Mosque and minaret of al-Mansura, Tlemcen

At al-Mansura, about a mile and a half west of Tlemcen, stand the ruins of a mosque whose minaret many consider one of the noblest the Maghreb produced. ^{1 2}

The minaret stands on the axis of the building and served as its main entrance, with a finely carved doorway. It is 125 feet high, largely of hewn stone, and an inscription records that it was erected by order of Abu Ya'qub Yusuf. Newcomb quotes Saladin: like the Hassan tower at Rabat, its upper part is dressed with a trellis of interlacing bands with blind arcades above, and green and brown faience tiles, now mostly lost, once glinted in the hollows of the carving. ²