The Grand Mosque of al Majdal

The Grand Mosque of al Majdal is located on Herzl Street in the Migdal area of Ashkelon. Today, it houses the Ashkelon Khan Musem. The mosque was built in three phases: two early phases from the Mamluk period and the latest phase was built in the Ottoman period.

In the 19th century, V. Guérin travelled through the area and described the mosque as being built of “roughly hewn stones, the courtyard in front of it was paved with marble tiles and several marble columns were lying on the ground”.

Excavations in the area revealed “pottery sherds from the Chalcolithic period (Nahshoni 1999), Middle Bronze Age II tombs (Gershuny 1996; 1997), a decorated tomb dating to the Roman period (Kogan-Zehavi 1999), fill from the Hellenistic period, a winepress from the Byzantine period and architectural remains ascribed to the Byzantine and Early Islamic periods (Nahshoni 2009; Haimi 2009).

In the north west section of Akko is a the El-Majadalah Mosque, which was constructed in 1809 and named after the village of Majdal. Many of the residents of Akko that used the mosque came from Majdal (Ashkelon).