The Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Wednesday June 22 that it had unearthed the remains of one of the oldest rural mosques in the world, which bears witness to the spread of Islam in the Negev desert, a region in southern Israel.
Dated to the 7th or 8th century AD, the first centuries of Islam more than 1,200 years ago, the mosque was unearthed during excavations in the Bedouin town of Rahat, located in the Negev, north of the Arabian Peninsula where the Muslim religion was born.
The mosque comprises
“a square room and wall facing Mecca,” with
a semicircular prayer niche (mihrab) facing south, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said on June 22. .
"These unique architectural features show that the building was used as a mosque,"
possibly accommodating a few dozen worshipers at a time, the AIA said.
Muslim AIA workers pray at the site of one of the world's oldest rural mosques discovered in the Bedouin town of Rahat in southern Israel.
MENAHEM KAHANA / AFP
Near the mosque, a luxurious building was also discovered, with remains of crockery and glass objects giving indications of the wealth of the inhabitants, said the authorities who had already exhumed in 2019, also in Rahat, the remains. of a rural mosque dating from the same period.
These Muslim remains, among
"the oldest in the world",
allow us to learn more about
"the introduction of a new religion - Islam - and a new domination and culture in the region (...) which gradually established themselves by inheriting the ancient Byzantine government and the Christian religion that ruled the territory for hundreds of years,”
the Israel Antiquities Authority explained.
The mosques unearthed in Rahat will be preserved in their current locations, either as historical monuments or as active places of prayer, the Israeli authorities added.