Grand Mosque

The Grand Mosque is the visual and spiritual centre of Bondoukou's old quarter. It is one of the oldest mosques in Côte d'Ivoire and a rare surviving example of the West African Sudano-Sahelian mud-brick architecture this far south — most surviving examples are in Mali, Burkina Faso, and northern Ghana.

Non-Muslims usually cannot enter, but the exterior — particularly the pyramid-shaped minaret — is worth a slow walk around. The surrounding lanes of the Dyula quarter, with their mud-walled compounds and Quranic schools, are among the most atmospheric corners of town.

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The mosque is built in the Sudano-Sahelian style — mud-brick walls plastered with clay, with wooden beams sticking out through the surface that double as scaffolding for the annual re-plastering. Local tradition says the mosque dates from the 17th century, when Dyula traders settled in Bondoukou as a stop on the kola nut route to Kumasi.