Arbaeen Mosque

One of the archaeological sites in Homs, the Arbaeen Mosque

Going back to the construction of the mosque, it goes back to the era of Prince “Hussein bin Qarakouz Al-Kujki”, and he was known as the “Al-Kojki Mosque”, and it is also called the “Shehab Al-Kujki Mosque”, as mentioned in the Chalabi Endowment dated 976 AH / 1568 AD. In 1569 AD, a school and a house for orphaned students were built next to the mosque on the city wall, and it remained in place until the mid forties of the last century.

According to the information contained in the documents and records of the Department of Antiquities, “Homs”, Professor “Farid Jabbour”, director of the department, stated on 1/11/2008 that the “Forty Mosque” is registered among the archaeological buildings by Resolution No. (485) dated 12/11/1945. And one of the documents of the Department of Antiquities stated about the minaret of the Al-Arba’een Mosque that: “It was built over the northwestern tower of the city wall, and it is the only remaining tower to these days, and its construction dates back to the Ayyubid era. It is a modest minaret whose height does not exceed three meters above the tower.

As for the tower, it is cylindrical in shape, built from the bottom with large basalt stones that continue at a height of two meters, and from the top small basalt stones continue to the end of the tower, which contains recesses for archers and spears, and inside the tower stands for archers who were climbed by stairs.”

As for naming the neighborhood and the mosque as the forty, it was stated in the mentioned document that: “On one side of the mosque’s campus is a shrine above which is a foundation plaque on which he wrote (Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds. On the authority of the Prophet, peace be upon him, he said: The replacements are in Syria, and they are forty men.

The researcher, “Naim Al-Zahrawi” mentioned about the mosque in his book (Homs Families and Places of Worship C2, pages 20 and 21): “It was renewed in the forties of the last century by the “Sheikh Othman family”, and it was renewed in the sixties also by the family that did not It still serves the mosque to this day.

Its historical and religious value is due to the fact that it was built on the wall of the old city, and the wall was subjected to many calamities before the mosque was built on it, the last of which was the great “Homs” earthquake in 1157 AD, which led to the collapse and destruction of a large part of it, but the Sultan “Nur al-Din Mahmoud” Al-Zanki ordered the rebuilding of the tower and the wall, after which Al-Kojki built the mosque.

It is worth noting that the old forty neighborhood in Homs was demolished at the end of the last century, and a group of modern buildings were constructed in its place that included a number of directorates and government and private institutions, among them the Finance Directorate, the Central Bank, the Social Insurance Institution branch and a group of shops.