Ramla
The White Masjid was the great mosque of Ramla, the town founded by the Umayyad caliph Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik in the early eighth century as the capital of…
The White Masjid was the great mosque of Ramla, the town founded by the Umayyad caliph Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik in the early eighth century as the capital of Palestine. Sulayman began the mosque and Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz completed it. It was restored under Salahuddin after earthquakes, and the Mamluk sultan al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qalawun built its minaret, the White Tower, in 1318. The minaret stands nearly 30 metres tall over the outline of the courtyard, its arcades and three large underground cisterns. Local tradition places the maqam of Nabi Salih in the north-western part of the mosque and holds that forty Companions of the Prophet ﷺ were buried here, which is why the minaret is also called the Tower of the Forty. The Grave of Imam al-Nasa'i is a few steps away.