Habib'i Neccar Mosque

In the Antiquity, there was probably a pagan temple in place of this mosque. During the Christian era, it was converted into a church named after John the Baptist. In the Medieval Age, the city was captured first by the Rashidun Caliphate in 637, by the Byzantine Empire in 969, by the Seljuk Turks in 1084, by the Crusades in 1098, and by the Baibars of the Mamluk Sultanate in 1268. Concurrently in each case, the status of the building was changed from church to mosque and from mosque to church.[1][2] However, in the inscription of the mosque, it reads that it was rebuilt in 1275 soon after Baibars had converted it to a mosque.[3]

The mosque was demolished during the 1853 earthquake. It was rebuilt by the Ottomans. But the minaret is older. The shadirvan (fountain) is a later addition.

The mosque was named after Habib'i Neccar or Habib Al-Najjar, a carpenter, who lived in the time of Jesus. In the early years of the Christianity, he was martyred by the pagan people, who refused to convert.[1] He was canonized a Christian saint.

The two sarcophagi found in the yard of the mosque are believed to belong to Jonah and John the Baptist,[2] or the tomb of Habib along with that of Sham'un Al-Safa (Saint Peter, also known as Simon the Pure).[4][5]