Abdel Wahed Mosque

One of the oldest religious monuments in Tripoli, in the north, located to the east of Souq Al-Attarine, or the perfumers market, in the Al-Mahatirah neighborhood, the Abdel Wahed Mosque was built not by a Mamluk but by a Moroccan holy man called Abdul Wahed El-Meknasi in 1305. He was among the many Sunni Muslims who traveled to the newly built Muslim city, that had been retaken from the Crusaders and which was to become a center of Islamic scholarship. The engraved plaque detailing the construction of the mosque is written in naksh, a Moroccan calligraphy. The mosque is famous for its small, elevated minaret, which was the first of its kind in Lebanon, as well as for its simple dome surmounting the Moroccan-style mihrab, a niche that indicates the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca for prayer. To this day people continue to put Myrtus Communis branches on the window overlooking the road, which is a sort of commemoration of the dead. Above the mosque there is a corridor with several rooms where Moroccans still live.