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Similar Al‑Muallaq Mosque, Al‑Khanqah al‑Salahiyya Mosque, Mahmood Mosque - Haifa, Nabi Yahya Mosque, Mahmoudiya Mosque | ||
Nebi Akasha Mosque, also Okasha mosque or Ukasha mosque, is a historic mosque located in western Jerusalem.
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History
The mosque was built in the 19th century beside the 12th-century tomb of Nebi Akasha Bin Mohsin, one of the disciples of the Prophet Muhammad. According to Islamic tradition, Saladin's soldiers were buried at the site. Additions were made to the tomb by the Mamluks in the 13th-century. There is also a tradition that Moses, Jesus and Muhammad were buried here, leading the British High Commissioner John Chancellor to name the nearby street Street of the Prophets.
Over a 70-year period in the 1800s, the hill on which the tomb stands was used as a meeting place by students of the Vilna Gaon. These Jews rented the hill from its Arab owners and gathered for study and Friday-night prayers in a tent, joined by local Ashkenazi and Sephardi kabbalists.
20th century
On August 26, 1929, during the 1929 Palestine riots, the mosque was attacked by a group of Jews in response to Arab massacres. The mosque was badly damaged and the tombs were desecrated. As a result of the Palestinian Arab exodus from western Jerusalem during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the mosque was abandoned. Today it is located in the middle of a park in a Haredi Jewish neighborhood. It is situated near the junction of Straus Street and the Street of the Prophets.
In December 2011 the mosque was defaced with graffiti by right-wing extremists who tried to set fire to it in a price tag attack. The mosque is inactive and the Jerusalem Municipality uses it as a warehouse.