Horvat Sharav Mosque

Mosque Name: Horvat Sharav Open-Air Mosques

Country: Negev

City: Rural, Negev Highlands

Year of construction (AD): 700-799

GPS: 30.752364 34.899499

Gibson Classification: Unknown

Rebuilt facing Mecca: never

Description:

An open-type mosque was discovered at Horvat Sharav, south of the Byzantine town of ‘Avdat (Oboda) (figures. 8, 11).5 It is on the summit of a low hill, ca. 50 m south of a valley settlement of 18 dwellings and a sheepfold. The square, open structure has a rounded mihrab niche in the center of its southern wall (0.9 m2), and the entrance is through an opening near the southwest corer. This is unusual in the mosques of the Negev Highlands, where the entrance is usually opposite the mihrab. The walls are built of two rows of roughly-hewn fieldstones with a gravel filler. They stand 0.7 to 0.8 m wide and 1 m high (three to four courses), and by the small amount of stone debris in the area, this seems to have been their original height.

For a Link to the Qibla Tool Click Here

Perhaps all of the Negev open air mosques used the same person or information when setting their Qiblas, and they all faced too far west. The nearest Qibla is Petra.

Information taken from:

Early Mosques in the Negev Highlands: New Archaeological Evidence on Islamic Penetration of Southern Palestine Author: Gideon Avni Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 294 (May, 1994), pp. 83-100