126 | Making Jerusalem Ottoman
was conquered only in 1522, Cyprus in 1571, and Crete in 1669, thus for a long
time the coast was realistically a possible target for renewed Christian attempts
to invade Syria, while the threat of a revived Crusade to take Jerusalem may never
have disappeared from the list of imperial concerns (or papal aspirations).
Besides security issues, there were other important considerations that
caught Ottoman attention and impelled Sultan Süleyman I to invest extensively
in Jerusalem. The Muslim holy sites and the status of Jerusalem as the third-
holiest city in Islam obviously made Jerusalem something more than a peripheral
provincial town. Scholars and mystics alike made their homes in the city, while
people came as pilgrims from all over the Islamic world. In the international
arena, the sanctity of the city for Christians was vitally important for the Otto-
man sultan, who was now the protector of places holy to the rulers of all Europe.
Christian pilgrims and travelers regularly made their way to Jerusalem, hosted by
their respective communities of Greek Orthodox, Latin Catholics, Armenians,
and others resident in the city. Jewish reverence for Jerusalem was perhaps less
politically salient for the sixteenth-century Ottoman ruler; nonetheless it added
to the constellation of populations who staked claims within the city.
Jerusalem in the sixteenth century (see figure 9.1) was marked, even occu-
pied, by the monuments of those who had ruled it in the past. Muslims, Chris-
tians, and Jews all held sites in and around Jerusalem. Major Christian sites in
Crusader Jerusalem (1099–1187) included churches, monasteries, and palaces,
located both inside and outside the walled city, most notably the Church of the
Holy Sepulcher at the culmination of the Via Dolorosa. Memories of crusader
rule lingered, emphasized by the scattered churches and the absence of walls
around the city. Yet Christian Europe, having failed to unite to save Constan-
tinople in 1453, did not come together on behalf of Jerusalem amid the religious
crises of the early sixteenth century. Despite attempts by the pope to rekindle a
crusading spirit, the most immediate and proximate Christian threat was from
pirates sighted at intervals off the coast of Jaffa.
Gradually, instead of attacks, individual states began to put new emphasis
on ties to Christians in the Holy Land. Over the next few centuries, diplomatic
and economic interventions on behalf of one community or another increasingly
became the device and rationale for a key aspect of relations between these states
and the Ottoman Empire. When it eventually came to the Middle East, renewed
military conflict was one signal of the shifting balance of power between the Ot-
tomans and the various Christian powers.
Following the expulsion of the crusaders by Salah al-Din, Ayyubid (1187–
1250) and Mamluk (1250–1517) control over Jerusalem from the late twelfth cen-
tury provided the opportunity for extensive Muslim construction, largely on or
around the Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary; known to Jews as the Temple
Mount), where the Dome of the Rock shrine and al-Aqsa mosque are located. The