Masjid al-Juraynah (مسجد الجرينة), once Haifa’s principal congregational mosque, preserves the city’s Ottoman history beside its landmark clock tower. Also…
Masjid al-Juraynah (مسجد الجرينة), once Haifa’s principal congregational mosque, preserves the city’s Ottoman history beside its landmark clock tower. Also known as Masjid al-Nasr and the Great Mosque of Haifa, it was established in the late eighteenth century in the walled town near Haifa’s growing port. The name al-Juraynah came from the large stone threshing floor or grain yard nearby, where produce intended for export through the harbour was gathered. From the grain market to Haifa’s Great Mosque The mosque’s foundation followed the Ottoman campaign against the Galilee ruler Zahir al-Umar in 1775 and was associated with the victory of the Ottoman commander Hasan Pasha al-Jaza’iri. It became Haifa’s second major mosque after Masjid al-Saghir and later served as the city’s principal Friday mosque. Masjid al-Juraynah also entered the history of the Palestinian scholar and resistance leader Shaykh Izz al-Din al-Qassam. After he was martyred near Ya‘bad in 1935, his funeral prayer was held here before the procession departed for his grave in Balad al-Shaykh, east of Haifa. The Ottoman clock tower The clock tower was added at the mosque’s entrance during the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. It belonged to the series of public clock towers commissioned around 1901 to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Sultan’s accession, alongside towers in Palestinian cities including al-Quds, Yafa, Akka, Safad, al-Nasira and Nablus. The mosque stands on Natanzon Street in Haifa’s lower city, within the area occupied by the old commercial centre before 1948. Its historic minaret was lost amid the destruction of much of old Haifa, while the Ottoman clock tower survived. On 20 June 2025, a missile strike in central Haifa damaged Masjid al-Juraynah and other nearby buildings.