Omari Mosque of Gaza: A Reminder of How Times Change and Civilisations Rise and Fall
Omari mosque was the oldest mosque in Gaza and the largest. On December 9, 2023, news came out of Gaza that the mosque was destroyed in the Israeli bombing. As a place of worship, this mosque and the land on which it stands have a deep and layered history. This mosque symbolises change and the transitory nature of all belief systems. It reminds us that what we believe as absolute truth could change with the ebb and flow of time.
The story of this place dates back to the Iron Age, the 2nd millennium BCE, and to the people, the Philistines, who lived on this land. The Philistines are one of the first aliens in written human history. In the Old Testament, they are the outsiders who were unlike and hated by the Semitic people, the Canaanites, Hebrews, Aramaeans, Assyrians, and Babylonians. They were the enemies of the “children of light,” the Israelites.
Dagon was a Philistine god, rather, the head god of the Philistines. Dagon had a temple in the land that we now call Gaza. This temple stood at the same place where the grand Omari mosque was till recently. Dagon was the god of fertility and water for the pagans, who were called Philistines by the Semitic people. Some scholars argue that Marnas, another pagan god of fertility and rain, was the same as Dagon. There are also mentions in history about Dagon as the fish god.
The Temple of Dagon
The Biblical story of Samson and Delilah mentions the temple of Dagon in Gaza. Gaza was where Samson met a woman called Delilah and fell in love with her. The Philistines were trying to capture him, but they had failed as he had great physical strength. They sent Delilah to lure Samson into disclosing the secret of his strength. Once she succeeded in knowing that his strength lay in his hair, she helped the Philistines capture him. The place they took him to was the Temple of Dagon.
By one last demonstration of his might, as was granted by God, Samson, who was tied up inside the temple, pulled down its pillars, killed his capturers and heroically died with them.
Renowned author H. P. Lovecraft used Dagon as a character in many of his supernatural stories, which were his genre. Through his literary works, he also popularised fictional narratives about the cult of Dagon. John Milton, George Eliot, and Fred Chappell were also fascinated by this pagan god. They took his story and woven it into new fictional narratives. In the novel King of Kings, Malachi Martin writes about the fight for dominance between Dagon and Adonai, the god of the Hebrew people.
The hat worn by the Pope and all the cardinals and bishops of the Vatican resembles the ‘mitre hat’ worn by the priests of Dagon. The top of the hat looks like the open mouth of a fish. This hat hints at the strange human trait where the symbols of past civilisations are carried on, but their meanings are lost and changed. Dagon temple is lost to many layers of history, though there has always been folklore suggesting that the temple ruins and Samson’s body lie beneath the Omari mosque.
The Byzantine Empire rose upon the ruins of the Philistine structures between the 3rd and 5th centuries CE. Dagon was rechristened as Marnas in this period, and the temple prevailed with this new deity. It was believed that Marnas had the power to prevent droughts and to seek his blessings, his image was imprinted on Gazan coins of those times. The temple of Marnas used to be called Marneion.
Gaza was annexed to Rome in 63 BCE. Around 250 CE, Christianity began to spread there. The Roman Emperor, Constantine the Great, converted to Christianity in 312 CE, and in 380 CE, Emperor Theodosius proclaimed Christianity as the official religion of Rome. Even after Rome announced Christianity as its official religion, pagan temples and pagan worship co-existed with it. Aelia Eudoxia, a Roman Empress, in 400 CE, became a patron of Christianity and eager to please Christian priests, she ordered the destruction of pagan temples, including the temple of Marnas in Gaza. The temple was demolished, and thus perished, the pagan god.
A 10-foot statue of Marnas, excavated from the Omari mosque premises in 1879, is now kept in an Istanbul museum. The local story is that the temple priests hid in the temple basement, gathering all the temple artefacts. In 406 CE, a Christian church, the Cathedral of John the Baptist, was built above the temple ruins.
The Muslim Armies Capture Gaza
The army of the Rashidun Caliphate invaded Gaza in 634 CE. After a siege of 3 years in 637 CE, they conquered the city. Already, there were Muslim traders and settlements in Gaza by this period. The Islamic rulers repurposed the church into Omari mosque in 700 CE. The mosque was named after one of the Caliphs, Omar Ibn al-Khattab. However, many other Christian churches were left intact. Islam, Judaism, and Christianity co-existed in Gaza under Islamic rule.
Soon after the Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1100 CE, the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem was declared, and Palestine came under Christian rule. The Omari mosque once again became a church as the Gaza City was handed over to the Knights Templar by King Baldwin III.
By 1187 CE, the Muslim armies had recaptured this city. Soon, Palestine was divided between two warring Muslim factions: the Ayyubids and the Mamluks. The Ayyubids were the first to capture the region and restored the mosque. Later, the Mamluks won the battle against the Ayyubids and ruled Gaza from 1259 to 1516. The Mamluks built the famous minaret of Omari Mosque, which was unique in its Mamluk-style architecture, with a square base and an octagonal tower.
The Ottoman Period
The Ottoman Empire was spreading its wings. In 1516, in the battle of Marj Dabiq, the Ottoman ruler, Yavuz Sultan Selim, defeated the Mamluks and conquered Palestine and Syria. Their rule continued for 401 years, and they renovated the Omari mosque.
Jewish worship symbols and Hebrew and Greek inscriptions were discovered on one of the mosque's pillars in a 19th-century excavation. After scrutiny and study, archaeologists concluded that this pillar could have been part of a Jewish synagogue and might have been repurposed when the Byzantine church was built. The Jewish symbols were removed from the mosque pillar after Israel was formed in 1948 and Gaza was captured by Israel in 1967.
World War I brought serious damage to the Omari Mosque. This time, it was caused by the British artillery fire. There was an Ottoman weapon depot near the mosque, and the British were targeting that. In the 1920s, the mosque was rebuilt. Meanwhile, the structure was also partially destroyed in earthquakes several times.it
Since the time of the Ottomans, the Omari mosque survived the test of time for about 900 years. Yet, sadly, it fell in the Israeli bombing of Gaza on December 8, 2023. Along with the mosque, more than 200 such ancient monuments and sites have been destroyed in Gaza to date.
Remembering Omari Mosque
Along with the heritage building that was Omari mosque, the great library that the mosque housed is also lost. This library possesses a large collection of books, including many rare ones dating back to the 13th century. The only consolation is that the books had been digitised in 2022. Yet, the loss of ancient manuscripts in physical form is a loss for all humanity.
The Omar Al-Mukhtar street near the mosque was famous for sweets and spices. Now, the rubble of the mosque and the street present the same picture of destruction and terror. The destruction of such heritage sites in Gaza is decried as cultural genocide, but neither Israel nor Hamas is heeding the sane voices of reconciliation and peace.
The people of Palestine might be able to rebuild the Omari mosque in some near or distant future if a permanent ceasefire happens and this long, horrific night of war comes to an end. Or, Israel, in its inhumane fury, might turn the entire Gaza Strip into a wilderness where no people and no faith could survive. So many lives have been lost to this clash between two people separated only by two distinct faiths. In all the political transitions around the place of worship where Omari mosque stood, hundreds and thousands of human lives were already lost in the past centuries, too. The only lesson that Omari mosque could teach us is about change. Everything changes and perishes, but new life carries on. It is a lesson that should help humanity find peace to coexist with each other so that there is no need for bloodshed, death, and the destruction of our valued legacy.
References
Who is the Roman Catholic Church Really Worshipping? romancatholicbeliefs.org.
Theodosian Empresses: Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity, Kenneth G Holum, 1989, University of California Press.
The Crusades of Palestine, britannica.com.
400 Years of Peace: Palestine Under Ottoman Rule, Erhan Afyoncu, May 18, 2018, dailysabah.com.
Toward a Palestinian History of Ruins: Interwar Gaza, Dotan Halevy, 2018, Journal of Palestine Studies, 48 (1), 53-72.
The Great Omari Mosque, compiled by Leena Ghannam, Google Arts & Culture.
King of Kings, Malachi Martin, 1980, Simon & Schuster.
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