Mohammed V is buried beside the tower his Almohad predecessor never finished.
The Mausoleum of Mohammed V in Rabat sits on the platform of the Hassan Mosque — the 12th-century project abandoned when Yacoub al-Mansur died in 1199. The stumps of 348 columns still stand in rows around it. The unfinished minaret rises 44 metres to the north. Beside this monument to incompletion, Hassan II built a white marble tomb for his father that is a monument to precision.
Mohammed V — the sultan who refused to give up Morocco's Jews during the Second World War, who was exiled by the French in 1953 and returned in triumph in 1955, who became the first king of independent Morocco — died on February 26, 1961, at the age of 51. His son commissioned a mausoleum that would match the importance of the man.
The building took nine years. The architect was a Vietnamese-born Frenchman named Vo Toan. The materials are white marble from Italy, green ceramic tiles from Fes, carved cedarwood from the Middle Atlas, and mahogany from Gabon. The interior is gilded. Royal guards in red and white stand at each corner, motionless.
The tomb itself sits below floor level. Visitors look down from a gallery that rings the chamber. Mohammed V's coffin rests in the centre, draped in green velvet. His sons — Hassan II and Prince Moulay Abdallah — are buried on either side.
The mausoleum is open to visitors of all faiths. The juxtaposition is deliberate: the oldest incomplete structure in Rabat beside the newest complete one. Eight centuries apart, both built by kings who believed that what you build defines what you are.
The Facts
- —The Mausoleum of Mohammed V in Rabat sits on the platform of the Hassan Mosque — the 12th-century project abandoned when Yacoub
- —The stumps of 348 columns still stand in rows around it.
- —The unfinished minaret rises 44 metres to the north.
- —Mohammed V — the sultan who refused to give up Morocco's Jews during the Second World War, who was exiled by the French in 1953
Sources
- Deverdun, Gaston. Marrakech: des origines à 1912. 1959
- Cornell, Vincent J. Realm of the Saint. University of Texas Press, 1998
- Parker, Richard. A Practical Guide to Islamic Monuments in Morocco. Baraka Press, 1981
