Timeline of Shīʿī History in Palestine

Timeline of Shīʿī History in Palestine Umayyads – Early second/eighth century: People from Palestine send a convoy to the Imām Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq. ʿAbbāsids – Second half of the third/ninth century: The geographer al-Yaʿqūbī mentions the settlement of the Shīʿī ʿĀmila tribe in the Jund Filasṭīn. – 271/884: Muḥammad b. Ḥamza, a descendant of al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAlī, is murdered in Tiberias by Ṭughj b. Juff the Ikhshīdid. – 289–90/902–03: The Ismāʿīlī mahdī of Salamiyya, ʿAbdallāh al-Mahdī, hides in Ramla. – First half of the fourth/tenth century: The Persian Shīʿī poet Kushājim sojourns in Ramla. Fāṭimids – Second half of the fourth/tenth century: The geographer Muḥammad al-Maqdisī complains that all Tiberias, half of Nablus, and Qadas are Shīʿīs. – 360–67/970–77: The Qarmaṭī invasion of Palestine is centered in Ramla. – 363–64/973–74: Authorities imposed Shīʿī customs in Palestine, two Sunnīs from Ramla and Jerusalem who opposed it were detained and tortured. – 386/996: Shīʿī messianic rebellion of Abū l-Futūḥ Ḥasan b. Jaʿfar, the amīr of Mecca in Ramla. – First half of the fifth/eleventh century: – Shīʿī genealogist Najm al-Dīn al-ʿUmarī travels through Ramla, and mentions several Ṭālibiyyūn (descendants of the Imāms) in Jerusalem, Tiberias, and Ramla. – The Sunnī Ibn Ḥazm al-Andalusī complains that all of Urdunn (that is, Galilee), mainly Tiberias, is controlled by the Nuṣayrīs (now ʿAlawīs). – Druzes/Ḥākimī spread propaganda in Galilee (al-Buqayʿa) and Ḥamza’s oppo- nents are mentioned in Acre. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004421028_015 Yaron Friedman - 9789004421028 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 04:13:15AM via free access Timeline 203 – Mid-fifth/eleventh century: The traveler Nāṣir Khusraw mentions Shīʿīs in Tiberias and Fāṭimid investment and construction projects in Palestine. – 410–16/1019–25: The Shīʿī scholar Muḥammad al-Karājukī, student of Shaykh al- Mufīd, settles in Ramla. – 467/1074: The Turkish Atsiz Ibn Uwaq al-Khwarizmī invades Palestine and massa- cres the population of Tiberias (including Shīʿīs); Turcomans resettle the deserted Ramla with local Sunnī farmers. – 471/1078: The Fāṭimids recapture Palestine. – 484/1090: Badr al-Jamālī claims that he found the head of Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī in Ashkelon. His son al-Afḍal erected the Mashhad al-Ra ʾs (lit., ‘the mausoleum of the head’). – 485–93/1092–99: Muḥammad b. al-ʿArabī of Granada, passing through Palestine, engages in polemical discussions with Imāmī and Bāṭinī (Ismāʿīlī) Shīʿīs in Acre and Tiberias. Crusaders – 495/1101: The crusaders destroy a Shīʿī library in Haifa founded by Asʿad b. Abī Rawḥ from Tripoli (Lebanon). – Sixth/twelfth century: Crusaders turn the shrine of ʿĀlī b. Abī Tālib in ʿayn al-baqara (lit., ‘fountain of the cow’) in Acre, into a church, then regret their actions and leave the site. – 549/1153: The head of Ḥusayn is transferred from Ashkelon, which was captured by crusaders, to Cairo. – 570/1174: The Persian traveler al-Harawī described Mashhad al-Ra ʾs, which still ex- isted in Ashkelon, though there was no longer a Shīʿī population. Ayyūbids – End of the sixth/twelfth century: Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn captures the tomb of Sukayna in Tiberias, and renews its sanctity from the Fāṭimid period and turn it into a Sunnī sanctuary. – 583/1187: Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn destroys Ramla and Tiberias, two towns that had key Shīʿī communities in the past. – 587/1191: Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn destroys Ashkelon and transfers the minbar of the head of Ḥusayn mausoleum to Hebron. Yaron Friedman - 9789004421028 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 04:13:15AM via free access 204 Timeline Mamlūks – Mid seventh/thirteenth century: The Persian geographer Zakariyyā al-Qazwīnī mentions Sunnī veneration of Mashhad al-Ra ʾs in Ashkelon. – 694/1294: The Mamlūk governor of Safed has inscriptions made on the tomb of Sukayna in Tiberias and makes it a waqf – Eighth/fourteenth century: – The Black Death strikes the population of Palestine. – The Ḥanbalī scholar Ibn Taymiyya writes in a fatwā his refutation of the Mashhad al-Ra ʾs in Ashkelon. – First half of the eighth/fourteenth century: – The geographer Ibn Baṭūṭṭa describes the Mashhad al-Ra ʾs in Ashkelon, but notes the absence of Shīʿīs. – Muḥammad Jamāl al-Dīn al-Makkī (“the first shahīd”) passes through Palestine, and does not mention a Shīʿī population. – The Sunnī geographer Shams al-Dīn al-Dimashqī and the historians al-ʿUthmānī and al-Qalqashandī mention Shīʿīs in the district of Safed (including Hūnīn), after a silence of two centuries, during which Muslim scholars did not mention their presence in the region. Ottomans – Tenth/sixteenth century: Zayn al-Dīn b. ʿAlī al-Jubāʿī al-ʿĀmilī (“the second shahīd”) passes through Palestine, and does not mention a Shīʿī population. – Between the years 928/1521 and 930/1523: The Italian rabbi Moshe Bāsola mentions the tomb of Sukayna in Tiberias as that of Rachel, the wife of Rabi Akiva. – End of the eleventh/seventeenth century: Collapse of the Druze Maʿn rule in northern Palestine, while the Ottomans are preoccupied with wars against Russia. – Twelfth/eighteenth century: Pro-Ottoman historians Sulaymān al-Muḥāsinī and Khalīl al-Murādī complain about the Shīʿī population in the district of Safed. – 1163/1749: Battle near Tirbīkha between the two leaders, Sunnī Ẓāhir al-ʿUmar and Shīʿī Nāṣīf al-Naṣṣār over the control of Shīʿī villages in northern Galilee. – 1164/1751 and again in 1182/1768: A peace treaty is signed between Ẓāhir al-ʿUmar and Nāṣīf al-Naṣṣār in Acre, leaving the Shīʿī villages under al-Naṣṣār’s control. – 1166/1752: al-Naṣṣār builds the mosque of Hūnīn. – 1185/1771: Following al-Naṣṣār’s victory over ʿUthmān Pasha, al-Naṣṣār builds the shrine of al-Nabī Yūshaʿ, becoming the most important Shīʿī site in Palestine. – 1190/1776 and 1195/1780: Al-Jazzār, governor of Acre, launchs punitive campaigns against the Shīʿī villages in Galilee and southern Lebanon. Yaron Friedman - 9789004421028 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 04:13:15AM via free access Timeline 205 – Between 1293/1876 and 1306/1888: The Ottoman governor Raʾūf Pasha rebuilds the long-neglected mashhad of Ḥusayn, still as a Sunnī in Ashkelon. British Mandate – 1922: A British census shows 156 Shīʿī Matāwlīs living in Palestine, mostly in al-Baṣṣa. – 1923: Following border changes, seven Shīʿī villages in Palestine are transmitted from the French to the British Mandate, adding 3,191 Shīʿīs to their population. Prior to the 1948 war (together with al-Baṣṣa) their population was more than 4,770 people. – 1948: During the Israeli War of Independence Shīʿīs from Palestine, mainly from Mālkiyya, volunteer to fight in Fawzī l-Qawuqjī’s Arab Liberation Army. – Negotiations take place between Shīʿī Matāwlī leaders of Hūnīn and the kibbutz of Kfar Giladi, but fail. – The Matāwlīs of Galilee become refugees in Lebanon. State of Israel – 1998: A delegation of the Ismāʿīlī Dāwūdī Bohrās locate the cornerstone of the last shrine of the head of Ḥusayn, and receive authorization from Israel to build a mod- est open marble site for pilgrims. – 2000: A few Shīʿīs, ex-soldiers from the South Lebanese Army, and their families settled in Israel following its withdrawal from southern Lebanon and the disman- tling of the SLA. – A temporary spread of Shīʿism in Galilee, mainly in Dabūriyya, following the second Israeli-Lebanese war (2006) and Hizbullah’s declaration of victory. – 2008: The municipality of Ashkelon posts a sign near the site the Bohrās make pil- grimages to in Ashkelon, explaining the history of the head of Ḥusayn. – 2012: Palestinian solidarity with Hizbullah and conversions to Shīʿism among Israeli Arabs diminish following the organization’s involvement in the Syrian war. – 2014: The Shīʿī organization called al-Ṣābirīn, sponsored by Iran, is established in Gaza. – 2016: Hamas movement in Gaza limits al-Ṣābirīn’s activity. – 2019: Hizbullah’s leader in Lebanon still threatens to fight against Israel to recapture the seven Shīʿī villages in the Galilee. Yaron Friedman - 9789004421028 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 04:13:15AM via free access.

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