The First Cathedral Mosque – Marjani

One of the first stone mosques in Kazan after 1552 was built with the personal permission of Catherine the Great in 1767-1771 at the expense of the congregation. The architect of the building is still unknown. According to one version, it was Vasily Kaftyrev. Kayum Nasyri wrote that the temple was built in great haste. When the building was laid, the direction to Mecca was inaccurately determined, so the quibla turned out to be somewhat offset.
The Marjani Mosque is one of the most interesting monuments of Tatar religious architecture of the second half of the 18th century. With its creation after more than 200 years of interruption, Tatar monumental religious architecture was reborn. The use of modern for that time style characteristics in the architecture of the Marjani mosque has put it among the most outstanding monuments of historical and cultural heritage of Kazan and the Russian Muslim religious architecture.
The Al-Marjani Mosque is the only mosque in Kazan built with collective money. Shigabutdin Marjani mentioned that 62 people collected 5,000 rubles to build the mosque, and several benefactors donated their estates to build the mosque.
The mosque was renamed several times. Its present name is connected with the name of the great scholar and theologian, the outstanding religious and social figure Shigabutdin Marjani (1818-1889). In 1850-1889, he was an imam-khatib of the mosque.