The old Fiñana mosque, today the Santiago or Our Father Jesus Nazarene hermitage, was built at the end of the 12th century or the beginning of the 13th, in the Almohad period, according to analyses of the plasterwork of the time carried out by the experts Antonio Gil Albarracín and Carmen Barceló Torres, who consider it the only peninsular Almohad site which maintains the oratory with its qibla and part of the decoration which adorned the entrance of the mirhab.

On the 19th October 1983, the mosque was declared a National Artistic-Historic Monument. It was restored in 1986 and in 2006 the plasterwork was restored and renovated.

Three parts of great interest stand out in the house of worship: the prayer hall, plasterwork and roofing.

The prayer hall or oratory presents an apparently square space, divided into three naves by two parallel arcades between them and perpendicular to the qibla wall, made up of three horseshoe arches on four octagonal pillars or chamfered square pillars.

The central nave has a uniform size and leads from the entrance to the current altar area of the hermitage. In the cent re of the qibla wall is the mirhab, an oratory during the Muslim period and which today serves as a niche for the image of Our Father Jesus Nazarene. Its 8.3sqm hexagonal floor was covered by a dome.

The side naves have uneven widths due to the imbalance of the building. The materials used were, above all, brick, stonework, stucco and lime mortar.

The decorative Plasterwork which adorns the qibla wall is one of the great treasures of Fiñana’s heritage. It is the decoration typical of the Al-Andalus entrances, formed by a wide band in the form of an inverted U.

Three panels with floral decoration stand out. In the central one there is the typical arabesque and the two exterior ones are bordered by Koranic epigraphic characters with two kinds of calligraphy, the kufic and the cursive.

The compositions are based on precisely calculated mathematical drawings.

Finally, the roof of the Fiñana mosque is in its central nave a collar-beam, hipped, reinforced with two pairs of semi-attached bracing in the corners, displaying a simple, precise ribbon decoration. The rest of the roof of this central nave is constructed by means of rafters as a support for the boards which cover this roof. The interest of this nave lies in being, in all probability, the oldest in Almería province.