322. Salṭ, as- | السلط

al-Balqā’ Governorate

Masjid as-saghrīr / Masjid ‘Aīn Za‘tūt

JADIS no. 211 6003

MEGA no. 10358

Coordinates: 32°02'21.0"N 35°42'41.0"E

32.039167, 35.711389

Plan: broad rectangular, slightly trapezoid ground plan with entrance in the N wall facing the miḥrāb in S wall. Two monolithic columns carry the flat wooden panel ceiling; in front of the N wall broad rectangular courtyard with octagonal ablution fountain to the W of the main entrance (fig. 322.13-14). This space has been covered in a secondary building phase. A two-storey gallery for women’s prayer has been added adjacently from outside along the N façade to the Sūq Ḥammām street. The basement is occupied by a row of shops on both sides of a passageway facing the main door to the prayer hall. At the W-side of the passage adjacent an alignment of four, at the E side three shops opened with their fronts toward the street and covered by a narrow arcade (fig. 322.9). In the NE corner of the compound a free standing minaret of Ottoman type raising on a high cubic massive pedestal (fig. 322.11).

Measurements: 608 m²

Exterior: 26 m (N and S walls) x 27 m (W wall) x 26 m (E wall).

Interior: Prayer hall: 25.2 m x 16.8 m. covered courtyard 25.8 m x 7.40 m; gallery 2.8 x 26 m.

Building Materials: carefully dressed cubic blocks of local yellow limestone, broken in the quarries of Wādī Midān as-Salṭ. The horizontal courses of blocks under the massive pedestal of the minaret are more carefully dressed and of a lighter almost white limestone. Several of the sculptured decorations such as the capitals at the exterior entrance and at the miḥrāb (fig. 322.18) might have been prefabricated at Nablūs in Palestine and imported to Salṭ; carpentry and iron works are of local provenance.

Construction details: Due to the steeply sloped terrain in N-S direction (fig. 322.2), the prayer hall and part of the courtyard have been constructed in two stories. The substruction basement is occupied by three rectangular shops (fig. 322.10), parallel to each other in N-S direction with barrel vaulted ceilings, accessible through arched entrances from the street running along the S elevation. A staircase corridor along the W wall leads through a door from the courtyard down to the lower level. The saḥn of the 1880 mosque was open air and just lined by a wall with a free standing minaret in its NE corner. The N façade of the prayer hall consisted originally of 22 courses of yellowish limestone blocks bound in mortar. This type of masonry terminates just above the three circular bull-eye windows which correspond in their heights and positions to those of the S-prayer hall wall. The N wall of the prayer hall was raised in nine additional courses of yellowish limestone ashlars with a series of rectangular roof windows in a secondary construction phase (1915?) to achieve a height corresponding with the added gallery above the line of small shops directed to the market street in the N. This alignment of shops is intersected by a passageway in axis to the main entrance of the prayer hall and the miḥrāb. The NE corner was spared for the free standing minaret. This is accessible by a small door at the S side from the N gallery. A spiral staircase leads to a balcony below its top.

Preservation: intact. In its renovated condition, the mosque is regularly used for Muslim prayer.

Inscription(s): A new information signs refers to the construction process from 1906 to 1907 (Habees 2011) and to the renovations of 1915, 1996 and 2015 in the passageway between the shops.

Date(s): Reportedly, a mosque had been constructed around AD 1880 upon the ruins of a preexisting older building of unknown date. The two column supports in the prayer hall may possibly reflect an older Ayyubid-Mamluk plan of the “Rēmūn type.” The Ottoman mosque has been widely remodeled in 1906-1907 by Sulaymān Abū al-Ḥussein (Habees 2011) and was again renewed in 1915. Further maintenance and renovation works were executed in 1995 and 2015.

Traveler Reports: none known.

Bibliography: Habees 2011, 101 no. 3; Sqour - Abu Ghanimeh 2014, 4 with note