Nabi Musa (West Bank)

Nabi Musa (Arabic: ٱلنَّبِي مُوْسَى, romanized: An-Nabī Mūsā, lit. 'the Prophet Moses', 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. Considered in the political context of 1920 as "the most important Muslim pilgrimage in Palestine", 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. 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" (see West Bank Bedouin). By 2017, Nabi Musa district had a population of 343 residents.