The cave on Mount Carmel is remembered as a retreat of Nabi Ilyas (AS) and is known in Arabic as Magharat al-Khidr (مغارة الخضر), the Cave of Sayyiduna Khidr…
The cave on Mount Carmel is remembered as a retreat of Nabi Ilyas (AS) and is known in Arabic as Magharat al-Khidr (مغارة الخضر), the Cave of Sayyiduna Khidr (AS). The Qur’an names Nabi Ilyas (AS) among the messengers and preserves his call to a people who worshipped Ba‘l: “And Elias was indeed one of the messengers. ˹Remember˺ when he said to his people, ‘Will you not fear ˹Allah˺? Do you call upon ˹the idol of˺ Ba’l and abandon the Best of Creators—’” Surah as-Saffat 37:123–125 The two caves of Nabi Ilyas on Mount Carmel Two nearby caves in western Haifa carry the association with Nabi Ilyas (AS). The coordinates recorded here are beside Stella Maris, where a church completed in 1836 was built above one cave. Farther down the northern slope is the larger cave historically known to Haifa’s Muslims as al-Khidr and to Christian Arabs as Mar Ilyas. Tradition holds that Nabi Ilyas (AS) lived, taught and sought refuge among the caves of Mount Carmel during his struggle against the worship of Ba‘l. The lower cave was also called the School of the Prophets, connecting it with those who learned from Nabi Ilyas (AS). The Muslim maqam of al-Khidr In Muslim tradition the cave became closely joined to Sayyiduna Khidr (AS), the righteous servant whom the Qur’an describes as having received mercy and special knowledge from Allah. Medieval Islamic tradition frequently connected Nabi Ilyas (AS) and Sayyiduna Khidr (AS), and Haifa’s cave was known by both names. The lower cave functioned as an Islamic maqam and was held as Waqf al-Khidr, an Islamic endowment, before 1948. Its custodianship belonged to the Haifa family of Hajj Ibrahim. Archaeological work around the cave has recovered material from the Mamluk and Ottoman periods, while inscriptions inside include Arabic alongside Greek, Latin and Hebrew, recording the long history of the site.