Letter K
al-Kerak Governorate
Crusader castle, muṣallā installed in the Mamluk Governor’s palace (residence), in the former Crusader donjon.
JADIS no. 210 6001
MEGA no. 10139, mosque 44565.
Coordinates: 31°10'48.4"N 35°42'05.3"E
31.180111, 35.701472
Plan: long rectangular with decentered miḥrāb of trapezoid plan in S wall. The prayer niche is slightly turned to SE inside the massive wall in order to conform to the qibla direction.
Measurements: 41 m2
Exterior: unknown.
Interior: 8 x 6 cm.
Building Materials: local brownish limestone.
Construction details: The mosque has been established in a barrel vaulted room of the former Crusader fortification. In the center of the E wall opens an arrow slit which at the time of the Mamluk use had lost its function.
Preservation: intact, occasionally still used for Muslim prayer by visitors.
Inscriptions: none known
Date(s): Mamluk, probably installed during the Sultanate of al-Malik an-Nāṣir ad-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Qalāwūn (‘Abū al-Ma‘āli). Referring to a notice on the building activities of the specific Mamluk ruler at al-Kerak in the prosopographic lexicon by the Mamluk - Egyptian polymath and lexicographer al-‘Asqalāni (317 = see Brown 1989, 290), the origin of this palace mosque, or rather a private muṣallā for the local Mamluk Governor and his military and administrative officers, should be dated to the year 1311 AD. Such a chronological date coincides well with the stratigraphy of the excavations in selected trial trenches conducted by R. Brown at the end of the 1980s.
Traveler Reports: None known.
Bibliography: Brown 1988, 242-156; Brown 1989, 287-304. www: Ghazi Bisheh “Karak Castle” in Discover Islamic Art, Museum With No Frontiers, 2019. 2019. [http://islamicart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=monuments;ISL;jo;Mon01;20;en&cp]; Schick2020, no. 56.
Fig. 190.1 Al-Kerak castle plan, mosque in red circle (Brown 1989, 289 fig. 2). 
