Sidi Yahya Mosque

Located in the center of the ancient city, Sidi Yahya Mosque would seem to be the best maintained of the three large mosques in Timbuktu.

According to tradition, the mosque was built around 1400 by the marabout Sheikh al-Mokhtar Hamalla in anticipation of a providential saint who was to occupy it, according to teachings. Forty years later, a holy man named Sidi Yahya Tadelsi appeared asking for the keys.

The sanctuary was restored in 1577–78 by Elhadj Al-Aqib, but then disfigured in 1939 by the conversion of the minaret into a crenelated tower and the restoration of the portals in the ogival style.

This mosque was the third largest population center for scholars of the Sankore intelligentsia and in the Wangara-Kunda district, the neighborhood of the Wangara people, in particular.