130 | Making Jerusalem Ottoman
to secure the holy city of Medina, contemporary with the construction of the
Jerusalem fortifications.
Together with the city walls, Süleyman sponsored another project, only
marginally less visible and no less important. The ancient aqueduct that brought
water from springs south of Jerusalem was cleaned and repaired so that it once
again served the city. Six sabils (fountains) were added in the mid-1530s to the
existing Sabil of Qasim Pasha to provide easy access to water for drinking and
everyday use, and an endowment was created to pay for ongoing maintenance to
the system. (See figure 9.1 and figure 9.3.) The fountains were placed to catch the
attention of and serve as many people as possible. Five were located at key sites
inside the city: two along the main north–south axis leading from the Damascus
Gate, one on the east wall at Lion Gate, one at the Gate of the Chain leading onto
the Haram, and one on the north perimeter on the Haram itself, north of the
Dome of the Rock. The sixth fountain was at the reservoir called the Sultan’s Pool
(Birkat al-Sultan) built outside and below the southwest corner of the city, lying
along the course of the aqueduct itself.
Several messages flowed from these waterworks to the local population. As a
complement to the protection against armed force declared in the vertical walls,
the waterworks affirmed the sultan’s commitment to the basic survival of his
subjects within the horizontal city space of everyday life. Lack of water could be
as severe a threat to survival as physical violence in the dry climate of Jerusalem.
The local preoccupation with supplying water to the city was reflected in the con-
stant patrolling of the course of the aqueduct outside the walls and the repairs
made to it, since peasants and Bedouins diverted the flow by opening breaches
for their own use to water crops and flocks.
The location of the fountains also emphasized that the Ottomans were first
and foremost Muslim rulers, concerned with the welfare of their Muslim sub-
jects. By placing five fountains on or near the Haram, where most of the mosques
and madrasas were located, Süleyman ensured that this contribution was noticed
by as many Muslims as possible, whether local residents or pilgrims. The sabils
constituted an important affirmation of the Ottoman sultans’ claim to be protec-
tors of the Muslim holy places, an identity they assumed with the conquest of the
Arab provinces, including the Hijaz. While the new fountains were not meant
for ritual ablutions, they recalled the imperative of washing before prayer and the
central place of water in a variety of other purification practices. In fact, the very
first Ottoman construction in Jerusalem was a fountain on the Haram in 1527.
The fountains were relatively modest structures, inserted into the open spaces
on the Haram or between the large and prominent buildings built by the earlier
Ayyubid and Mamluk patrons. Yet with their distinctive form and dedicatory
inscriptions, the fountains secured for the Ottomans what amounted to foot-
holds in a city where it seemed that no empty spaces remained. Fortuitously, the