Islam in Palestine

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Muslims comprise 85% of the population of the West Bank, when including Israeli settlers,[1] and 99% of the population of the Gaza Strip.[2]
The largest denomination among Palestinian Muslims are Sunnis, comprising 98–99% of the total Muslim population.

Mosque of Omar, in the Old City of Bethlehem.

In the 7th century, the Arab

converted to Islam. Although minor in size, the sedentarization of Arabs is also thought to have played a role in accelerating the Islamization process.[4][5][6][7] Changes in social structure and the weakening of the local Christian authorities caused by the process of deurbanization under Islamic rule are also seen as a major factor.[8] Some scholars suggest that by the arrival of the Crusaders, Palestine was already overwhelmingly Muslim,[9][10] while others claim that it was only after the Crusades that Christianity lost its majority, and that the process of mass Islamization took place much later, perhaps during the Mamluk period.[4][11]

History

Early Islamization

Main article: Muslim conquest of the Levant
ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb's empire at its peak, 644

Islam was first brought to the region of Palestine during the Early Muslim conquests of the 7th century, when the Rashidun Caliphate under the leadership of ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb conquered the Shaam[a] region from the Byzantine Empire.[15]

The Muslim army conquered Jerusalem, held by the Byzantine Romans, in November, 636. For four months

monotheists.[16]
[17]

Having accepted the surrender, Caliph Umar then entered Jerusalem with Sophronius "and courteously discoursed with the patriarch concerning its religious antiquities". When the hour for his prayer came, Umar was in the Anastasis, but refused to pray there, lest in the future the Muslims should use that as an excuse to break the treaty and confiscate the church. The Mosque of Omar, opposite the doors of the Anastasis, with the tall minaret, is known as the place to which he retired for his prayer.

The Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount, Jerusalem

al-Aqsa Mosque.[19]

According to the historian James Parkes, during the first century after the Muslim conquest (640–740), the caliph and governors of Syria and the Holy Land ruled entirely over Christian and Jewish subjects. He further states that apart from the Bedouin in the earliest days, the only Arabs west of the Jordan were the garrisons.[20]

Bishop Arculf, whose account of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the 7th century, De Locis Sanctis, written down by the monk Adamnan, described reasonably pleasant living conditions of Christians in Palestine in the first period of Muslim rule.[

Abbasid caliphs at Baghdad (753–1242), as long as they ruled Syria, were also tolerant of the Christians. Harun Abu-Ja-'afar, (786–809) sent the keys of the Holy Sepulchre to Charlemagne, who built a hospice for Latin pilgrims near the shrine.[citation needed
]

Islamization under Abbasids and Fatimids

Mosque in Ramallah

Some scholars believe that Islam became the majority religion in Palestine in the 9th century, with acculturation of the locals into

bilingualism, which lasted until the 12th century in Palestine and as late as the 17th century in Egypt.[21][22][23]

Rival dynasties and revolutions led to the eventual disunion of the Muslim world. During the 9th century, Palestine was conquered by the Fatimid dynasty, centered in Egypt. During that time the region of Palestine became again the center of violent disputes followed by wars, since enemies of the Fatimid dynasty attempted to conquer the region. At that time, the Byzantine Empire continued trying to recapture the territories they previously lost to the Muslims, including Jerusalem.

During the Fatimid era, the cities of Jerusalem and Hebron became prime destinations for Sufi wayfarers.[24] The creation of locally rooted Sufi-inspired communities and institutions between 1000 and 1250 were part and parcel of the conversion to Islam.[24]

The sixth Fatimid caliph, Caliph Al-Hakim (996–1021), who was believed to be "God made manifest" by the Druze, destroyed the Holy Sepulchre in 1009. This powerful provocation started the near 90-year preparation towards the First Crusade.[25]

The Samaritan community dropped in numbers during the various periods of Muslim rule in the region. The Samaritans could not rely on foreign assistance as much as the Christians did, nor on a large number of diaspora immigrants as did the Jews. The once-flourishing community declined over time, either through emigration or conversion to Islam among those who remained.[26] According to Milka Levy-Rubin, many Samaritans converted under Abbasid and Tulunid rule.[26]

Early Crusades

In 1099, the Christian

Templum Solomonis). For the local Muslim population, the reaction to the events was to try to find an accommodation with the Crusaders, whereas the larger Muslim world typically looked upon the events with indifference.[27][28][29][30]

Ayyubid rule and Late Crusades

Illustration of the Battle of Hattin from a copy of the Passages d'outremer, c.1490

In 1187, the

Latin Patriarch prior to the reconquest of the city.[24]

The Christian defeat led to a

Muslim control but the city would be open to Christian pilgrims. The treaty reduced the Latin Kingdom to a strip along the coast from Tyre to Jaffa
.

Mamluk domination

In 1250, the Ayyubid Egyptian dynasty was overthrown by slave ("Mamluk") regiments, and a new dynasty - the

Baibars defeated the Mongols and stopped their advance. His successor Al-Ashraf Khalil
completed the victory by sweeping the last of the Crusaders out of Palestine.

In 1291, the forces of the

Mamluk Sultan of Egypt al-Ashraf Khalil forced a long siege upon the city of Acre, which was the final Christian landhold in the Holy Land. The Mamluks captured the city on May 18, 1291, killing most of the Christian local inhabitants, thus ending the second Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.[33]

The Mamluks were to rule Palestine for the following two centuries (1291–1516). The Muslim population became the majority, and many Muslim shrines were built such as

Sahabas and even what they considered holy Muslim martyrs from Crusader and pre-Crusader times. Some historians[who?] say that the shrines were built to make a good strategic positions for Muslims (for example Nabi Musa was built on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho).[citation needed
]

The Mamluks, ruling from Damascus, brought some prosperity to the area, particularly to Jerusalem, with an extensive programme involving the building of schools, hospices for pilgrims, the construction of Islamic colleges and the renovation of mosques. Mujir al-Din's extensive writing about 15th century Jerusalem documents the consolidation and expansion of Islamic sites in the Mamluk era.[34]

The ascendency of the

Bahri Mamluks, together with recurrent droughts, plagues and pestilence like the Black Death and taxation to cover the costs of wars against Crusaders and Mongols (the last of which was "Tamurlane's horde") brought about both growing insecurity and economic decline. By the end of their reign, with the decay of internal control and massive population losses due to plagues, Bedouins moved in to take advantage of the decline in defenses, and farmers abandoned their lands. They sacked Ramla in 1481 and annihilated a Mamluk army that had been raised in Gaza to repel them.[35][36] By the end of the 15th century, Jerusalem's population amounted to approximately 10,000, mostly Muslims, with roughly 1,000 Christians and 400 Jews.[37]

Rise of the Ottomans

A 16th century Persian miniature painting celebrating Muhammad's ascent into the Heavens

On August 24, 1516, at the Battle of Marj Dabiq, the Ottoman Empire forces defeated the Mamluk sultanate forces and thus the Ottomans became the new rulers of the Levant. On October 28, they defeated the Mamluk forces once more in the Battle of Yaunis Khan and they annexed the region of Palestine. By December of that year the entire region of Palestine was conquered by the Ottoman Empire.[citation needed] As a result of the Ottoman advance during the reign of Selim I,[38] the Sunni Ottoman Turks occupied the historic region of Palestine. Their leadership reinforced and ensured the centrality and importance of Islam as the dominant religion in the region. Swamps with the risk of malaria made it difficult to settle and farm on the coastal plains and in the valleys throughout most of the Ottoman era.[39]

In 1834,

Ramleh, Jaffa, Haifa, Jerusalem and Acre. Ibrahim Pasha, in wresting control of Palestine from the Ottoman Empire, clashed with the regional ambitions of the European Great Powers and, in order to assuage their unease, he reversed Ottoman policy and opened the country up to both foreigners and non-Muslim populations. Despite the brevity of Egyptian overlordship, since the great powers restored the fortunes of the Ottomans and their sovereignty over Palestine, the long-term effect was to lay the groundwork for the development of extensive European activities and interests in Palestine.[40]

In 1860, the Mosque of Omar was built in the Christian city of Bethlehem. It is the only mosque in Bethlehem's old city.[41]

Islam during British rule

Irregulars during the 1936–39 Arab revolt

In 1917, at the end of the

High Commissioner
in Palestine. The British occupation of the region brought an end to hundreds of years of successive Muslim rule in the region of Palestine.

The gradual increase in the number of Jews in Palestine led to the development of a proto-

1920 Palestine riots and during the 1936–39 Arab Revolt
).

The

1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine took place, the Council operated as the Governing body of the Arab community under the British Mandate, and co-operated with the British government in Palestine. All along its operation, the Supreme Muslim Council advocated an active resistance against the Jewish "Yishuv", supporting the Arab underground anti-British movements in the country.[42]

1948–1967: Islam under Israeli, Jordanian and Egyptian rule

Palestinian refugees from Galilee in 1948

On May 14, 1948, one day before the end of the

promise from Arab leaders that they would be able to return when the war is won.[45]

The British transferred the symbolic Islamic governance of the land to the

Husseini clan. The Palestinian gunman, motivated by fears that king Abdullah would make a separate peace with Israel, fired three fatal bullets into the King's head and chest.[citation needed
]

After the conquest of the Temple Mount during the Six-Day War, the Chief Israeli Rabbinate announced that Jewish people are forbidden of entering the Temple Mount. Since 1967, Israel controls the security on the Temple Mount, but the Muslim Waqf controls administrative matters, taking responsibility for the conduct of Islamic affairs just as it did during the Jordanian rule.[46][47]

Views

According to Erlich, Palestine's Islamization was mainly a result of urbanization and de-urbanization processes in Palestine under Muslim rule. During the Byzantine period, Palestine boasted more than thirty cities, or settlements with a bishop's see. Most of these cities declined under Muslim rule, and eventually disappeared; some of these became villages or townships, others were completely destroyed. This resulted in many cases in a weakening or complete disappearance of the local ecclesiastical administration. Over time, most of the local population converted to Islam. During this period, only Nablus and Jerusalem maintained their urban status, which is why, according to Erlich, religious minorities (Samaritans and Christians, respectively) survived there.[8]

Demographics

Islam

Today, Islam is a prominent religion in both Gaza and the West Bank. Most of the population in the State of Palestine are Muslims (85% in the West Bank and 99% in the Gaza Strip).[48][49]

Sunni Islam

Sunnis constitute 85% of Palestinian Muslims,[50] of which the predominant madhab is Hanafi, which is one of the four schools of Islamic law in Sunni Islam. Salafism took root in Gaza in the 1970s, when Palestinian students returned from studying abroad at religious schools in Saudi Arabia. A number of Salafi groups in Gaza continue to receive support and funding from Riyadh.[51]

Shia Islam

Main article: Shia villages in Palestine

From 1923 to 1948, there were seven villages in

Lebanese Shia
population.

Since 1979, due to Iran's influence, some Palestinian Sunnis have converted to Shia Islam. Israeli

Islamic Jihad.[55]

Non-denominational Islam

According to the Pew Research Center, non-denominational Muslims constitute 15% of the Palestinian Muslim population.[50]

See also

Notes

  1. Arabic: اَلـشَّـام) is a region that is bordered by the Taurus Mountains of Anatolia in the north, the Mediterranean Sea in the west, the Arabian Desert in the south, and Mesopotamia in the east.[12] It includes the modern countries of Syria and Lebanon, and the land of Palestine.[13][14]

References

  1. ^ West Bank. CIA Factbook
  2. ^ Gaza Strip. CIA Factbook
  3. OCLC 59601193.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  4. ^
    JSTOR 3632444
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  5. OCLC 958547332
    . From the data given above it can be concluded that the Muslim population of Central Samaria, during the early Muslim period, was not an autochthonous population which had converted to Christianity. They arrived there either by way of migration or as a result of a process of sedentarization of the nomads who had filled the vacuum created by the departing Samaritans at the end of the Byzantine period [...] To sum up: in the only rural region in Palestine in which, according to all the written and archeological sources, the process of Islamization was completed already in the twelfth century, there occurred events consistent with the model propounded by Levtzion and Vryonis: the region was abandoned by its original sedentary population and the subsequent vacuum was apparently filled by nomads who, at a later stage, gradually became sedentarized
  6. ^ Chris Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages; Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–900, Oxford University press 2005. p. 130. "In Syria and Palestine, where there were already Arabs before the conquest, settlement was also permitted in the old urban centres and elsewhere, presumably privileging the political centres of the provinces."
  7. ^ Gideon Avni, The Byzantine-Islamic Transition in Palestine: An Archaeological Approach, Oxford University Press 2014 pp.312–324, 329 (theory of imported population unsubstantiated);.
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  9. ^ Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, (1988) Cambridge University Press 3rd.ed.2014 p.156
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    ISBN 0-253-20873-4, M1 Google Print, p. 70
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  11. ^ Ira M. Lapidus, Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History, Cambridge University Press, 2012, p. 201.
  12. ISBN 978-0-19-921297-2
    . The western coastline and the eastern deserts set the boundaries for the Levant ... The Euphrates and the area around Jebel el-Bishrī mark the eastern boundary of the northern Levant, as does the Syrian Desert beyond the Anti-Lebanon range's eastern hinterland and Mount Hermon. This boundary continues south in the form of the highlands and eastern desert regions of Transjordan.
  13. C.E. Bosworth, Encyclopaedia of Islam
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  14. Muslim
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  15. ^ A Concise History of Islam and the Arabs MidEastWeb.org
  16. ^ "Jerusalem". Catholic Encyclopedia. 1910.
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  18. ^ From the article on Islam in Palestine and Israel in Oxford Islamic Studies Online
  19. ^ Mustafa Abu Sway, The Holy Land, Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Qur'an, Sunnah and other Islamic Literary Source (PDF), Central Conference of American Rabbis, archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-28
  20. ^ James Parkes, Whose Land? A History of the Peoples of Palestine (Penguin books, 1970), p. 66
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  25. ^ Charles Mills (June 1820). "Mill's History of the Crusades". The Eclectic Review. Retrieved 2014-08-12.
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  27. ^ Esposito, John L., ed. The Islamic World: Past and Present The Islamic World:Past and Present 3-Volume Set: Past and Present 3-Volume Set.] Google Books. 2 February 2013.
  28. ^ Karsh, Efraim. Islamic Imperialism: A History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. p. 73
  29. ^ Wasserstein, Bernard. The Politics of Holiness in Jerusalem. 21 September 2001. 2 February 2013.
  30. ^ Siddique, Tahsin. "Locating Jerusalem in Theology and Practice During the Crusades." Archived 2014-09-01 at the Wayback Machine University of California, Santa Cruz History. 21 March 2009. 2 February 2013.
  31. ISBN 978-0-8476-9430-3
  32. ^ "Battle of Ḥaṭṭīn." Encyclopædia Britannica. 4 February 2013.
  33. ^ Fromherz, Allan James. Ibn Khaldun: Life and Times. Google Books. 4 February 2013.
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  35. ^ Laura Etheredge, Historic Palestine, Israel, and the Emerging Palestinian Autonomous Areas, The Rosen Publishing Group 2011 p.43.
  36. ^ Michael Avi-Yonah, A History of Israel and the Holy Land, A&C Black, 2003 pp.279–282.
  37. ^ Richard G. Neuhauser, 'Jerusalem,' in John Block Friedman, Kristen Mossler Figg (eds.),Trade, Travel, and Exploration in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia, Routledge 2013 pp.300–302, p.302
  38. Parkes, James (1970) [1949]. "Turkish Territorial Divisions in 1914". Whose Land?: A History of the Peoples of Palestine
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  39. ^ Ruth Kark and Noam Levin, "The Environment in Palestine in the Late Ottoman period, 1798-1918," in Daniel E. Orenstein, Alon Tal, Char Miller (eds.),Between Ruin and Restoration: An Environmental History of Israel University of Pittsburgh 2012 pp.1–28 p.11.
  40. ^ Alex Carmel "A Note on the Christian Contribution to the Development of Palestine in the 19th century," in David Kushner (ed.) Palestine in the Late Ottoman Period: Political, Social, and Economic Transformation, BRILL, 1986 pp.303–304.
  41. ^ Mosque of Omar (Bethlehem) Archived July 29, 2013, at the Wayback Machine Atlas Travels and Tourism Agency.
  42. ^ "al-Husseini, Hajj (Muhammad) Amin." The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East. Ed. Avraham Sela. New York: Continuum, 2002. pp. 360–362.
  43. ^ Smith, Charles D. Palestine and the Arab Israeli Conflict: A History With Documents. Bedford/St. Martin’s: Boston. (2004). Pg. 198
  44. ^ GENERAL PROGRESS REPORT AND SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT OF THE UNITED NATIONS CONCILIATION COMMISSION FOR PALESTINE, Covering the period from 11 December 1949 to 23 October 1950, GA A/1367/Rev.1 23 October 1950
  45. ^ Morris, Benny. "Yosef Weitz and the Transfer Committees 1948–49" JSTOR: Middle Eastern Studies vol. 22, no. 4 (Oct., 1986), p. 522.
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  49. ^ "The World Factbook." CIA. 19 December 2015.
  50. ^ a b "Religious Identity Among Muslims". Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. 2012-08-09. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
  51. ISSN 0015-7120
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  52. ^ Kaufman (2006). The 1922 census also listed the Muslim minority in al-Bassa as Shia, but Kaufman determined they were actually Sunni.
  53. ^ Census of Palestine 1931; Palestine Part I, Report. Vol. 1. Alexandria. 1933. p. 82.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  54. ^ a b "Hamas brutally assaults Shi'ite worshippers in Gaza". Haaretz. Retrieved 2020-09-11.
  55. ^ "Al-Sabireen: an Iran-Backed Palestinian Movement in the Style of Hezbollah". رصيف 22. 2018-03-14. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
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