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Today's events in Gaza drag us back to yesterday, and one wonders what Palestine was like in the previous stages of its history, especially in times of peace and security under Muslim rule? Has this country ever known a comfortable and comfortable life? How was the urbanization in its cities? How did travelers see it throughout history?
These are questions that will be answered by these extraordinary journeys undertaken by many Muslim travelers, led by the prince of Muslim travelers, Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Abdullah bin Ibrahim Al-Tanji, known as Ibn Battuta (d. 779 AH). He is one of the distinguished people who spent three decades of his life searching for… Knowledge, exploring the mysteries of the world, and knowing the cultures of Muslim and non-Muslim peoples, and since Ibn Battuta’s trip was primarily for the purpose of Hajj, the man was fond of visiting the holy places and all the regions that Islam reached, and at the heart of them were Jerusalem, Hebron, Ashkelon, Tiberias, and other cities of Palestine, and this is the visit that he made. It was there in the prime of his life, and for this reason he provided us with important details about Palestine in the eighth century AH/thirteenth century AD.
These memories recorded by Ibn Battuta represent the lens of that era, which froze time in a framework of descriptions that he presented with extreme honesty and accuracy. It is fortunate that he “undertook this journey after nearly a century and a half had passed since the end of the threats of the Crusaders and Mongols, which had almost stopped the march of civilization in large areas of the world.” Islam has succeeded in rebuilding itself, and we find that the wounds of the nation of Islam have healed, and that we are facing a new Islamic world born after the catastrophe” (1).
Between Gaza and Hebron
Ibn Battuta had descended on Egypt in the months of the year 726 AH/1326 AD, and was aiming to perform Hajj by the traditional route of the Moroccans, when he ascended the Nile to Upper Egypt, and from there he crossed the eastern desert towards the Red Sea, then he was forced to return north towards Cairo due to wars that took place between the Baja and the Mamluks. who were ruling Egypt at that time, then he set out from there to Belbeis in the Sharqiya, where he landed in the month of Shaban of that year, then crossed the Sinai desert towards the north towards Al-Arish and from there to Gaza, which is, as he says, “the first of the Levant countries next to Egypt, with wide diameters and many buildings. Good markets, many mosques and no walls” (2).
Ibn Battuta was impressed by the largest mosque in Gaza. “The one in which Friday prayers are now held (in his time) was built by the Grand Emir Al-Jawli. It was elegantly built, meticulously crafted, and its pulpit was made of white marble. The judge of Gaza was Badr Al-Din Al-Salakhti Al-Hourani.” It seems that the Al Salem family held the highest cultural status in Mamluk Gaza at that time, and our travelers were keen to mention its most important scholars, for “its teacher was Alam al-Din bin Salem, and the sons of Salem were the leaders of this city, including Shams al-Din, the judge of Jerusalem” (3).
The Prince Al-Jawli referred to by Ibn Battuta is Prince Alam al-Din Sanjar Al-Jawli, one of the governors who transformed Gaza from a small, dilapidated village into a large city, by building schools, mosques, mosques, markets, and khans there and in Palestine as well. He is a man of Anatolian origins from the city of Diyarbakir “Amad.” Specifically, where he learned Shafi’i jurisprudence, then he joined the Mamluk army until he became one of the most prominent educated princes. He was the man who reconstructed and established Gaza, and all the cities that he was supervising, and also in other cities of Palestine, such as Hebron, Nablus, and others. He was extremely keen on beneficial urbanization. ; The religious, cultural and economic benefits that Palestine was deprived of during the time of the Crusaders.
For this reason, Al-Safadi describes him in “Notables of the Age and Aides to Victory” as “He is the one who civilized Gaza and Egypt, opened its eyes and its sight… and built therein a palace for the governorship, spacious in areas… and built therein a bathhouse whose space expanded and whose sky rose… Then, in the second governorship, he built a mosque there. He encompasses all kinds of beauties, and his lightning is seen shining brightly in the sky of perfection, the Pleiades being lower than the crescent of his lofty minaret”(4).
We have chosen to mention him here to teach the history of this man and his important role in the history of reconstruction in Palestine in its previous eras. Ibn Battuta later moved to the city of Hebron, which contains the Ibrahimi Mosque, which is believed to contain the graves of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, peace be upon them, where Ibn Battuta reveled in describing its workmanship and construction. And his cave, which contains the graves of these prophets. He also mentioned the eagerness of people, old and young, to visit and pray. Rather, he says, according to the stories he heard from residents and some scholars, that “in the mosque there is also the grave of Joseph, peace be upon him, and to the east of the Haram al-Khalil is the soil of Lot, peace be upon him, and it is on a high hill.” From it he overlooks the valley of the Levant” (5).
Ibn Battuta in the West Bank
From Hebron, Ibn Battuta set off towards the Dead Sea, which he called “Lake Lot,” and described its extreme salinity. He also noticed nearby a mosque called “Al-Yaqin Mosque” on a high hill, which no one frequents due to the lack of residents in these areas, but the person in charge of this mosque was He built a small house next to it, and Ibn Battuta quotes what was said at the time about this mosque. Near it is “a cave containing the grave of Fatima, daughter of Hussein bin Ali, peace be upon them. At the top and bottom of the grave are two marble slabs, one of them engraved in exquisite handwriting: In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. To God be glory. And permanence, and for him is what he procreates and is healed, and upon his creation are the books of annihilation, and in the Messenger of God is an example. This is the grave of Umm Salamah Fatima, daughter of Al-Hussein, may God be pleased with him, and on the other tablet is inscribed: Made by Muhammad bin Abi Sahl Al-Naqqash in Egypt” (6).
It seems that the mosque was built several centuries before Ibn Battuta, as evidenced by the fact that Al-Maqdisi Al-Bashari, who died four centuries before Ibn Battuta’s death, in “Ahsan Al-Taqasim fi Ma’rifat Al-Aqlim” speaks of him, saying: “On a high hill a league away from Habrī is a small mountain overlooking a lake.” “Sughr” (the Dead Sea) and the site of Qaryat Lot, then a mosque built by Abu Bakr al-Sabahi, in which is the resting place of Abraham. It is said that when Abraham saw Qaryat Lot in the air, he lay down and said: “I bear witness that this is the certain truth” (7).
From this small village, which today is called “Khirbet Yaqin” in Bani Na’im, east of Hebron, and in which traces of that mosque still remain, Ibn Battuta set off towards Jerusalem, and on the way there he visited Bethlehem, “the birthplace of Jesus, peace be upon him, and on it are traces of the trunk of a palm tree, with a building on it.” Many, and the Christians venerate it the most, and show hospitality to whoever revealed it” (8). That is, the Mamluk authorities that were ruling Egypt and the Levant, with Palestine at its heart at the time, respected the Christian churches and temples, and gave their worshipers and visitors freedom of movement and hospitality from members of their religion on a known tax that Ibn Battuta mentioned in his visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher later, despite the fierce Crusades that lasted for two centuries. In those areas, which were completely completed by the Mamluks after the efforts of Saladin Al-Ayyubi.
Ibn Battuta later reached Jerusalem, and he lavished praise on the Holy City, Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Dome of the Rock. We have discussed Observations of Ibn Battuta in the city of Jerusalem In a previous article, he says about Al-Aqsa Mosque: “The Holy Mosque is one of the wondrous, splendid, and most beautiful mosques. It is said that there is no greater mosque on the face of the earth than it” (9). One may be surprised by this description of Ibn Battuta, but this is not surprising for two reasons: The first is that he had not visited the Grand Mosque in Mecca until then, and the second is that the Grand Mosque itself was not as large as it is now.
After Ibn Battuta enjoyed Jerusalem and its mosques and got to know its other landmarks, especially the Moroccans from his two countries who preferred the neighborhood in Holy Jerusalem and still have a neighborhood known by their name to this day, he mentioned some Andalusians living there, such as “the Maliki teacher and sheikh of the noble Khanqats, Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin “Mothbih al-Gharnati, a resident of Jerusalem” (10), as mentioned by some of the most important scholars and other sheikhs of Jerusalem, including some of the Salem family, the masters of the people in Gaza, as we mentioned.
From Holy Jerusalem, instead of heading east towards Damascus, we see him heading towards Ashkelon, which Saladin al-Ayyubi had destroyed so that the Crusaders would not use it as a forward base to attack Gaza and Sinai. It remained in ruins since the era of Saladin until the arrival of Ibn Battuta a century and a half later, and we can We can sense this truth in what Yaqut al-Hamawi (d. 626 AH) mentions in “Mu’jam al-Buldan” about Ashkelon a century before Ibn Battuta, where he says: “It continued to be inhabited until the Franks took control of it. May God abandon them, on the twenty-seventh of Jumada al-Akhirah in the year 548 AH, and it remained in their hands.” Thirty-five years until Saladin Yusuf bin Ayoub rescued it from them in the year 583, then the Franks became strong and conquered Akka and marched towards Ashkelon. He feared that what was done to Akka would happen to it, so he destroyed it in Shaban in the year 587 AH” (11).
Ibn Battuta looked at the drawings of Ashkelon and saw its ruins. He said: “I traveled from Al-Quds Al-Sharif with the intention of visiting the mouths of Ashkelon, which is a ruin that has returned with obliterated drawings and studied ruins. There is rarely a country that has combined as many virtues as Ashkelon has in mastery, good condition, originality of a place, and combination of the amenities of land.” And the sea, and it contains the famous scene where the head of Hussein bin Ali, peace be upon him, was before it was transported to Cairo” (12).
Ibn Battuta stood in Ashkelon over its mosques, which had become dilapidated ruins, and contemplated their pulpits, niches, and decorations that had been abandoned by the prostrating worshipers. Then he headed to the city’s cemetery, where there was a “qayyim,” or guard, who used to take his salary from the Mamluk libraries in Egypt. He said: “And with the love of Ashkelon from There are countless graves of martyrs and saints due to their abundance. We have placed over them the curator of the aforementioned shrine, and it has a tax paid for it by the King of Egypt, along with the alms of visitors that come to it” (13).
Other scenes from Palestine
From Ashkelon, Ibn Battuta chose to discover the other cities of Palestine, such as Ramla and Nablus, so he stayed at Ramla first, and he saw it as a miniature image of Palestine. He says: “Then I traveled from there to the city of Ramla: it is Palestine, a large city, many goods, good markets, and the White Mosque.” It is said that three hundred prophets are buried in his qiblah, peace be upon them” (14). We note that our travelers convey what people believed at the time regarding the feats and virtues of the mosques of those cities, as he stopped in Hebron, Jerusalem, Ashkelon, and now Ramla, and their belief is based on the large presence of the tombs of the prophets in the qibla of that mosque, which is a statement that may not be true.
Ibn Battuta then headed towards the city of Nablus, which is famous today for its famous Nabulsi kunafa. It seems that the sweets industry in this populous city is as old as its people. He saw in it “the carob sweets that are brought to Damascus and elsewhere, and how they are made: the carob is cooked, then it is squeezed, and the milk that comes out of it is taken and the sweet is made from it, and that milk is also brought to Egypt and the Levant” (15), and the milk that Ibn Battuta means is the carob jam that It seems that its craftsmanship in Nablus surpassed others, so much so that the city was known for exporting this delicious product to Egypt and the Levant.
Nablus did not only export carob jam, but it also exported pure olive oil. He says about Nablus: “It is one of the most olive countries in the Levant, and from there the oil is carried to Egypt and Damascus.” It seems that the city, due to the large number of water springs and its flow through it, had many trees, fruits, and good things, and for this reason it surpassed Others export their products to other countries near them.
After our traveler enjoyed his stay in this rich and safe city at that time under Muslim sovereignty over their lands, he set out for Jordan and from there to Latakia. As usual and unexpectedly, he returned to Palestine again to explore the city of Acre, which is the city that the Crusaders regained from Saladin Al-Ayyubi in the year 587 AH in a campaign. Richard the Lionheart, King of Britain, and Philip, King of France, and the conflict over it continued until the Mamluk Sultan Al-Ashraf Khalil ibn Qalawun came a century later in the year 690 AH, and after a long siege, he destroyed the last fierce Crusader strongholds in it, and decided – as Saladin did with the city of Ashkelon – to destroy and devastate it until It cuts off all hopes of the Crusaders to return to it and benefit from it as they did before.
For this reason, when Ibn Battuta entered it in the months of the year 726 AH, he found the city “in ruins, and Akka was the base of the Franks in the Levant and the anchorage for their ships, and it is likened to Constantinople the Great (Istanbul), and to its east is a spring of water known as the Spring of the Cow, from which it is said that God Almighty brought out the cow for Adam, peace be upon him, and descends There are stairs to it, and on it was a mosque of which the mihrab remains, and in this city is the grave of Saleh, peace be upon him” (16).
Although Ibn Battuta went to the city of Tire in the north, he returned to Palestine to explore the city of Tiberias, which was a large city, as he says, but it became smaller and more spacious than before. But we realize that the man was fond of visiting mosques and the shrines of the prophets and saints and learning about their histories. He says: “In Tiberias, there is a mosque known as the Mosque of the Prophets. It contains the grave of Shuaib, peace be upon him, and his daughter, the wife of Moses the Kalim, peace be upon him, the grave of Solomon, peace be upon him, the grave of Judah, and the grave of Rubel, may God’s prayers and peace be upon our Prophet and them. We intended to visit the pit into which Joseph, peace be upon him, was thrown, while he was in the courtyard of a mosque. It is small and has a corner on it, and the cistern is large and deep. We drank from its water collected from rain water, and its guardian told us that water also comes from it” (17).
Ibn Battuta praised the water springs in the city of Tiberias, some of which were hot sulphurous waters known to the Romans from ancient times. Its people took advantage of this gift and created “the wondrous baths with it. It has two houses (two sections): one for men and the other for women. Its water is very hot, and it has the famous lake about a length of about Six farsangs and more than three farsangs in width.”
Thus, Ibn Battuta presented to us – as was his custom in his travels and journeys – a snapshot taken by an artist who possesses the skill of language and simile. His description penetrated the veil of time until we learned from him what Palestine and its cities were like when they enjoyed security and stability, two centuries after the Crusaders occupied many of their cities. We saw them lush under Muslim rule. Peaceful, fruitful, full of goodness and blessings.
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Sources
- (1) Hussein Mu’nis: The Travels of Ibn Battuta, p. 25.
- (2) Ibn Battuta’s Journey 1/239.
- (3) Ibn Battuta’s previous journey.
- (4) Al-Safadi: Notables of the Age and Helpers of Victory 2/467.
- (5) Previous 1/243.
- (6) Same as above.
- (7) Al-Maqdisi Al-Bashari: Ahsan Al-Taqasim 1/173.
- (8) Ibn Battuta’s Journey 1/244.
- (9) Ibn Battuta’s Journey 1/246.
- (10) Ibn Battuta’s Journey 1/249-252.
- (11) Yaqut al-Hamawi: Mu’jam al-Buldan 4/122.
- (12) Ibn Battuta’s Journey 1/252.
- (13) Previous 1/254.
- (14) Previous 1/254.
- (15) Ibn Battuta: Previous 1/254.
- (16) Previous 1/256- 258.
- (17) Previous 1/260.
