Talk:Kutubiyya Mosque

Untitled
I removed this statement It was built on top of the ruins of the Almoravids emperial palace.. From what i read the koutobia mosque was built by the almoravids, but the building was not sofisticated enough, and therefore, the almohads rebuilt it. Please forgive me, if i'm wrong.Read3r 10:25, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Architecture
"The mosque is made of red stone, formerly plastered, and has six rooms in succession, one above the other. It was designed so as to prevent anyone gazing in from the minaret to the harems of the king." -- from the article I don't understand how six rooms one above the other prevents spying on the harem. It seems to imply that the harem was kept inside the mosque. Surely that is not right. But if the harem was in an adjacent building, how does the design prevent spying? Some clarification is needed here. The sentence could also be better written, viz., "It was so designed to make it impossible to see the harems of the king from the minaret." or something like that. I have not changed it because I'm not sure what it means! Other sentences in the article could be improved by rewording, too. 72.179.53.2 (talk) 12:48, 16 October 2012 (UTC) Eric

External links modified
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I have just modified 2 external links on Koutoubia Mosque. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130606061134/http://archnet.org/library/sites/one-site.jsp?site_id=2575-Kutubiyya to http://archnet.org/library/sites/one-site.jsp?site_id=2575-Kutubiyya
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121119002626/http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/africa/morocco/marrakesh/39727/koutoubia-mosque/attraction-detail.html to http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/africa/morocco/marrakesh/39727/koutoubia-mosque/attraction-detail.html

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Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 16:08, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Revisions/cleanup needed for history section
I was editing another section and noticed that the history section needs some clean-up. There are repetitions, contradictions, and some unclear statements. Some of it is unsourced or not clearly sourced. I will try to find time to do some of this revision, but any help/clarifications from other editors is certainly welcome. Ad since this is a reasonably important page, I'm creating this section here for any further discussion/feedback. Also the qibla issue needs some clarification: the qibla of the mosque is actually far off the "true" qibla; that is, like most medieval Moroccan mosques, it is not actually oriented towards Mecca but according to another interpretation of the qibla. This issue is admittedly a little complicated overall and I'll need to read up on it more, but there are some sources on this and it seems particularly relevant to this mosque. Robert Prazeres (talk) 23:56, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Revisions done (minus future proofreading and any details that come up). It ended up being mostly one big rewrite, as it was difficult to do otherwise. Here's a summary of what I did:
 * Generally, added information about the timeline of construction as it has been described and argued by modern scholars. (Note: unfortunately for English readers, most of these sources are in French, which cannot be helped since the foundational scholarship on these topics is in French and there aren't many major English works to match.)
 * Also added more detailed discussion about the issue of the qibla orientations, which needed some correction and clarity (as mentioned above), based on well-cited scholarly sources. This discussion is definitely not exhaustive; ultimately this could even be expanded into its own section (or perhaps copied and expanded on the qibla page itself).
 * In many cases, replaced existing text with new text based on these sources. Unfortunately, I found it too impractical to try to preserve existing text, especially when the text was unsourced (or not clearly sourced) and I could see no way to track down references for them. In other cases the existing information is just repeated in the new text or integrated into it.
 * In several cases I have also probably replaced existing citations based on travel books (or even ArchNet) with citations based on the aforementioned scholarly books and articles. (Travel books are a good start and they're indeed often the only accessible English-language sources on the topic, so it's totally natural that they come up a lot, but a more in-depth article should ideally refer to expert sources where possible.)
 * In the process, also removed repetitions of the same information.
 * Removed or reconciled conflicting information, trying to present a consistent and clear narrative for readers, mentioning different opinions and arguments where they come up (hopefully without getting too technical).
 * Removed a few incomplete sentences/texts which had been left there for a while.
 * Needless to say, please bring up any issues, questions, or suggestions. Cheers, Robert Prazeres (talk) 07:43, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Painting of the Mosque by Winston Churchill
A painting by Winston Churchill Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque — a gift from Churchill to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt — is being sold by Angelina Jolie next month with an estimated price of 1.5 million pounds to 2.5 million pounds https://www.arabnews.com/node/1801946/art-culture Peter K Burian (talk) 20:04, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * That is indeed so, except it went for rather more than the estimate! Given that the picture's importance, as the only one Churchill painted during the Second World War, I wonder if it should be mentioned in the article? KJP1 (talk) 12:47, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
 * It could be mentioned quickly in the later history section, which hasn't got much in it yet. R Prazeres (talk) 23:33, 20 March 2022 (UTC)