Master Ahmad al-Alj

Ahmad al-Alj was the chief royal architect and master of the guild of stonemasons ('M'allem') in seventeenth-century Algiers. Commissioned by the Janissary leadership and municipal council, he oversaw the engineering and construction of Djamaa el Djedid ('The New Mosque') overlooking the harbor of Algiers in 1660.

Al-Alj achieved an ingenious architectural triumph, blending a bold central Byzantine-Ottoman dome and barrel vaults with a traditional square Maghrebi-Andalusian minaret featuring ceramic tiles and a classical clock. The monument remains one of the defining architectural silhouettes of the Algiers waterfront.