Mosque Name: Khirbet Burz Mosque
Country: Jordan
City: Sama Rusan
Year of construction (AH): 800-899
GPS: 32.623889, 35.799861
Gibson Classification: Mecca
Description:
This mosque had no roof supports, so it may have been an open air mosque. It was built along the SW exterior wall of a Byzantine church with mosaic floor. The church is of the accustomed three-naved basilical plan, all three aisles end in apses. The plan of the attached Muslim prayer installation is broad rectangular and it was accessed from the church’s south lateral nave. Since the floor of this room has traces of a Byzantine mosaic floor, it most probably was formerly a parekklesion of the main church.
The church is NOT oriented to the east, but to the north east at approximately 67 degrees. This may be the reason why the qibla wall of the mosque is skewed to the north east as well.
In the qibla wall is the south wall. It has a miḥrāb niche protruding to the exterior, but appears to have been added later and appears to turn the Qibla to the east. This qibla is a puzzle. One explanation is that the builders of the mosque assumed that the church faced east, and so they set their qibla from the south side of the church wall. This resulted in an qibla of 156 degrees, while a true qibla to Mecca would have been 161.3 degrees.
More information can be found on pages 93 in: Islamic Heritage Sites in Jordan, A Student’s Gazetteer, prepared by the MA-Students of The German-Jordanian University, in Architectural Conservation School for Architecture and Built Environment Academic Years, 2017 - 2020, edited by Thomas M. Weber-Karyotakis & Ammar Khammash with Hussein al-Aza‘at, Nader Atiyeh, Catreena Hamarneh, Khairiyeh al-Kukhun & Robert Schick. GJU, Amman 2020
For a Link to the Qibla Tool Click Here
Floor plan showing the mosque beside the church.
The mosque seen from the north side.
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