 Unlike other North African mosques , the Great Mosque did not have minarets , and had a single imposing entrance . This is the first known example of a projecting monumental porch in a mosque , which may have been derived from the architecture of secular buildings . The mosque at Ajdabiya in Libya had a similar plan , although it did not have the same monumental entrance . Like the Mahdiya mosque , for the same ideological reasons , the Ajdabiya mosque did not have a minaret . 
