Found­ed in 670, Kairouan flour­ished under the Agh­labid dynasty in the 9th cen­tu­ry. Despite the trans­fer of the polit­i­cal cap­i­tal to Tunis in the 12th cen­tu­ry, Kairouan remained the Maghreb‘s prin­ci­pal holy city. Its rich archi­tec­tur­al her­itage includes the Great Mosque, with its mar­ble and por­phyry columns, and the 9th-cen­­tu­ry Mosque of the Three Gates.