The small town of Jenne is considered the oldest not only in the Republic of Mali, but throughout the entire west of the continent. The town did not receive any special development. Further French colonization of Mali did not bring benefits to civilization. The peasant way of life remained in the city. True, in Jenna there was one cult building, which amazed the natives with its appearance. It was the so-called Great Mosque, made entirely of clay.
The first mosque built in Jenna has not survived. According to the stories of local residents, it was destroyed by representatives of other tribes who came to these places. But this did not stop the residents - they got to work again. They made a brick of clay, dried it in the sun, then folded the walls out of it and erected their temple anew.
The Malians began to build the current mosque in 1905. Construction took four years. As before, they made bricks out of clay, dried them and then stacked them on top of each other, forming one-meter-thick walls. The base was made especially wide. Then everything was covered with clay putty. The main tool was the hands, which carefully smoothed the clay. That is why the walls of the mosque look polished.
For greater strength of the walls and decoration, the trunks of palm trees were inserted into them. During renovation work, they could be used as scaffolding.
The central eastern wall of the mosque - qibla - with three towers is directed to the East, to Mecca. The mosque itself stands on a three-meter embankment of earth, towering above the market square. A stone staircase leads to the main entrance.
The roof over the prayer hall is made of a frame of palm trunks and plastered with clay, supported by 9 internal partitions. The light in the prayer hall comes from the windows - they are small and arranged in a mess. The floor is earthen. Conical spiers-columns, they are also minarets, are decorated with ostrich eggs.
The Great Mosque in Jenna has survived as it was built in 1909. True, she got loudspeakers - this is the only innovation of civilization that the Malians dared to install. There is no electricity in the mosque.
