Hassan Tower.. Rabat icone

Although the common idea that the city of Rabat is the capital, and it's just an administrative bureaucratic city, but in fact, there are a lot of monuments in this historic city, let's not forget that Rabat is one of the Moroccan four Imperial cities, and we cannot mention the city without speaking of “Hassan Tower”, which we can say that it’s the icon of Rabat.

Rabat was rebuilt in the time of the Almohad dynasty, especially the Sultan Yaqub Al Mansur who is considered as the real founder of the city, he wanted to make Rabat his future capital, but the project was abandoned for Marrakech, it was also a hospitable place for the Andalusians who sought refuge after their expulsion from Spain and settled there in successive waves between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

One of the important monuments in Rabat is “Hassan Tower”, the tower will get your attention with its wonderful architectural design, which belongs to the Moroccan architecture style, and actually, Hassan Tower is a part of the mosque of Hassan, which was built under the reign of the Almohads dynasty, by order of the great Sultan “Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur” in the year 1197. 

The sultan wanted actually to build a big mosque in the western Islamic region, like the mosque of Al Koutoubia in Marrakech or its twin Al Giralda in Seville in Spain.

Unfortunately, after the death of the Sultan, in 1199, the works in the mosque of Hassan had stopped, before ending the silo of Hassan like it was planned, so, you can notice the differences between Hassan Tower and the other mosques silos in the world, the monument had undergone the great earthquake of 1755, also known by the Lisbon earthquake.

Hassan Tower is square in shape and reaches a height of 44 meters, and it has a quirky inner insight, leading to the top of the silo and passing through six chambers that form layers. Its four façades are decorated with different motifs and carvings on carved stone, in the style of Andalusian Moroccan from the twelfth century.