Beja has all traces of being a religious city, with plenty of zawiyas and mosques in the town centre. The relatively new minaret of the Great Mosque is suprisingly in red, an uncommon colour in Islam. It is designed according to Almohad styles. The rest of the mosque is far older. The formerly most important shrine, the one of Sidi Abdel Qader, has been converted into a kindergarten. Which makes the shift of the former French church into a book fair more tolerable.
