Mahmood Mosque, Haifa

The mosque is situated in Kababir, a neighborhood in the Carmel area near the southern entrance to Haifa.[1][2] Kababir was founded as a village in 1850; by the early 1930s, it had become the principal center of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community in the Middle East.[1][4]

JNS identifies the mosque as named for Bashiruddin Mahmood Ahmad, the movement's second khalifa and a son of its founder.[1] The building's two towers make it visually distinctive within the neighborhood.[2] In 2019, community leaders identified an empty lot opposite the mosque as a potential site for a museum about Ahmadiyya history, values, and activities.[4]

The organized Ahmadiyya presence in what is now Israel dates to 1927, when missionary Maulana Jalalud-Din Shams was sent from India to the Near East and Middle East. By the early 1930s, Kababir had become the movement's regional center.[1] The mosque opened in 1934 and was redone in 1979; a 2019 report said it remained in use by community members.[1][4]

An eleventh, revised and updated edition of Falah Odeh's 26-page Hebrew booklet, published in 2018 by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Haifa, presented Kababir as the center of Ahmadiyya in the Holy Land and discussed the Odeh family's early settlement there and the village's development.[5]

The Haifa Ahmadiyya community also published Al-Bushra, a monthly religious journal. The National Library of Israel lists online holdings spanning 1935 to 1950, comprising 103 issues and 3,246 pages; its description says the journal published religious and ethical sermons alongside Quranic material.[6]

In 2018, Kababir was reported to have about 2,000 residents, approximately 70 percent of whom were Ahmadi Muslims.[1] By 2019, Ahmadiyya adherents lived alongside other Haifa residents, while the movement's adherents in Israel remained geographically concentrated in the neighborhood.[4]

The mosque serves as a place of worship for Kababir's Ahmadiyya community.[1] JNS reported that Ahmadis in Israel enjoyed full religious and cultural freedom, in contrast to the persecution experienced by Ahmadi communities elsewhere in the Middle East.[1] Community leader Muhammad Sharif Odeh declared his personal motto to be "love for all, hatred for none."[7]

Following the November 2016 forest fires near Haifa, the local Ahmadiyya community, under Odeh's leadership, joined Maronite Christians in helping repair Moriah Congregation's synagogue. The communities contributed carpentry work and needed supplies, and opened facilities and private homes to shelter and feed evacuees regardless of religious affiliation.[7] In recognition of this response, the American Jewish Committee presented Odeh and two other religious leaders with its Unity Award in June 2017.[7]

In 2023, Sheikh Muhammad Sharif Odeh hosted French imam Hassen Chalghoumi at the mosque during Chalghoumi's visit to Israel for meetings with religious leaders and a conference in Haifa.[3] A group of Kuwaiti businessmen also included the mosque among the religious, educational, and cultural sites visited during a private trip to Israel.[8]

The mosque is Kababir's principal visitor destination. A 2006 travel report recommended it to visitors touring the Carmel area and highlighted its distinctive two-tower architecture.[2] Community leader Muhammad Sharif reported in 2019 that visitors and tourists came to the neighborhood daily.[4]

In 2019, the Ahmadiyya community was seeking to establish a museum on an empty lot opposite the mosque. The proposed institution was intended to present the community's history, values, and activities and answer visitors' requests for information about Kababir. At the time of the report, it remained a proposal rather than an established museum.[4]

The National Library of Israel's description of Al-Bushra states that its editorial board opposed the United Nations Partition Plan through at least 1948, characterizing it as a historic injustice to the resident Arab population. After the events of 1948, the journal discussed political alternatives including communist and social-democratic ideas.[6] These were the journal's stated positions during a particular historical period and are distinct from the community's contemporary interfaith activities.