Mosque Alshhyd Bdallh Zam

Inside the densely populated refugee town of al Nusayrat in the central Gaza Strip, Masjid al Shahid Abd Allah Azzam carries a name that evokes courage, scholarship, and sacrifice in the long Palestinian struggle for dignity. Abd Allah Azzam (may God have mercy on him), a scholar of Palestinian origin born in Jenin in 1941, studied at the great institutions of Damascus and Cairo and later taught in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Al Nusayrat itself grew from a tent camp established in 1948 into one of the largest refugee towns of the Gaza coastal strip, home to families descended from villages across what is now southern and central Palestine, including Yibna, Isdud, and al Majdal.
Palestinian Islamic heritage draws on fourteen centuries of continuous worship, scholarship, and pilgrimage connected with the sacred precinct of al Aqsa in Jerusalem, a site that the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, visited during the Night Journey and toward which the first Muslim generation prayed for sixteen months before the qibla was turned toward the Sacred Mosque in Makkah. Gazan communities have held fast to their attachment to al Aqsa across every trial of modern history, and the neighbourhood mosques of the Gaza Strip serve not only as houses of daily prayer but as the spiritual heart of a people under long siege.
Architecturally the masjid follows the simple concrete construction that dominates Gazan neighbourhood mosques since the mid twentieth century. Whitewashed walls frame a flat roof, a single square minaret rises above the surrounding apartment blocks, and a small dome sits above the prayer hall. Inside, patterned carpets cover the floor, ceiling fans turn steadily through the long Mediterranean summer, and the mihrab carries Qur'anic calligraphy. Friday sermons address themes of patience through hardship, trust in God, and solidarity with the wider ummah, while during Ramadan the community gathers for collective iftars of maqluba, musakhan, and sweet qatayef. Accurate daily prayer times for Fajr, Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib, and Isha at this al Nusayrat mosque appear on this page for every resident of the Gaza Strip.