Gasr Al-Hajj

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Gasr Al-Hājj

Gasr Al-Hājj (Arabic:قصر الحاج) is huge fortified granary of circular shape built in the 7th century AH/13th century AD by someone called Abdallah Abu Jatla (Arabic:عبدالله أبوجطلة). It is located in Libya on the Tripoli-AlAziziyya-AlJosh route in Libya about 130km from Tripoli. It was built to serve as granary for the families from the surrounding area in return for quarter of their crops, which, it is said that owner had endowed as a waqf for teaching Qur'an and Islamic related subjects to the people of the area. The building originally comprised 114 chambers, which could be the number of the subscribing families during the time of construction. It is also speculated that the number 114 was used symbolically to reflect the number of Surah in the Qur'an, a view widely accepted by villagers in the region nowadays. The number of chambers as of now, is 119, as result of splitting 10 chambers due to inheritance disputes. Other changes include the addition of 29 cellars.