Contested Space: Jerusalem during the Crusades and Counter-Crusades

Contested Space/ Shared Space?
“The most holy, most royal, most noble, and magnificent above all cities of the world…
For all generations of the world call you holy, as from the first Christians, Jews, Saracens, Jacobites, Nestorians, Georgians, Ethiopians, Copts, Arabs, Turks, Berbers, and Pagans.”
Niccolò, a Franciscan friar from Poggibonsi, Tuscany (1348)

Shared/Contested Heritage
“The uniqueness of Jerusalem is that most of its memories were Jewish, but that these Jewish memories became Christian, and Christian and Jewish memories became Muslim. Alone, of all the holy cities in the world, the space of Jerusalem could accommodate all these pious expressions in every one of their confessional garbs."
(Oleg Grabar, Jerusalem: Its Sanctity and Centrality to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, New York: 1999, p. 285)

Jerusalem and the Middle East on the Eve of the Crusades
Fatimid rule (969- 1099)
Al-Hakim’s destruction of Holy Sepulcher (1009)
Jewish Rabbanite and Karaite presence and ceremonies
1033 earthquake, and massive reconstruction
Seljuq (Turk) conquests (1073-1098)
Compilation of Islamic “Merits of Jerusalem” (Fada’il Bayt al-Maqdis) treatises

Temple Mt / al-Haram al-Sharif / al-Aqsa Mosque

Pilgrims of all denominations
Nasir Khosraw (1046): “20,000 each year.”
Rodulfus Glaber of Burgundy (980-1046): "an innumerable multitude of people from the whole world…finally, and this was something which had never happened before, numerous women, noble and poor.“
Gaon Elijah b. Shlomoh (1057): “on Mount Olives… all our brethren, the house of Israel, assemble on the month of Tishrei to pray in front of the stones of Jerusalem and to kiss its earth, and circumambulate its gates.”

In the footsteps of Jesus

To cry…

Or to die…
Muslim cemetery, vicinity of Golden Gate

Christian Pilgrims (humiliated) in front of the Holy Sepulcher Ms Fr 2810 fol.274

Pilgrimage in arms?
First Four Crusades (1096-1204); Kingdom in 1135

Basic Chronology: 88+10 years of Latin Rule
1095: Proclamation of First Crusade at Clermont. Thousands enlist. For the redemption of Jerusalem? For Christian brethren in the East?
1099: siege and bloody conquest of Jerusalem; “religious cleansing.” al-Aqsa turned into royal palace.
1100 coronation of first King of Jerusalem
1187 capture of Jerusalem by Muslims
1192 negotiations between Richard Lionheart and Saladin
1129-1139 Frederich

Capital of The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem

Pope Benedict XVI greeted by Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theofilos III, Jerusalem, May 2009.
Authentic portrayal of friendly relations?

CRUSADER PERIOD COINS ISSUED IN JERUSALEM WITH THE SYMBOLS OF THE CITY
RIGHT: THE HOLY SEPULCHER; LEFT: TEMPLE MOUNT; CENTER: THE JERUSALEM CITADEL

Sanctity and Liturgy
Two religious centers:
the Church of the Holy Sepulcher
Mt. Moriah
new axis of sanctity, new narratives and rituals,
processions between the two

Holy Sepulcher: site of the crucifixion, anointing, and burial

1149
Festive Inauguration

Chapel of the Ascension (Mt. of Olives)

Templum Domini (Augustinian church); Templum Salomonis (headquarters of Templars); stables

Military Architecture: Belvoir Castle (1149)

Crusader castles, towns, villages, farm-houses and churches (Ronnie Ellenblum)

Saladin’s Kingdom on the eve of the Battle of Hattin (July 1187)

“Ula al-Qiblatayn, thani al-Masjidayn, thalith al-Haramayn”

“How could God not assist in the conquest of the mighty Jerusalem and of the al-Aqsa Mosque… since she is the seat of the prophets, the home of the saints… [where] angels visit… There is the rock, from which the Way of the Ascension (mi`raj) leaves… and for there Buraq departed on the night of the heavenly journey… within it are the throne of Solomon and the Oratory of David… Jerusalem is the first qibla, the second of the two houses of God, and the third sacred sanctuary”
(`Imad al-Din al-Isfahani, summer of 1187)

The Night Journey (17: 1)
“Glory be to Him Who made His servant go on a night from the Sacred Mosque to the remote mosque (al-masjid al-aqsa) of which We have blessed the precincts, so that We may show to him some of Our signs; surely He is the Hearing, the Seeing.”

Night Journey of the Prophet
fourteenth century Timurid miniature))

Outer Inscription (renewed)

Ayyubid Period
27 Rajab(!) 583 / 1187 capitulation of Frankish Jerusalem; re-Islamization, fortification, Islamization of narratives
September 1192 Treaty of Jaffa: truce between Saladin and Richard Lion Heart.
1229 treaty between al-Malik al-Kamil and Frederick II - Jerusalem temporarily restored to Franks; Temple Mt. remains Muslim. Public outrage on Muslim side; excommunication of Emperor on Christian side.
Resurgence of Fada’il works

Saladin (Damascus 1992)
"Jerusalem’s Liberation” in three languages

Ayyubid Building Projects
Re-consecration of Haram, reparations; commemorational structures on the Haram
use of architectural spolia
Conversion of Latin buildings to madrasas and Sufi establishments;
Naskhi script
Fortifications (walls, citadel)

Interior of Dome of the Rock

Interior of al-Aqsa

Al-Aqsa, Ayyubid facade

Nur al-Din’s minbar
Commissioned in 1168-9, installed in 1187

Dome of the Acension (Qubbat al-Mi`raj)

Qubbat al-Silsila/ St. James CHapel

Al-Madrasa al-Nahawiyya, 1208 (“Grammar school”)

Santa Anna / al-Madrasa al-Salahiyya (1192)

Al-Khanqah al-Salahiyya (Patriarch’s Palace turned in Sufi lodge)

Jewish resettlement 1187-1219 (1229)
Great (and/or messianic) expectation from Saladin
Refugees from Ascalon (1191)
Maghrebis, Yemenites, French (“300 Rabbis”)
Influence of Sufism and Christian pilgrimage?
Support of Abraham Maimonides head of Egyptian Jewry

Re-abandonment
Economic hardships, better opportunities in Crusader Acre, Bilbays, Alexandria
Demolition of walls (1219)
Peace agreement between al-Malik al-Kamil and Frederich II (1229) and restoration of Jerusalem to the Crusaders
One Jewish dyer settles in the city

“if I forget thee, Oh Jerusalem, may my right hand wither…”

Ramadan in Jerusalem
Pictures taken in June 2015

Masharti – waking the people up for breakfast before dawn
אחמד מחמוד ומורן טל

Breaking the fast after sunset
אחמד מחמוד ומורן טל

Special sweets
מאכלים וקינוחים מיוחדים
אחמד מחמוד ומורן טל

Nocturnal Prayers (tarawikh)
אחמד מחמוד ומורן טל

Sufi Performance
אחמד מחמוד ומורן טל

Night of Ramadan
אחמד מחמוד ומורן טל