Great Mosque of Kairouan - Tunisia

Welcome to Tunisia!

We are proud to add one of the most important monuments of Islam and Africa to our ever-growing collection. Architectural and historical jewels like this are relatively unknown in the West, so we want to share it with everyone.

The Great Mosque of Kairouan (Arabic: جامع القيروان الأكبر‎) is situated in the UNESCO World Heritage town of Kairouan, Tunisia.

Established by the Arab general Uqba ibn Nafi in 670 AD at the founding of the city of Kairouan, the mosque occupies an area of over 9,000 square metres (97,000 sq ft). It is one of the oldest places of worship in the Islamic world, and is a model for all later mosques in the Maghreb (the western Islamic world). Its perimeter, of about 405 metres (1,329 ft), contains a prayer hall, a marble-paved courtyard and a square minaret. In addition to its spiritual prestige, it is one of the masterpieces of Islamic architecture, notable among other things for the first Islamic use of the horseshoe arch.

At the time of its greatest splendor, between the ninth and eleventh centuries AD, Kairouan was one of the greatest centres of Islamic civilisation and its reputation as a hotbed of scholarship covered the entire Maghreb. During this period, the Great Mosque of Kairouan was both a place of prayer and a centre for teaching Islamic sciences under the Maliki current. One may conceivably compare its role to that of the University of Paris during the Middle Ages (from Wikipedia).

Our version has a section cut to show the interior and how the prayer hall is composed of arches and columns. The real one is not literally like our model.

MiniWorld 3D is happy to bring these models to life and a smile to the people of Tunisia and Northern Africa. MiniWorld 3D is the collection of 3D printable landmarks and models of the world! All our models are made from scratch by hand and brain, please give credit to all authors.

Print photos by @de3dprintman

No supports required, all the arches are designed to support everything.

We provide 2 versions, the original reproduction and a friendlier one for smaller scales or if your printer is unable to handle the thin columns and arches.