Carmel was a holy mountain long before Haifa was a city. The book of Kings sets on it the contest in which Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal to call down fire on a sacrifice and, when nothing happens, mocks them for serving a god who may be asleep or travelling. Whatever its historical kernel, the story fixed the mountain in Jewish and Christian memory as the place where a competition between gods was decided in public.
A cave at the foot of the promontory is venerated as Elijah's, and it is visited by Jews, Christians, Muslims and Druze, each with their own account of who he was; in Muslim tradition he is associated with al-Khidr, the green one, and in Druze belief he holds a particular place. The cave is one of the few sites in the region used by four communities without a formal division of it.
In about 1200 a group of Latin hermits living on the mountain asked the patriarch of Jerusalem for a rule, and received a short text that became the Rule of Saint Albert. They took their name from the mountain, and when the crusader states fell they carried the Carmelite order to Europe, where it produced Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. A monastery, Stella Maris, stands on the headland today. Druze villages on the Carmel ridge above the city are among the oldest continuously inhabited settlements of that community in the country.