The minaret at the Church of San José is one of two which have survived in Granada, a city in which, according to textual evidence, there were once well over one hundred mosques. The eleventh-century minaret and its mosque, identified in post-conquest documents as the Mosque of the Murabitin, were located within the citadel (Spanish Alcazaba). In 1517 the mosque was destroyed to make way for the church of San José, and as happened elsewhere on the Iberian Peninsula, the minaret was appropriated to serve as the new bell tower. The square minaret measures 3.85 meters per side; within, a cuadrangular staircase ascends around a solid central core. The lower portion of the tower is constructed of large stone blocks, while the upper portion is constructed of smaller blocks laid in an alternating pattern of three vertical, narrow headers framing wide horizontal stretchers. A single horseshoe-arched window illuminates the interior.
Sources:
M. Gómez Moreno. 1907. Monumentos arquitectónicos de España: Granada. Madrid, p. 54-55.
Antonio Orihuela Uzal. 1995. "Granada, Capital del Reino Nazarí."Arquitectura del Islam Occidental. Barcelona: Lunwerg, p. 203.
Leopoldo Torres-Balbas. 1941. "El alminar de la Iglesia de San José y las construcciones de los ziries granadinos," Al-Andalus, VI, Fasc. 1, p. 427-446.
