Rabat, Morocco’s capital city, located by the Atlantic Ocean, was originally founded in the 12th century as a military town by Almohad ruler Abdul Mu’min and grew into a full-scale fortress to use as a launching point in the conquest of Spain. In the 17th century, when Muslims were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula, many of them migrated to Rabat, where many of their families still reside.
The 12th century Hassan Tower is a minaret of an incomplete mosque commissioned by Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur, the third Caliph of the Almohad Caliphate. If completed it would have been the largest mosque in the western Muslim world, however, when the caliph died the construction stopped and all that remained was the 44m high minaret, beginnings of several walls and 348 columns. From the mosques and fortresses of Rabat, you can see the deeply linked connection to the European history of Islam.