and Muslim stories about the biblical prophets
attempted to identify sacred events with spe-
cific locations in Palestine. Several verses in the
Quran were interpreted as references to the holy
land, or Syria. For example, according to one
such statement, “We made the people (the chil-
dren of Israel) who were weak inherit the land
where we placed our blessing east and west” (Q
7:137, compare 5:21 and 21:71). By the 10th
century, the sacredness of Palestine-Syria was
discussed in detail by Muslim geographers such
as al-Maqdisi (also known as al-Muqaddisi, d.
ca. 990). Jerusalem was the focal point of this
sacred land, for it was the first qibla (prayer
direction) and the place where Muhammad went
on his famous night JoUrney and ascent. This
sacredness achieved architectural expression in
the dome oF the rock and the aqsa mosqUe,
located on the site of the ancient Israelite temple.
Al-Maqdisi listed dozens of other associations
between the Palestine (Filistin) and sacred his-
tory—how its topography memorialized abra-
ham, Isaac, moses, David, Solomon, John the
Baptist, JesUs, and mary. Gaza, he noted, was
known for being the burial place of Muhammad’s
great grandfather Hashim and the birth place of
al-Shafii (767–820), the founder of the shaFii
legal school. He also mentioned how Palestine
would serve as the future site of the resurrection
and final judgment. Such sites were visited by
Muslim pilgrims, along with Christians, who had
been making the Holy Land a pilgrim destination
since the fourth century.
Palestine, as part of greater Syria, flourished
under the Umayyad caliphs, who ruled from
nearby damascUs. Its fortunes declined somewhat
when the Umayyad caliphate came to an end in
750 and power shifted eastward to iraq, where
the abbasid caliphate ruled. When Abbasid
power weakened in the 10th century, this area
of the empire became a battlefield for religious
movements, regional powers, and tribal groups.
Among the primary participants in these con-
flicts were the Byzantines, the Fatimid dynasty in
Egypt, and the Seljuk Turks, who swore allegiance
to the Abbasids in Baghdad. The Fatimid caliph
al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (r. 996–1021), known for
his eccentricities, ordered the destruction of the
Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem in
1009 and took various punitive measures against
both Christians and Jews as well as officials who
earned his displeasure and ordinary Muslims.
News of the fate of the Church of the Holy Sep-
ulcher eventually reached Europe and became
one of the causes for the launching of the First
Crusade by Pope Urban II in 1095 to take back
the Holy Land in the name of Christianity. The
entire region from Egypt to Constantinople was
the scene of crusader wars for nearly 200 years.
The armies from Europe took Jerusalem in 1099
after massacring Muslims and Jews living in the
city. It remained under crusader control until
1187, when the warrior prince saladin (d. 1193)
established Muslim rule once again. During the
13th century and again in the early 15th century,
Palestine was threatened by Mongol invasions
from the east, but Muslim armies were able to
repel them. Palestine stayed in the hands of Mus-
lim rulers throughout the reigns of the Mamluk
sultans of Egypt and Syria (1250–1517) and of
the ottoman dynasty (1517–1917).
During the Ottoman period, Palestine was
governed from Damascus, except for a brief period
in the 1830s when it was controlled by Egypt. It
returned to Ottoman control in 1840, then, dur-
ing an era of far-reaching Ottoman political and
economic reforms in the 1880s, it was divided
administratively into three districts: Nablus, Acre,
and Jerusalem. Britain, France, Austria, and Rus-
sia competed against each other for influence in
the region, and Europeans began to go there not
just as pilgrims but as settlers, too. sephardic JeWs
(also known today as Mizrahim “Easterners”) had
lived in Palestine continuously for centuries, but
during the latter part of the 19th century, new
Jewish immigrants went from Europe to settle
there. Most of these were Ashkenazi (European)
Jews who belonged to an international movementIsrael 381 J