The road to Sidi Bou-Médine, only the lower half of which is fit for driving, branches to the right from the Sidi Bel-Abbès and Aïn-Temouchent road, 2 min. from the Porte de Sidi Bou-Médine, and passes below the Mohammedan Cemetery (makbara), with its wealth of cypresses. By the wayside are a number of saints’ tombs, mostly in ruins, among which is the kubba of Sidi Senoussi (d. 1490), with its green-tiled roof. We pass also the remains of mosque walls and a ruined minaret, which belonged to the village of Eubbâd es-Sefli (‘lower Eubbâd’) once situated here.
We ascend through a defile shaded with fine old fig and cherry trees, and soon reach the lower entrance of the village, whence we go straight on to the mosque, with its conspicuous minaret, and the kubba of the saint (guide quite needless). The outer gateway, decorated anew in the later Turkish period, with its clumsy wooden penthouse in front, is the entrance to a forecourt, within which are the two sacred edifices and the Maison de l’Oukil (now the works-office), a building of the time of Mohammed el-Kebîr (p. [178]), on the site of the ancient Zaouïa or pilgrims’ hospice.
The Kubba of Sidi Bou-Médine, to which steps descend to the left under the penthouse, was restored by the Merinide Abû’l-Hasen Ali (p. [188]), and towards the end of the 18th cent. was injured by a fire. It owes its present decoration, save the four onyx columns from Mansura and the sacred fountain in the vestibule, to Mohammed el-Kebîr, whose artist, named in the inscription on the frieze of the gateway, was El-Hâshmi ben-Sarmashîk (1793). The vault, richly garnished with flags, ostrich-eggs, votive offerings, etc., contains the coffins of Sidi Abû-Median and the Tunisian saint Sidi Abd es-Selâm side by side (custodian 20–30 c.).
The *Mosque, erected in 1339 by Abû’l-Hasen Ali, about the same date as the myrtle-court palace of the Alhambra (comp. p. [80]), is one of the most brilliant creations of the exuberant Moorish art of the 14th cent.; and, thanks to the sanctity of its site, it has survived the wars of the Ziyanide age and resisted the decadence of the Turkish period without serious damage. The custodian is usually to be found in the vestibule of the gateway.
The **Chief Portal, now skilfully restored, is a masterpiece of artistic decoration. The superb outer gateway, whose lofty horseshoe arch opens into the vestibule, is lavishly enriched with fayence mosaics, which show beautiful arabesque patterns in the rectangular stonework of the doorway, and geometrical designs above the frieze with the inscriptions. The gateway is crowned by a tiled roof resting on narrow brackets.
Eleven steps ascend to the vestibule, where the stucco decoration of the upper wall-surfaces vies in beauty with the stalactites of the dome. At the inner gateway the lower part of the doors of cedar-wood has been skilfully encrusted anew with bronze. The door-knockers resemble those of the present Puerta del Perdón at Cordova (p. [70]).
We now cross the simple Court of the Mosque, flanked with single arcades, to the Mosque itself, with its nave and double aisles. The somewhat broader nave and the transept by the wall of the mihrâb recall the ground-plan of Sidi Okba’s Mosque at Kairwan (p. [374]). The arcades, whose horseshoe arches, like those in the court, rest on pillars of masonry, and all the wall-surfaces are encrusted with stucco. The richly coffered stucco ceiling of the aisles is well preserved, but the perforated dome of the mihrâb chapel was tastelessly restored in the later Turkish period. The *Mihrâb, with its stalactite half-dome, its friezes with Cufic inscriptions, and the three perforated plaster windows, deserves special attention. The capitals of the two onyx columns which support the horseshoe arch of the niche are the finest at Tlemcen. The pulpit is modern.
The *Minaret, like the Kutubia at Marakesh, which it resembles in its lowest story, still shows the three copper balls on its muezzin-turret. The rosette ornamentation under the platform is peculiar. The ascent is recommended for the sake of the fine survey we obtain of the village and the beautiful view of the hilly plain of Tlemcen with the minarets of Agâdir (p. [196]) and Mansura.
A few paces above the outer gateway of the mosque court a flight of steps on the right ascends to the old Medersa, now a national school. This edifice, erected by Abû’l-Hasen Ali in 1347, is the only learned school of the kind still preserved in Barbary, besides that of Marakesh; but it has been almost entirely restored, first by Mohammed el-Kebîr about 1793, and lately by the French government. The building is usually shown by the teacher (50 c.).
The portal, ornamented with fayence mosaics and surmounted by a projecting roof like the chief door of the neighbouring mosque, opens into a court, adorned with a fountain and flanked with an arcade. On each side are six cells for the students (tholba, sing. thaleb); and there are four others in the small court adjoining the S.E. angle. The niches in the walls for the books and lamps of the students should be noticed. In the centre of the S. wall of the court is the entrance to the old room for study and prayer, with a mihrâb and a wooden dome which was probably restored in the time of Mohammed el-Kebîr. The stucco enrichment of the walls is best preserved on the entrance side. The old court of ablutions adjoins the N.W. angle of the main quadrangle.