Talk:Grand Mosque of Chefchaouen

Confusion over the foundation date of the mosque
As is already evident on the page, it's been a little frustrating trying to get a clear and definitive foundation date for the mosque. One of the more useful and reliable sources, Touri et al (french version is cited on this page, but it's also available in English as Andalusian Morocco: A Discovery in Living Art) contradicts itself: in the section summarizing the city's history it says Moulay Ali founded the great mosque when he built the city (1471), but then in the section about the mosque itself it says it was founded by his son Moulay Mohammed in the 16th century. The government's official habous ministry registry webpage gives the date as 1471 (again the foundation date of the city) and says the founder is Moulay Ali, but the hijri (AH) date it gives is 969 which is not 1471 but actually 1561-62 (definitely after Moulay Ali). (Edit: another webpage from the Habous site names Moulay Ali's son as founder.) The dates vary more or less between these two options in other sources: Gaudio's book Maroc du Nord gives the hijri date 880 (corresponding to 1475-76 CE, a few years after the foundation of the city, which seems reasonable); the Rough Guide of Morocco (which is usually not bad) gives the date 1560 under Moulay Mohamed (Ali's son); and so on. If anyone has any reliable sources to suggest in order to sort this out, please feel free to pass them along. Ideally, at this point, it would help to know what primary sources are being relied on to determine this (e.g. is there a foundation inscription at the mosque?). Cheers, Robert Prazeres (talk) 17:38, 12 April 2020 (UTC)