Sinan Pasha Mosque is the earliest mosque in Acre recorded by Ottoman-period writers, linking the city’s Muslim history directly to its harbour. Known in…
Sinan Pasha Mosque is the earliest mosque in Acre recorded by Ottoman-period writers, linking the city’s Muslim history directly to its harbour. Known in Arabic as جامع سنان باشا, it is also called Masjid al-Bahr, the Sea Mosque, and Masjid al-Mina, the Harbour Mosque. It stands beside the Mediterranean shore at the entrance to Acre’s historic port, close to Khan al-Franj, where merchants and travellers entered one of Palestine’s principal maritime cities. From Sinan Pasha to Sulayman Pasha al-Adil The first mosque on this site was established in the late sixteenth century and carried the name of the Ottoman statesman Sinan Pasha. Its position near the harbour placed a Muslim place of prayer within the commercial quarter that developed around Acre’s waterfront. The present mosque dates from a rebuilding under Sulayman Pasha al-Adil, the Ottoman governor whose seat was Acre from 1805 to 1819. The chronicler Ibrahim al-Awra records Sulayman Pasha al-Adil’s reconstruction of the mosque on the site of the earlier Sinan Pasha foundation. Some records date this work to 1806, while the Palestinian Encyclopedia gives 1232 AH, corresponding to 1816–17. The names Masjid al-Bahr and Masjid al-Mina preserve the mosque’s close relationship with Acre’s port. It remains a working mosque within the Ottoman city of mosques, khans, markets and fortified sea walls that took shape during Acre’s revival as a major Palestinian port.