Jenısalem As Archetype of the Hannonious Islamic Urban Environment
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Journal offslamic Jenısalem Studics (Wintcr 1997). ı : ı. 21-JH Jenısalem as Archetype of the Hannonious Islamic Urban Environment S. Abdallah Schleifer Professor, American l lniversity in Cairo When we speak of Islaınic .lenısalem. of al-Qud'" The Holy, as it is most commonly known today in Arabic, we allude to a spiritual as weU as a physical geography that has been visibly recognisable as such for more than 1,000 years. We speak now of the Old City or the Walled City which Creswell (who devoted a lifetime to the study ofMuslim architecturc) described as the mest perfectly prcserved example ofa mcdicvaJ lslamic city. We arc not dealing with the largely Arab-owned but sem.i-colonial-in-spirıt New City which spread along the Western rim of the city in the late nıneteenth century, expanded dramatically during the covert condominium of shared authority of British Mandate and Jcwısh Agency. and fell to the Israelis in the 1948 War But Islamic Jerusalem in the old Arab chronicles and geographical dictionaries also incorporatcs all of those sites of profound sacred import to the lslamic tradition which range from just beyond the shadows of the city's walls - such as the tomb of Nabi Daoud (the Prophet-King David) or the Mount of Olives where Nabi Isa (Jesus) ascended directly to Heaven - or that rest in distant sight of the Holy City's dominating skyline such as the tomb of Nabi Samu'il (the Prophet Samuel). 1 Jerusalem is the holiest of the holy in what God describes, in the Qur'an, as the Holy Land. (Qur'an V:21 - surah al-Ma'ida, the surah which means "The Table Spread" and which seems to allude to the Last Supper.) pÊ(# Ù# ÛÂ (# . ±($# ÙÍ. #è (# ϝϝϝͨϏϙϘχϜχϑόϏͨϕϘύ Jerubalem n.- A.rchtlypc ofth1: lfarmnııious lsl:ınıic l lrh~ıı Envıronmı:nı This spiritual conception of space is reflected in one of the oldest terms the Muslims use for Jen.ısalem - al-Bait al Muqadas. Derived from Qur'anic usage for purity and for the glorifıcation of Allah's name, it is used interchangeably to mean the Holy House or Temple (better known now as Haram al Sharif - the Noble Sanctuary). the Holy City and even the Holy Land in a similar manner to the use of Ba11 al-Haram to describe, according to context, the Ka'aba in Makkah, the sanctuary, haram, that enclosed the Ka'aba. Makkah itself and its outlying districts. it is my intention to consider briefly five factors that help define Islamic Jerusalenı as the archetypal harmonious Islamic urban environment. The first is the centrality oflslamic Jerusalem asa model for the overwhelmingly Muslim Mıdd\e East. The reverence with which this city is held in the religious consciousness of the Muslims is a reflection of the same spiritual centrality that prompted the Prophet Muhammad in a well known hadith (canonic tradition) to designate Jerusalcm along with Makkah and Madinah as the three centres of equal merit to which the faithful could ''journey" for prayer and pilgrimage.ı lt is of such centrality as to ha ve been the fırst direction, qib/a, ofMuslim prayer and to be revered as such in the religious consciousness of the Muslim. Al-Yaqut devotes as many pages of his remarkable thirteenth century geographical dictionary to Jen.ısalem as he does to Makkah and Madinah andan entire sub division of Arabic literaturc - thefada'il al-Quds books, devoted to extolling the spiritual virtues of Jerusalem - flourished from at least the ninth century to the eighteenth, inspiring as well as guiding the milli ons of Muslims who ha ve made ziyarah (formal visits) to the Holy City :ı Whoever has observed the proliferation of Islamic calendars and other popular artefacts that feature pictures of the Dome of the Rock from one end of the Muslim world to the other, or whoever recalls that President Sadat in part justified his peace initiative as a bold attempt to rescue Islamic Jerusalem and 22 pÊ(# Ù# ÛÂ (# . ±($# ÙÍ. #è (# ϝϝϝͨϏϙϘχϜχϑόϏͨϕϘύ J~rusn l ~m ı ~' Ardı~ıypı: of ıh~ Mı1nnıın1 11 uı. ı ~ınnıı~ llrhun Envirnmncttl tost his life partly because he had clearly failed to do so or whoever remembers that lranian military morale during the First Gulf War was in part sustained despite truly punishing losses by the image of lraq as an alleged barrier on the road to Jerusalem, cannot doubt that the Holy City retains its centrality in Muslim religious consciousness. Yet in the particularities of its claim to archetype, lslamic Jerusalem in contrast to Makkah and Madinah - cities ofthe homogeneric Arabian homeland - stands as a model for much of a Middle East that traditionaUy contained a mosaic of religious, ethnic and linguistic comnıunities within the unifying fıeld ofa broadly defined lslamic civilisation. This was a civilisation that drew its characteristic qualities as a social order from lslam without restricting participation in that civilisation to Muslims. Secondly, Jerusalem is central to the Muslim consciousness of Islam as both heir and seal of Semitic monotheism - of an lslam perceived of simultaneously as the priınordial religion that incorporates ali the prophetic figures of the Bible as primordial Muslims, as well as an lslam perceived of as a comrnunity of believers specifıc in time and bound by its acknowledgement of Muhammad as the final Prophet. Adam and Lot, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, David and Solomon, Jesus, Mary, John and Zakariya - ali are associated in one rnanner or another by the Qur'an and hadith with Jerusalem. 11 All the prophets have prayed in Jerusalem 11 is a saying attributed to Muhammad, and the additional popular traditional accounts coUected in the 11 Virtues of Jerusalem'' literature elaborate upon and extend the associations which are further reinforced in the prayers of the Muslim pilgrim in Jerusalem as he or she visits the many sites identified with the earlier prophets The most direct link between this primordial Islam and the Islam that emerged in seventh century Arabia is effected by the Prophet Muhaınmad's ıniraculous joumey by night to Jerusalem and his ascension from there to Heaven. The Qur'anic text, according to its meaning in English, reads: "Glory to God Who carried His servant fora joumey by 23 pÊ(# Ù# ÛÂ (# . ±($# ÙÍ. #è (# ϝϝϝͨϏϙϘχϜχϑόϏͨϕϘύ Jenı,~lcnı :ıs J\rch~tvp.: uf ıh~ M:ınnnnıous lslnııık 1l rh:m Jo:ıwıronmcnl night, from the Sacred Mosque, Ma.~jicl al-Haram, to the Farthest Mosque, Ma.~jid al Aqsa. whose precincts We did bless - in order that We might show him some of Our signs. 11 (Qur'an xvıı · 1) The interpretation of this verse and the explanation of this miraculous experience are to be found in the classical commentaries on the Qur'an, in the canonic collections of hadith and in the nearly contemporary biographies of the Prophet. Escorted by the Angel Gabriel and mounted on a mysterious winged an.imal called al-Buraq, the Prophet was carried by night from Makkah to Jerusalem. There on the site ofthe Temple - the farthest mosque - Muhammad is met by the prophets who preceded him (most notably by Abraham, Moses and Jesus); there he leads the preceding prophets in prayer and there he receives additional Revelation. Then, from the same sacred rock prefıgured in centuries of Jerusalem's sacred history, the Prophet ascended to Heaven by a Iadder of light and was led by stages to the seventh heaven to experience the Beatifıc Vision. The descent and retum to Makkah were accomplished during the same night, before dawn, but the entire experience took but a minute or so of prosaic or worldly time. it is instructive that the Qur'anic allusion to this miraculous link between primordial Tslam and the Islam of seventh century Arabia is the first ayal (verse) of the 17th sura that has been titled either al-lsra' - 11 The Night Journey", or 1 11 11 ''Bani Isra il - "The Children oflsrael. For the Arabian army advancing upon Jerusalem only a few years after the death of the Prophet, as well as for the many thousands of Palestinian Jews and Judeo-Christians in the neighbouring countryside wlıo rallied to their banner, the coming of Islam was the fulfilment of biblical prophecy." From that perspective, the clearing of the desolate temple site by the Caliph Umar, the re-institution ofregular prayer in this Haram a/-Sharif and its ongoing beautifıcation and visible sanctity in the years that follow under the Ummayad dynasty are ali signs of the 24 pÊ(# Ù# ÛÂ (# . ±($# ÙÍ. #è (# ϝϝϝͨϏϙϘχϜχϑόϏͨϕϘύ Jel'\lsnleııı ıuı Arthcıyp.: ııfthi! Hanmııııous l•lnmiı: l lrbnn EnvirnMı.:nt Temple Rebuilt, and interpreted as such in the earliest chronicle, that of the eighth century Byzantine historian, Theophanes ..s The earliest known Jewish apocalyptic ıexts that relate the coming of Islam indicate that even those Palestinian Jews who did not eınbrace Islam appear to have welconıed it as the vehicle of their redemption prophesied in !saiah XXI 13, and the texts acknowledge in the literary form of apocalyptic prophecy that "seme of Israe1 11 wiU embrace "the religion of lshmael 116 More than two centuries later, the Rabbi Saadia Ha'Goan, in his Responsa, rails against the ''Jewish Ishınaelites" among the Muslims of Jerusalem. 7 The third factor is the centrality of Jerusalem for Muslim spirituality or mysticism. Salman al Farsi, one of the Prophet's coınpanions mest closely associated with the transmission of the spiritual path, tariqa, is buried in Jerusalem as is Rabia al Adawiya al Basra, one ofthe grcat saints. awliya', of the earliest generations. Sufyan al-Thawri, lbrahim Adham, Bayazid Bistami, and Abu 1l Najib al-Suhrawardi are among the many Sufıs drawn to Jenısalem in earliest centuries of Islam and their regard is echoed in the spiritual fever that informs the developing "Virtues of Jerusalem 11 literature - a literature largely developed by Sufıs including such prorninent fıgures as the sixteenth century Egyptian, Sha'rani and the eighteenth century Syrian, Abdul Ghani al-Nabulsi.