 In 1187 the Ayyubids under Saladin wrested control of Gaza from the Crusaders and destroyed the cathedral. The Mamluks reconstructed the mosque in the 13th-century, but in 1260, the Mongols destroyed it. It was rebuilt thereafter, but in 1294, an earthquake caused its collapse. Extensive renovations centered on the iwan were undertaken by the governor Sunqur al-Ala 'i during the sultanate of Husam ad-Din Lajin between 1297-99. A later Mamluk governor of the city, Sanjar al-Jawli, commissioned the restoration of the Great Mosque sometime between 1311 and 1319. The Mamluks finally rebuilt the mosque completely in 1340. In 1355 Muslim geographer Ibn Battuta noted the mosque's former existence as "a fine Friday mosque," but also says that al-Jawli's mosque was "well-built." Inscriptions on the mosque bear the signatures of the Mamluk sultans al-Nasir Muhammad (dated 1340), Qaitbay (dated May 1498), Qansuh al-Ghawri (dated 1516), and the Abbasid caliph al-Musta'in Billah (dated 1412).
