The Hassan Bek Mosque ( ar, مسجد حسن بك; he, מסגד חסן בק; tr, Hasan Bek Camii), also known as the Hasan Bey Mosque, is one of the most well-known

mosques A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, i ...

Jaffa Jaffa, in Hebrew Yafo ( he, יָפוֹ, ) and in Arabic Yafa ( ar, يَافَا) and also called Japho or Joppa, the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is known for its association with the b ...

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

. The mosque was built in 1916 at the northern boundary of Arab Jaffa, and its history is closely bound up with the various stages of the Arab-Jewish conflict. Its Ottoman-style architecture contrasts with the surrounding contemporary modern high-rises. It is located between the

Neve Tzedek Neve Tzedek ( he, נְוֵה צֶדֶק, נווה צדק, ''lit.'' Abode of Justice) is a neighborhood located in southwestern Tel Aviv, Israel. It was the first Judaism, Jewish neighborhood to be built outside the old city of the ancient port of ...

neighbourhood of Tel Aviv and the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

, on the road to

History and Construction

The mosque was built in 1916, by Jaffa's Ottoman governor of the same name. At the time, Jaffa and the recently founded

were both competitively expanding. The mosque was part of Manshiyya, Jaffa's northernmost neighbourhood which spread northwards along the Mediterranean seashore. The governor of Jaffa who had the mosque built is named as Hassan Bey or Bek, or Hassan Bey al-Basri aljabi , حسن بيك الجابي. Hassan Bey headed Jaffa between August 1914 and May 1916. The mosque was built on a plot of land selected and bought by Hassan Bey from its

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

owner.

1948 war

The mosque's

minaret A minaret (; ar, منارة, translit=manāra, or ar, مِئْذَنة, translit=miʾḏana, links=no; tr, minare; fa, گل‌دسته, translit=goldaste) is a type of tower typically built into or adjacent to mosques. Minarets are generall ...

was often used by Arab

sniper A sniper is a military/paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with high-precision r ...

s to shoot at Jewish forces in

and

Manshiya Manshiya ( he, מנשייה, ar, المنشية, ''al-Manshiyya'') was a residential neighbourhood of Jaffa, Israel. Manshiyya was located on the border between Jaffa and Tel Aviv, on the seafront north of the harbor.Dumper & Stanley, eds. ( ...

, in the months preceding the British withdrawal.

After the demolition of Manshiya

The place of the razed Arab housing was taken by high-rise office buildings and a park. The Hassan Bek Mosque - spared due to the state and municipal authorities hesitating to be seen as desecrating a Muslim house of worship - remained, together with the building now housing the

Irgun Irgun • Etzel , image = Irgun.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = Irgun emblem. The map shows both Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan, which the Irgun claimed in its entirety for a future Jewish state. The acronym "Etzel" i ...

Museum of Tel Aviv, the last two remnants of the area's pre-1948 Manshiya neighbourhood.

Real-estate scheme of 1979

The Hassan Bek Mosque lay derelict and neglected for many years, its empty shell used on some occasions by vagabonds and drug addicts.Nimrod Luz, The Politics of Sacred Places. Palestinian Identity, collective memory, and resistance in the Hassan Bek mosque conflict
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
2008 In 1979, it was announced that the Jaffa Islamic Properties' Trustees had sold the mosque and its compound to real-estate developer Gershon Peres (brother of

Shimon Peres Shimon Peres (; he, שמעון פרס ; born Szymon Perski; 2 August 1923 – 28 September 2016) was an Israeli politician who served as the eighth prime minister of Israel from 1984 to 1986 and from 1995 to 1996 and as the ninth president of ...

, then

Israeli Labor Party The Israeli Labor Party ( he, מִפְלֶגֶת הָעֲבוֹדָה הַיִּשְׂרְאֵלִית, ), commonly known as HaAvoda ( he, הָעֲבוֹדָה, , The Labor), is a social democratic and Zionist political party in Israel. The pa ...

leader and former

President of Israel The president of the State of Israel ( he, נְשִׂיא מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, Nesi Medinat Yisra'el, or he, נְשִׂיא הַמְדִינָה, Nesi HaMedina, President of the State) is the head of state of Israel. The posi ...

) and that it was to be transformed into a shopping mall. The disclosure aroused a storm of protests by Israeli Arabs, supported by Israeli Jewish peace and human rights groups, who claimed that the Trustees had been appointed by the Government of Israel, that they did not represent the Muslim community of Jaffa, and that they had pilfered the money from the Peres deal into their own pockets. The outcome was that the real estate deal was cancelled and the mosque returned to the hands of the Jaffa Muslim Community.Nimrod Luz, The Politics of Sacred Places. Palestinian Identity, collective memory, and resistance in the Hassan Bek mosque conflict
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
2008

Minaret collapse and reconstruction

The authorities gave permission for the Jaffa Arabs to restore the minaret, using volunteer work and funds provided by the governments of

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

and

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

. This is considered by Jaffa Arabs an important milestone in their recovered self-awareness and assertiveness in defence of their communal rights. The reconstructed minaret is twice as tall as the original one. Up to the present, Jaffa Arabs maintain an ongoing presence in the renovated mosque, and prayers are held in it regularly, though it is a considerable distance from the neighbourhood where the Muslim community of Jaffa is living.

Description

The Ottoman-style mosque initially measured 21 by 28 metres, was well-proportioned and fit well into the Al-Manshiya neighbourhood. Marshall J. Breger, Yitzhak Reiter, Leonard Hammer (editors), ''Holy Places in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Confrontation and Co-existence'', chapter "The making of a landmark"
/ref> It had a courtyard partially paved and in part used as a garden; the prayer hall was entered by a staircase on its northern side. In 1923 the mosque was already the object of politically motivated renovations ordered by the

Supreme Muslim Council The Supreme Muslim Council (SMC; ar, المجلس الإسلامي الاعلى) was the highest body in charge of Muslim community affairs in Mandatory Palestine under British control. It was established to create an advisory body composed of ...

, and its overall area was substantially expanded in the 1980s.Hasan Bek Mosque
on Archnet digital library The mosque employs a white

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

instead of using the more common stone of the area,

kurkar Kurkar ( ar, كركار / he, כורכר) is the term used in Palestinian Arabic and modern Hebrew for the rock type of which lithified sea sand dunes consist. The equivalent term used in Lebanon is ramleh.

piers Piers may refer to: * Pier, a raised structure over a body of water * Pier (architecture), an architectural support * Piers (name), a given name and surname (including lists of people with the name) * Piers baronets, two titles, in the baronetages ...

that divide the wide façades into smaller sections. The current

was rebuilt at twice its original height as part of the renovation in the 1980s; extremely tall and slender, it contrasts with the square prayer hall. A very low tower rises on the opposite side of the mosque. The concrete roof is flat and proportionally low, with a shallow dome over the central bay.

References

{{Mosques in Israel Arab Israeli culture in Tel Aviv Mosques completed in 1916 Mosques in Tel Aviv Mosque-related controversies History of Palestine (region) Mosque buildings with domes Ottoman architecture in Israel Jaffa