[4] Over a 70-year period in the 1800s, the hill on which the tomb stands was used as a meeting place by students of the Vilna Gaon.

These Jews rented the hill from its Arab owners and gathered for study and Friday-night prayers in a tent, joined by local Ashkenazi and Sephardi kabbalists.

[6] In the late 19th century, an almost entirely Jewish neighborhood called Ukasha in the Ottoman census lists developed around the tomb with the Jewish housing estates of Sha'arey Moshe or the Wittenberg Houses (called the Waytenberk neighborhood in the Ottoman census) founded in 1885, Even Yehoshua founded in 1891, and Kolel Varsha (called the Rabi Daud neighborhood in the Ottoman census) founded in 1897.

[7] As a result of the Palestinian Arab exodus from western Jerusalem during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the mosque was abandoned.

[4] In December 2011 the mosque was defaced with graffiti by right-wing extremists who tried to set fire to it in a price tag attack.