The Komoguel Mosque in Mopti

The Great Mosque of Mopti, commonly known as the Komoguel Mosque, is located to the south-east of the town of Mopti in the Komoguel I district.

This architecture, well-suited to the hot Sahelian climate, has been maintained for centuries throughout Nigerien Sudan, especially in the Inner Niger Delta, thanks to masons’ traditional knowledge and skills, handed down from generation to generation.
Like the Great Mosque of Djenné, the Great Mosque of Mopti is an imposing mudbrick structure built on a rectangular plan, covered with a flat terrace supported by several rows of massive pillars and extending over an area of approximately 100 meters squared.

The two façades, east and west, each have a pointed central minaret and two smaller towers on either side
. The Komoguel Mosque, with its minarets that soar to over 15 meters, dominates the Komoguel district. The area around the monument is typified by an architecture that is completely homogeneous: single- and two-storey mud houses, topped, like the mosque, by flat terraces.

The maintenance of the mosque involves the annual reapplication of the mud plaster mixed with other substances, such as rice straw, cow dung, shea butter, and néré powder. This regular maintenance, carried out by the entire community, has resulted in an increase in the thickness of the exterior walls and the more rounded shape that they have taken on over the years.

The population of Mopti are very attached to the building and use it as a Friday mosque. Its minarets and pointed pinnacles give the Komoguel district, and even the city of Mopti as a whole, part of its cultural identity.