 Unlike mosques situated in urban settings in West Africa , the Larabanga Mosque is comparatively small . Rural mosques , like Larabanga 's , were usually conceived by a single marabout and loosely based on styles seen elsewhere such as in the Great Mosque of Djenné . In order to achieve a physical resemblance to the architecture used elsewhere , the Larabanga Mosque had to incorporate large buttresses in order to compensate for the poorer quality of building materials . 
