Gasr Al-Hājj (Arabic: قصر الحاج) is a huge fortified

granary A granary, also known as a grain house and historically as a granarium in Latin, is a post-harvest storage building primarily for grains or seeds. Granaries are typically built above the ground to prevent spoilage and protect the stored grains o ...

of circular shape built in the 7th century AH/13th century AD by Abdallah Abu Jatla (Arabic:عبدالله أبوجطلة). It is located in Libya on the Tripoli-'Aziziya-Al Jawf route in

Libya Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...

about 130 km from

Tripoli Tripoli or Tripolis (from , meaning "three cities") may refer to: Places Greece *Tripolis (region of Arcadia), a district in ancient Arcadia, Greece * Tripolis (Larisaia), an ancient Greek city in the Pelasgiotis district, Thessaly, near Larissa ...

. It was built to serve as granary for families from the surrounding area in return for quarter of their crops, which, it is said, the owner had endowed as a

waqf A (; , plural ), also called a (, plural or ), or ''mortmain'' property, is an Alienation (property law), inalienable charitable financial endowment, endowment under Sharia, Islamic law. It typically involves donating a building, plot ...

for teaching

Qur'an The Quran, also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation directly from God ('' Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which consist of individual verses ('). Besides ...

and Islamic related subjects to the people of the area. The building originally comprised 114 chambers, which could be the number of the subscribing families during the time of construction. It is also speculated that the number 114 was used symbolically to reflect the number of

Sura A ''surah'' (; ; ) is an Arabic word meaning 'chapter' in the Quran. There are 114 ''suwar'' in the Quran, each divided into verses (). The ''suwar'' are of unequal length; the shortest ''surah'' ( al-Kawthar) has only three verses, while the ...

in the Qur'an, a view widely accepted by villagers in the region nowadays. The number of chambers as of now, is 119, as result of splitting 10 chambers due to inheritance disputes. Other changes include the addition of 29 cellars.

References

* https://web.archive.org/web/20110723012310/http://alsoog.net/vb/archive/index.php/t-1241.html

External links

Photos
Architecture in Libya Berber architecture Tourism in Libya Agricultural buildings in Libya Ksars Fortifications in Libya Jabal al Gharbi District {{Libya-struct-stub