In Morocco by Edith Wharton — Read

Moroccan architecture, then, is easily divided into four groups: the fortress, the mosque, the collegiate building and the private house.

The kernel of the mosque is always the _mihrab_, or niche facing toward the Kasbah of Mecca, where the _imam_[A] stands to say the prayer. This arrangement, which enabled as many as possible of the faithful to kneel facing the _mihrab_, results in a ground-plan necessarily consisting of long aisles parallel with the wall of the _mihrab_, to which more and more aisles are added as the number of worshippers grows. Where there was not space to increase these lateral aisles they were lengthened at each end. This typical plan is modified in the Moroccan mosques by a wider transverse space, corresponding with the nave of a Christian church, and extending across the mosque from the praying niche to the principal door. To the right of the _mihrab_ is the _minbar_, the carved pulpit (usually of cedar-wood incrusted with mother-of-pearl and ebony) from which the Koran is read.