Hala Sultan Tekke Mosque

Hala Sultan Tekke on the western shore of the Larnaca Salt Lake in southern Cyprus is one of the most important Islamic religious sites in the Mediterranean and is venerated by some Sunni Muslim traditions as the fourth holiest shrine in Islam after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem — though this ranking is not formally recognised by all Islamic scholars. The shrine is the burial place of Umm Haram bint Milhan, an Ansari woman of Medina who was, according to Islamic tradition, the foster aunt of the Prophet Muhammad, and who accompanied her husband Ubada ibn al-Samit on the early Arab raid against Cyprus in 649 CE. Tradition holds that she fell from her mule and died on the shore of the salt lake during this expedition and was buried at the spot. The current complex was constructed by the Ottoman authorities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and includes a small mosque with a single dome and a single slender minaret, an enclosed tomb chamber containing the relic stones traditionally identified with Umm Haram's grave, and accommodation for visiting pilgrims, set within a peaceful garden of cypress and palm trees beside the lake. The shrine has remained accessible to Muslim pilgrims throughout the recent political division of Cyprus and is also a popular destination for non-Muslim visitors interested in the early Islamic history of the Mediterranean.