The Mahmoudiya Mosque is the largest and most significant mosque

Mosque

A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...

 in Jaffa

Jaffa

Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...

, now part of the larger city of Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

. It is composed of a complex of buildings arranged around two large courtyards and a third, smaller, courtyard. The buildings, gates, and courtyards were built at different stages throughout the 18th and 19th centuries while Southern Syria

Southern Syria

Southern Syria is a term that may refer to Palestine that was common by the early 20th century and still an occasionally used term in politics, literature and local history of the region or to the southern region of modern-day state of Syria...

 was under Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 rule.

History

Initial construction of the Mahmoudiya Mosque is said to have occurred in 1730 on the orders of governor Sheikh Muhammad al-Khalili. A sabil (fountain), embedded in the southern wall of the mosque, is attributed to Sulayman Pasha, governor of Acre

Acre, Israel

Acre , is a city in the Western Galilee region of northern Israel at the northern extremity of Haifa Bay. Acre is one of the oldest continuously inhabited sites in the country....

 in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Most of the current mosque was built in 1812 by the Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 governor of Gaza

Gaza

Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...

 and Jaffa, Muhammad Abu-Nabbut

Muhammad Abu-Nabbut

Muhammad Abu Nabbut was the governor of Jaffa and Gaza in the early 19th century on behalf of the Ottoman Empire. He reigned from 1807 to 1818.-Biography:...

. The main courtyard, located in the western part of the mosque, with its arcades and large rectangular prayer hall covered by two big shallow domes, and with its slender minaret

Minaret

A minaret مناره , sometimes مئذنه) is a distinctive architectural feature of Islamic mosques, generally a tall spire with an onion-shaped or conical crown, usually either free standing or taller than any associated support structure. The basic form of a minaret includes a base, shaft, and gallery....

 are accredited to him. Traces of earlier construction are hardly noticeable, but research contends that Abu-Nabbut's mosque was built on the foundations of a smaller mosque that belonged to the Bibi family of Jaffa. The building reuses Roman

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

 columns from Caesarea and Ashkelon

Ashkelon

Ashkelon is a coastal city in the South District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, south of Tel Aviv, and north of the border with the Gaza Strip. The ancient seaport of Ashkelon dates back to the Neolithic Age...

.

Location

The Mahmoudiya Mosque used to occupy the northeast corner of Old Jaffa. In the middle of the 19th century, the walls of Jaffa were gradually dismantled thus allowing for another major addition to the mosque to be made. Around the turn of the 20th century, the center of government moved to the east of the mosque, just outside the ancient walls. In order to facilitate access to the mosque from the government building, a new gate was built in the eastern wall of the mosque, facing the clock-tower plaza. The gate, named "the gate of the governors", reflects the design of Sabil Sulayman, built in Jerusalem in the 17th century by Suleiman the Magnificent

Suleiman the Magnificent

Suleiman I was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1520 to his death in 1566. He is known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent and in the East, as "The Lawgiver" , for his complete reconstruction of the Ottoman legal system...

.

Today, the exterior walls of the mosque are largely concealed by shops. However, in some places the two shallow domes of the prayer hall and the multitude of ancillary dome are still visible from the surrounding streets. The tall and refined silhouette of the minaret is still prominent in what remains of the fabric of Old Jaffa and its surrounding.