Mosquée de Tsingoni: Mayotte’s Historic Royal Mosque

Site at a Glance

Rating

★4.6

Popularity

Very Low

Country

France

Primary era

Medieval

Eras represented

Medieval, Early Modern, Modern

Civilizations

Swahili

Site type

Religious

Remains

Mosque

History

Mosquée de Tsingoni is an active Muslim mosque in Tsingoni, Mayotte, France, on the island of Grande-Terre. Its architecture reflects Swahili and Shirazi traditions, and its first securely established building date is 1538. The mosque is regarded as the oldest mosque still in use in France and remains an important religious centre in Mayotte.

Medieval settlement and early mosque

The exact date of the first mosque at Tsingoni is uncertain. Archaeological investigations indicate occupation from as early as the thirteenth century and identify a religious building dating from the fourteenth century. Written records mention the mosque by at least 1521. A foundation around 1441 has been proposed, while another mosque probably stood before the building associated with 1538, possibly from 1517.

Tsingoni developed beside the sea, near a rocky promontory that offered protection to the settlement. Its port was active from the seventh to the fifteenth century. The town also contained an earthen rampart, a palace, and a medina-like urban fabric. Islam spread in Mayotte through the activity of Swahili, Arab, and Persian merchants, and the mosque became associated with the Shafi’i tradition, one of the major Sunni schools of Islamic law. It was regarded as a sacred and renowned mosque throughout the Comoros.

The royal mosque of Tsingoni

During approximately 1460 to 1470, Mayotte developed as a sultanate, and Tsingoni became its capital. In 1538, the Shirazi sultan Ali ben Mohamed, also known as Haïssa, commissioned the construction of the mosque’s mihrab, the prayer niche indicating the direction of Mecca. The building consequently served as the royal mosque of the capital.

Two inscriptions on carved coral blocks, discovered during restoration work in 2006, identify Sultan Issa, or Ali, son of Sultan Mohamed, as the builder of the mihrab. They also record its inauguration in 1538, corresponding to 944 in the Islamic calendar. The original carved wooden minbar, the pulpit used for the Friday sermon, is believed to have been destroyed during the wars with the Malagasy. A comparable minbar by the same builder survives in the mosque of Domoni.

Destruction, relocation, and later alterations

Between 1790 and 1820, Malagasy raids largely destroyed Tsingoni, but the mosque survived. The capital was later transferred to the more easily defended rock of Dzaoudzi. After Tsingoni was partly abandoned, residents restored the mosque in the mid-nineteenth century, followed by further alterations during that century. The town itself largely disappeared, although the former rampart still marks the division between the old settlement and urban expansion carried out in the 1980s.

For a long period, Mosquée de Tsingoni was the only mosque in Mayotte where Friday prayers were held and served as the island’s principal mosque. Population growth and heavy attendance led to extensions in 1986, 1991, 2003, and 2004. In 1986, the architect Attila Cheyssial added an arcaded patio west of the historic building and began a minaret on its north side. The patio was demolished roughly two decades later, while the minaret was completed in 1991. A new prayer room followed in 2003, and a larger mosque replaced the patio in 2004, adding the site’s first upper floor. The former ground-floor women’s prayer room became a classroom.

Protection, archaeology, and restoration

The successive twentieth-century additions lacked overall architectural coherence. The deterioration of the historic fabric and dense urban development around the mosque prompted major restoration and enhancement efforts from 2012 onward. A restoration steering committee of local notables and religious representatives has operated since January 2014. Restoration studies began in November of that year, and an architectural and technical programme was launched in October 2018.

The mosque, its two Shirazi mausoleums, and the ground on which they stand were entered on the register of historic monuments by an order of 19 December 2012. The same area was classified by an order of 25 March 2015, while the minaret was separately registered on 7 April 2017. The project was selected for the 2019 Loto du patrimoine, a French heritage-preservation lottery programme. Pierre-Antoine Gatier, chief architect of France’s historic monuments, was entrusted with the design work. The definitive preliminary design received a very favourable opinion from Mayotte’s heritage inspector in 2022, and consultation documents were submitted in May that year.

INRAP, France’s National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research, revealed several construction layers in October 2016. A preventive excavation from 3 July to 15 September 2023 examined 285 square metres inside and outside the protected historic mosque through sediment excavation and building archaeology. The post-excavation study remains in progress. The restoration strategy aims to retain as much original material as possible, recover historical features that disappeared or were altered, and preserve the successive layers of the building. In May 2024, concerns about cement use and the absence of a construction notice were publicly raised and later denied in a formal response by the project’s design team.

The mosque has also appeared on a Mayotte three-franc stamp issued on 7 September 1998 and on a ten-euro silver coin issued by the Monnaie de Paris in 2011 as part of the Euros of the Regions collection.

Remains

The historic mosque is mainly built from coral stone and coral lime, with beams of mangrove wood. Its original form followed Swahili architectural traditions. A rectangular prayer hall was flanked by lateral corridors, while thick walls supported a roof terrace. Light entered through a ceiling opening and pointed-arch windows. The original plan remained essentially unchanged until the 1980s, after which the fourteenth-century building was incorporated into successive extensions.

The historic mosque

Prayer hall and surviving fabric

The mosque originally had a flat roof used to collect rainwater. In 1860, the traveller Alfred Gevrey described a roof made from coconut leaves. Parts of the building were later used as a nineteenth-century stone quarry, and the entire south-western half was remodelled. Gables were added to carry a pitched, two-sided roof.

The original entrances were on the north and west, near the qibla wall, the wall facing Mecca, and the mihrab. A small staircase led to the roof terrace, and a low stair-minaret formed part of the early arrangement. One original doorway, topped by a cissoid arch with wooden elements, and one original pillar are still identified as surviving features. The later additions of 1986, 1991, and 2004 include the former western patio, the northern minaret, internal gallery spaces, and the upper-floor prayer room.

Qibla wall and muezzin’s lodge

The qibla wall contains a lodge for the muezzin, the person who delivers the call to prayer, together with a stair-minaret characteristic of Swahili mosques. A concrete-block addition on the north side is being removed to recover the earlier appearance of the wall and lodge. A blocked northern opening is to be reopened to restore natural ventilation.

Mihrab

The 1538 mihrab is integrated into the qibla wall and made from carved coral blocks. Mouldings and geometric decoration frame an opening topped by both a trefoil arch, whose profile has three lobes, and a cissoid arch, which curves inward. A coffered, fluted vault covers the structure.

The mihrab’s polychrome decoration was periodically repainted for religious festivals, leaving earlier decorative layers that may remain beneath later finishes. Restoration work is intended to expose the carved decoration now concealed under paint. The project also plans to replace the roof completely so that the building becomes watertight and to lower the interior floor by 20 to 30 centimetres. This would recover a historical level at which entry into the mosque required a step downward.

Minaret

The minaret stands on the north side of the mosque and was built as part of the modern extension programme begun in 1986. It was completed in 1991. A crescent and star once installed at its summit were removed because their combined weight was excessive. The minaret is separately registered from the historic mosque and its attached concrete extensions.

Cemeteries and mausoleums

Cemeteries lie to the north and east of the mosque, and the site contains several types of tombs. Two richly decorated mausoleums stand in the western cemetery. They are associated with members of Sultan Haïssa’s family and resemble domed tombs found in the Lamu Archipelago of Kenya.

Tomb associated with Sultan Haïssa

The presumed tomb of Sultan Haïssa originally stood outside the mosque but is now incorporated into the first northern extension. During the nineteenth century, it had trefoil-shaped openings.

Western mausoleums

The two external mausoleums may contain Sultan Haïssa’s wife and daughter. Built from rough coral, they have pyramidal roofs representing vegetation. Openings pierced each structure, and doors symbolized a dwelling. Together with the cemeteries, they form part of the historic religious complex associated with the mosque.

Conservation of the materials

Cement render applied inside and outside between 1980 and 2005 endangered the coral-stone and beach-sandstone masonry. It caused detachment and prevented the walls from breathing, particularly near their bases. During the 2023 archaeological work, the cement render was removed and replaced with white natural hydraulic lime render without cement or additives.

The replacement render uses basaltic sand from Mayotte quarries because the use of beach sand is restricted or prohibited. It is applied by hand in three layers: a 5 to 8 millimetre bonding coat, a 15 to 20 millimetre body coat, and a 5 to 7 millimetre finish coat. The finish is intended to resemble historical lime and the cut-and-scraped surface visible in the oldest known photographs from the 1980s.