File talk:Floor plan of the Kutubiyya Mosques (with labels).png

General notes

I've moved some notes here that were previously in the file description, to avoid bogging that down for readers who aren't interesting in these minor explanations. Here they are in full:

The floor plan is based on three similar floor plans from published sources:

1. Bloom, Jonathan (2020), Architecture of the Islamic West: North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, 700-1800; on page 127.
2. Ewert, Christian (1992). "The Architectural Heritage of Islamic Spain in North Africa". In Dodds, Jerrilynn D. (ed.). "Al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic Spain", published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art; on page 90. (Full book available here)
3. "Kutubiya Mosque" entry at Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers

I also used the text and images of Xavier Salmon's (2018) "Maroc Almoravide et Almohade: Architecture et décors au temps des conquérants, 1055-1269", as well as photos and 360 views posted by users on Google Maps, to confirm certain details visually for the interior of the mosque.

Because there were minor differences between each source, I cross-referenced them make decisions about some details. When one detail was inconsistent between sources, I generally followed what the majority showed, which worked well. This also resulted in greater simplicity overall (e.g. one plan shows parts of adjoining structures, but leaving these out seemed easier and less confusing for general readers) and in avoiding some more debatable details (e.g. the existence of an entrance or of a hypostyle hall extension on the north side of the old mosque's courtyard, which doesn't seem obvious since the wall of the Almoravid kasbah was present here).

The plan is not aligned with cardinal directions, but the mihrab of the mosque is very roughly to the south, so I've chosen this orientation for convenience. I've also left out (for now) some minor details that were too time-consuming and not sufficiently important: e.g. the stairs inside the minaret and the outline of the anaza (outdoor mihrab) in the courtyard of the second mosque. I've left out any indication of the arches in the plan of the first mosque too, because although scholars seem to know about them, I wanted to avoid speculation and be as neutral as possible. I think this also avoids including too many details that might distract from the more certain floor plan of the current mosque. The only dotted outline in the first mosque is the rectangle corresponding to the maqsura zone, which is indeed physically visible on site today.

Another minor note: most of the sources show, in one way or another, the openings that are assumed to have existed in the north wall of the current mosque (the south wall of the first mosque) when it was still connected to the previous mosque; however these openings are definitely sealed up today, so I've compromised by replicating the northern wall sections shown in the sources and then running a lighter grey line across them to suggest its current state while allowing the older state to be reasonably visible (and this is also more or less what Bloom's floor plan does too).

Many of the lines are drawn manually using the tools available in Paint Shop Pro 2018, so they are not perfect or mathematically precise; this is intended as a reliable approximation to help with the understanding of a topic, but not a substitute for a professional job.

R Prazeres (talk) 21:12, 31 January 2024 (UTC)