In his travelogue, he wrote that the building was already in bad repair from …

Some of the earliest European writings on the first Great Mosque came from the French explorer René Caillié who wrote in detail about the structure in his travelogue Journal d’un voyage a Temboctou et à Jenné (Journal of a Voyage to Timbuktu and Djenné). Caillié traveled to Djenné in 1827, and he was the only European to see the monument before it fell into ruin.

The largest mud-brick structure in the world, the Great Mosque of Djenne is found in the African Republic of Mali. Die große Moschee von Djenné ist allein aufgrund ihrer Ausmaße schon sehr beeindruckend. Great Mosque of Djenné, Mali, 1907 (photo: herr_hartmann, CC BY-NC 2.0) It is also the site of a unique annual festival called the Crepissage de la Grand Mosquée (Plastering of the Great Mosque). Thought to have first been constructed sometime in the 13th century by the sultan Koi Kunboro, the mosque has since been destroyed and rebuilt several times.

Jahr für Jahr tragen die Einheimischen neuen Lehm auf und sorgen so für den Erhalt des Denkmals.

Over the centuries, the Great Mosque has become the epicenter of the religious and cultural life of Mali, and the community of Djenné. Nichtmuslimen bleibt der Zutritt aber versperrt. Ich musste mich daher mit einer Begehung der… • Raoul Snelder: The Great Mosque at Djenne; in: MIMAR. (PDF, 22,3 MB) Architecture in Development 12 (1984), S. 66–74.