Mahkamah Mosque
| Mahkamah Mosque Mosque of Birdibak Madrasa of Amir Bardabak |
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|---|---|
 Location within Gaza
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| Basic information | |
| Location |
 Baghdad Street, Shuja'iyya, Gaza Strip, Palestine
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| Geographic coordinates | 31°30′6.98″N 34°28′10.99″E / 31.5019389°N 34.4697194°ECoordinates: 31°30′6.98″N 34°28′10.99″E / 31.5019389°N 34.4697194°E |
| Affiliation | Islam |
| District | Gaza Governorate |
| Province | Gaza Strip |
| Region | Levant |
| Status | Destroyed |
| Architectural description | |
| Architectural type | Mosque-Madrasa |
| Architectural style | Burji Mamluk |
| Completed | 1455 |
| Specifications | |
| Minaret(s) | 1 |
| Materials | Stone, Marble |
The Mahkamah Mosque (also known as Mosque of Birdibak or Madrasa of Amir Bardabak; Arabic transliteration: Jāmi' al-Mahkamah al-Birdibakiyyah) is a congregational mosque and madrasa, built in 1455. It was destroyed by Israeli bombing during the attack on Gaza in 2014. The mosque was located along Baghdad Street near the main western entrance of the Shuja'iyya district in Gaza City, Palestine.
The mosque was built in 1455 on the orders of Sayf al-Din Birdibak al-Ashrafi, the dawadar of the Mamluk sultan Sayf al-Din Inal. Birdibak was highly religious and convened an annual conference to discuss the hadith of the 9th-century Muslim scholar Muhammad al-Bukhari. He reached high positions within the Mamluk state and built two other Friday mosques in Damascus and Cairo. The Mahkamah Mosque was originally part of a madrasa ("religious school"), and education served as the building's principal function. Prayers were also held regularly and on Fridays.
During Ottoman rule between the 16th and early 20th centuries, the school functioned as a courthouse for the city's qadis ("judges"), hence its Arabic name al-Mahkamah ("the Court.") In the late 19th-century Swiss scholar Max van Berchem found a Kufic inscription fixed over the mihrab ("pulpit") of the mosque that belonged to the tombstone of Muhammad ibn al-Abbas al-Hashimi, a member of the Hashemite family who had died in Gaza in the late 9th-century. On top of the mosque's entrance is the foundation inscription crediting Birdibak for the mosque's construction and honoring Sultan Inal.
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