Nabi Yahya Mosque
The Nabi Yahya Mosque is a mosque containing the traditional tomb of Yahya in Sebastia, Nablus. The mosque also reputedly contains the tombs of the prophets Elisha and Obadiah. This mosque was originally a church.
Nabi Yahya is the main mosque in the Palestinian village of Sebastia, located in the central square. It is constructed of large buttressed walls and within its courtyard a stairway in the small domed building leads down into a cave.
History
Byzantine church
The Nabi Yahya Mosque stands on the site identified since Byzantine times as the place where John the Baptist's body was buried by his followers. Matthew 14:12 records that "his disciples came and took away body and buried it". A church was erected on the spot of the tomb during the Byzantine era.Crusader cathedral
The church erected above John the Baptist's tomb was superseded by a Crusader-built church in 1160. It was transformed into a mosque by Saladin in 1187, although some sources say it was converted by the Mamluks in 1261. Nabi Yahya refers to John the Baptist in the Arabic language of Muslims, while Christians and Jews call him yūḥannā.In 1870, the French explorer Victor Guérin visited the place, and noted:
Later, in the 1870s, the Palestine Exploration Fund excavated the place, which it described in its Survey of Western Palestine as "a mere shell, the greater part of the roof and aisle piers gone, and over the crypt a modern kubbeh has been built. The interior length is 158 feet, the breadth 74 feet; the west wall is 10 feet thick, the north wall 8 feet, the south wall 4 feet. There were six bays, of which the second from the east is larger, probably once supporting a dome. On the east are three apses to nave and aisles, the central apse is 30 feet in diameter, equal to the width of the nave. The piers had four columns attached, one each side; on the west was a doorway and two windows; on the south four windows remain, and on the north three."