Nabi Musa

Nabi Musa
Local Development Committee
Arabic transcription(s)
 • Arabicٱلنَّبِي مُوْسَى
 • LatinAn-Nabi Musa (official)
Nebi Musa (unofficial)
Hebrew transcription(s)
 • Hebrewנבי מוסא‎
Nabi Musa, 2010
Nabi Musa, 2010
Nabi Musa is located in State of Palestine
Nabi Musa
Nabi Musa
Location of Nabi Musa in the State of Palestine
Nabi Musa is located in the West Bank
Nabi Musa
Nabi Musa
Nabi Musa (the West Bank)
Coordinates: 31°47′11″N 35°25′52″E / 31.78639°N 35.43111°E / 31.78639; 35.43111
StateState of Palestine
GovernorateJericho
Government
 • TypeLocal Development Committee
Area
 • Total122,248[1] dunams (122.2 km2 or 47.2 sq mi)
Population
 (2017)[2]
 • Total343
 • Density2.8/km2 (7.3/sq mi)
Name meaning"Prophet Moses"

Nabi Musa (Arabic: ٱلنَّبِي مُوْسَى, romanized: An-Nabī Mūsā, lit. 'the Prophet Moses',[3] also transliterated as Nebi Musa) is primarily a Muslim holy site near Jericho in Palestine, where a local Muslim tradition places the tomb of Moses (called Musa in Islam). The compound is centered on a mosque which contains the alleged tomb. It used to be the site of an eponymous seven-day-long religious festival that was celebrated annually by Palestinian Muslims, beginning on the Friday before Good Friday in the Orthodox calendar used by the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem.[4] Considered in the political context of 1920 as "the most important Muslim pilgrimage in Palestine",[5] the festival was built around a collective pilgrimage from Jerusalem to what was understood to be the Tomb of Moses. A great building with multiple domes marks the mausoleum of Moses.[6]

Nabi Musa is also a Palestinian administrative territorial unit in the Jericho Governorate on the West Bank, with an area of c. 113 km2 and situated south of Jericho, in which 66 Palestinian households were counted in 2007, a population defined in 2012 as "nomads"[7][8][9] (see West Bank Bedouin). By 2017, Nabi Musa district had a population of 343 residents.[2]

  1. ^ Nabi Musa Profile. Jerusalem Media and Communications Center. 2007-02-09. Retrieved on 2012-07-04.
  2. ^ a b Preliminary Results of the Population, Housing and Establishments Census, 2017 (PDF). Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) (Report). State of Palestine. February 2018. pp. 64–82. Retrieved 2023-10-24.
  3. ^ For Moses as nabi in Islamic holy scripture see Quran 19:51 (glossed by rasul "messenger"). For "nabi" in the Hebrew Scriptures see, for example, Numbers 12:6–8. The word comes from a Semitic root meaning "to gush forth". For a survey of the philological evidence see G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, Heinz-Josef Fabry, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing 1998 pp.135ff.140f.
  4. ^ Curtiss (2004), pp. 163–164
  5. ^ Gonen (2003), p. 138
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference OConnor was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ ARIJ (2012), pp. 4, 6
  8. ^ Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, 2007 Census Archived 2010-12-10 at the Wayback Machine, p. 115. Retrieved on 2012-07-04
  9. ^ Mills (1932), p. 45