273. Nitl | نتل

Mādabā governorate

Jāmi‘

JADIS no. 2311004

MEGA no. 23736

Coordinates: 31°39'08.0"N 35°51'40.7"E

31.652211, 35.861303

Plan: long rectangular with small trapezoidal open courtyard in the N, using pre-existing walls and directly adjacent  S pareklesion of the Saint Sergius church on its N flank. It was accessible from the NE corner of this courtyard by a small staircase of four steps. The prayer hall extends to N-S direction, accessible by a formerly well preserved door in the N wall (fig. 273.3 and 6), facing the miḥrāb in the S wall (figs. 273.7).

Measurements: 53 m² (mosque); 21.2 m² (courtyard).

Exterior: unknown

Interior: Prayer hall ca. 8.70 m x 6.20 m; heights of the arches ca. 2.70 m; courtyard ca. 4.60 x 4.60 m.

Building Materials: built of partly reused fossiliferous limestone blocks, some of them rusticated, originating from the adjacent Christian Ghassanid church complex of Saint Sergius. The threshold of the N entrance shows a flat relief of three crosses in circles.

Construction details: The walls have been constructed in approximately horizontal courses by reused coarsely cut blocks integrating older spolia. The masonry is dry with smaller flakes inserted in the joints. The hall shows four transversal arches on projecting curved buttresses in a distance of 1.60-1.20 m to each other to carry the roof laid in long limestone slabs in orthogonal orientation to the supporting arches (fig. 273.15). The horizontal roof is still covered by the earth package accustomed in Jordanian vernacular architecture.

Preservation: intact 1996, 15 years later vandalized.

Inscription(s): A reused funeral inscription (1; 37 cm x 44 cm) in eight lines of simple Kufic script dated to H 100 = 718/719 AD has been uncovered at Nitl in 1886, but it is not directly related to the mosque:

Translation (www. Islamic Awareness 2005): “O Allāh! ForgiveʿAbd al-ʿAzīz bin al-Ḥārith bin al-Ḥakam his faults, those that are passed and those to come and gather him and his offspring in an abode of your mercy and s[et him on] the pool of Muḥammad ...[date chipped off].” Several incised graffiti on the lower sides of the curved blocks of the transversal arches, most probably Bedouin owner marks (washm), figs. 273.17-18.

Date(s): Ottoman (MEGA, Londino 2003; Nahar 2009), or possibly older? Ajlouni 1992 dates the shape of the miḥrāb to the Umayyad period. The layout of the hall strongly resembles Ayyubid-Mamluk mosques in the Syrian Ḥawrān such as jāmi‘ al-Fāṭima or jāmi’ al-Khidhr at Busra eski Shām.

Traveler Reports: none known.

Bibliography: Ajlouni 1992, 33; Londino 2003, 449-449; Nahar 2009, pl. 15. For the inscription see: Musil 1902, 58; Musil 1908, 81; Fischer 1908a, 280-282; Fischer 1982b, 788-790; Sprengling 1935-1936, 193; Grohmann 1973, pl. between pages 72 and 73; 86 fig. 55 pl. XV fig. 1; Gruendler 1993, 21, E. 22; Islamic Awareness, An Arabic Inscription from Khirbat Nitil, 100 AH/718-719 CE, 2005, on-line, last consulted 31. October 2018; Husayni 2007, 50 no. 15;