiques de la mosquée (in French). Paris: Librairie C. Klincksieck. pp. 5, 17–24.
^Sasongko, Agus (January 31, 2019). "Muslim Swaziland Mendamba Masjid" [Swaziland Muslims Longing for Mosque]. Republika (in Indonesian). Retrieved March 21, 2021.
^Aramco world. Aramco: Saudi Arabian American Oil Company. 1987. p. 67. Retrieved July 5, 2012. Then, in 1902, Indonesian Muslims from Java arrived to cultivate Suriname's coastal rice fields, and four years later, the country's first mosque was built at Wanica.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
^مسجد الشواذنة – سلطنة عمان. مرصد التراث المعماري والعمراني في البلدان العربية [Observatory of Architectural and Urban Heritage in Arab Countries] (in Arabic). December 4, 2019. Retrieved February 4, 2024.
^Prof.Mehboob Desai,Masjit during the time of Prophet Nabi Muhammed Sale Allahu Alayhi Wasalam, Divy Bhasakar,Gujarati News Paper, Thursday, column 'Rahe Roshan',24 May,page 4
^Bloom, Jonathan M.; Blair, Sheila S., eds. (2009). "Balkh". The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. p. 258. ISBN9780195309911.
^Florida, Nancy K. (1995). "5: The Demak Mosque: A Construction of Authority". Babad Jaka Tingkir: Writing the past, inscribing the future: history as prophesy in colonial Java. Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press. ISBN978-0-8223-1622-0.
^Magdalino, Paul, et al. "Istanbul: Buildings, Hagia Sophia" in Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. http://www.oxfordartonline.com. Retrieved 28 February 2010.
^Pope, Arthur Upham (1965). Persian Architecture. United States of America: Thames and Hudson. pp. 78–80, 89, 100.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
^Bloom, Jonathan M.; Blair, Sheila S., eds. (2009). "Córdoba". The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture. Oxford University Press. pp. 505–508. ISBN9780195309911.
^Antonio Pareja (1999). Mezquita de Bab al Mardum, Cristo de la Luz, Toledo 999–1999. Fundacíon Cultura y Deporte Castilla-La Mancha, Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha.
^Pareja, Antonio. Mezquita de Bab al Mardum, Cristo de la Luz, Toledo 999-1999. [Spain]:Fundacíon Cultura y Deporte Castilla-La Mancha, Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha, 1999.
^Sharr, KBI (March 2007). "Këshilli me xhaminë më të vjetër në rajon". DITURIA ISLAME, Revistë Mujore, Fetare, Kulturore e Shkencore. 200 (xhamitë nëpër këshillat e Kosovës): 50.
^Tejomukti, Ratna Ajeng (December 3, 2017). "Tiga Masjid Bersejarah di Tanah Papua" [Three Historical Mosques in Papua] (in Indonesian). Retrieved September 5, 2020.
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