The Reality of Historical Mosques in Gaza City and the Problems of Preservation

Abstract

Most of the remaining historical mosques, which are about 13 mosques, refer to the Mamluk and Ottoman periods of Gaza history. Despite the importance of these mosques, many of them suffer from some negative practices, which were classed in this research, in both negligence and wrong interventions for conservation. These practices result in, many architectural and technical problems that are offensive, cause a considerable damage to the historical  mosques, and in some cases, threaten losing their cultural importance and high  symbolic value among Muslims. Accordingly, this research addresses the reality of historical mosques in Gaza, with special focus on the most important architectural and technical problems that they have been suffering from. The paper studies the mosques of Sheikh Zakaria and Sheikh Khalid as two case studies presenting the most important problems facing this type of mosques in Gaza. The first of them suffers from negligence and lack of maintenance for a long period of time, while the other one suffers from losing many of its historical characteristics, as well as some technical problems. This is due to what occurred recently of expansion and renovation works that did not take into account its historical importance and architectural uniqueness. The research uses descriptive and analytical methods to present and analyze the problem and then suggest some proposed solutions. This is based on available literature, in addition to field visits conducted by the researcher to the case studies  and to all historical mosques in Gaza with the aim of  previewing them and highlighting their problems. The study concludes that there is an urgent need to develop a comprehensive plan, involving all relevant institutions to maintain the historical mosques in Gaza, and stop their deterioration due to  negative practices.