Palestine History
Palestine in the Islamic history
The Abbasid Caliphate was established in the East; the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt, parts of North Africa and Syria, and the Umayyad Caliphate in Andalus. The Crusades took place under these circumstances.
The political map of the region before the Crusades
Forty years before the Crusades, the Turkish Saljuks had succeeded in dominating Baghdad and took over the rule under the nominal Abbasid Caliphate. The Saljuks had managed to dominate over larger parts of Persia, northern Iraq, Armenia and Asia Minor around 1040 CE. The Saljuk ruler, Toghrol Bic, dominated over Bain 1055 CE.
The Saljuks spread their rule over the Byzantines in Asia Minor. On 19 August 1071 CE, the Malathkard battle, under the command of the Saljuk ruler Alb Arsalan, took place, and a catastrophe befell the Byzantines till the end of the eleventh century CE.
In 1071 CE, the Saljuks seized most of Palestine except for Arsout, and dismissed the Fatimid dominion from it. The Saljuks expanded their dominion to include most of Syria.
In 1092 CE (485 H [Hijra]), the Saljuk Sultan Malikshah passed away, thereby breaking down the Saljuks’ dominion and launching many long and severe battles among them over the dominion and power. In 1096 CE, their rule was divided into five kingdoms: Sultanate of Persia (under the ruler Birkiyarouq), Kingdom of Khurasan and beyond the River (under the ruler Singer), Kingdom of Aleppo (under the ruler Radwan), Kingdom of Damascus (under the ruler Daqaq) and the Roman Saljuks Sultanate (under the ruler Qalj Arsalan). Most of the regions in Palestine were subjected to the Damascus regime, and during the weakness of the two rulers of Syria (Radwan and Daqaq), a lot of private rulers emerged, none of which dominated more than one city.
The Crusaders commenced their military campaign of 1098 CE (491 H) while Muslim regions in Syria, Iraq and others were torn apart because of their differences and bloody conflicts. The two brothers, Radwan and Daqaq, sons of Titish, launched a war against each other in 490 H. Many battles broke out between Mohammed Ibn Malikshah Birkiyarouq because of their conflict over the power in which they exchanged victories and sermons in the Caliphate court during the period 492-497 H.
First Crusader military campaign and its results
During Pope Urban the Second’s time (1088-1988 CE), the Europeans focused on the Holy Land. The Pope called on the Claremont Council on 26 November 1095 CE to restore the Holy Land by taking it back from the Muslims.
Many councils were held in Limoux, Angariz, Man, Tours, Bouwatieeh, Bordeaux, Toulouse and Neim, in which he called for launching the Crusades during the period 1095-1096 CE. He promised that any volunteer who would participate in the Crusades would be forgiven his sins. He also promised that any crusader’s property would be kept under the auspices of the Church during their absence. He required that each warrior should wear a cloth cross on his tunic.
The Crusades were launched as public campaigns or callers’ campaigns. They were poor in arms and in order. One of these campaigns was the campaign of Peter the Hermit, who was an eloquent person known for riding on a lame donkey barefoot and with tattered clothes. He gathered about 15,000 volunteers in France. En route to their destination, they committed the massacre of 4,000 individuals because of a dispute over rations. The bands of Walter the Penniless assembled with them in Constantinople, and they all entered the Asian seashore. A battle with the Saljuks took place and the Saljuks defeated them and killed 22,000 Crusaders. Only 3,000 Crusaders survived. As to the Volkmar and Ameikh campaigns, they began by massacring the Jews along their route. Thereafter, the two campaigns perished in Hungary!
The first Crusade campaign took place in which professional European barons and knights participated. The campaign started to overcome the Muslim regions beginning in the summer of the year 1097 CE. In March 1098 CE, the Crusades formed Al-Raha State under the leadership of the Pole Baldwin. The Crusaders besieged Antioch for nine months. The ruler of Antioch, Baggissian, had shown courage, good opinion and took precautions more than anyone else. Thus, the Crusades perished. However, if their crowds had survived, they would have dominated over the Muslim countries. One of the Armenians who was guarding the walls of the city contacted the Crusaders. They gave him money and property for opening the door of the tower he was guarding. Because of this, the Crusaders occupied the city and formed their second State on 3 June 1098 CE (491 H) under Bohemond of Normandy.
While the Saljuks were defending themselves against the Crusaders along the north of Syria, the Fatimids took the opportunity to invade and occupy Tyre in 1097 CE. They dominated over Jerusalem in February 1098 CE, while the Crusaders were besieging Antioch. In Tripoli, the Judge Ibn Ammar, one of the followers of the Fatimids, declared his independence. The Fatimids sent to the Crusaders, during their besieging of Antioch, a mission so as to join in alliance. They proposed to fight against the Saljuks provided that they should capture Palestine while the northern region (Syria) would be under the dominion of the Crusaders. The Crusaders sent a delegation to Egypt to manifest their “good intention”.
While the Saljuks were engaged with the Crusades, the Fatimids were engaged in expanding their dominion in Palestine over the Saljuk’s State till their borders reached Al-Kalb River north of the Jordan River in the east!
Treacheries and betrayals of the States of the cities, which were so eager to gain the Crusaders’ friendship during their expansion, were manifested. This happened when the ruler of the Sheezar region contacted the Crusaders and agreed not to encounter them and to provide them with what they needed, such as food and rations. He even sent two guides with them to help them find the right routes. The city of Homos also gave them gifts. The city of Mosyaf concluded a treaty with them. Tripoli paid to them taxes and provided them with guides. Beirut paid them money and proposed to be subjugated to them in case they managed to seize Jerusalem.
Raymond of Toulouse (Prince of Province and Toulouse in France) continued to lead the rest of the Crusaders’ march to Jerusalem. Their number was only 1,000 knights and 5,000 infantry. In the springtime of the year 1099 CE, they entered Palestine. They passed by Acre, whose ruler provided the Crusaders with supplies, then by Qeisarya and Arsouf. After that, they captured Al-Ramleh, Lod and Bethlehem. On 7 June 1099 CE, the besiege of Jerusalem started. Iftikhar Al-Dawalah, who was appointed by the Fatimids, ruled it. The city was captured on 15 July 1099 (23 Sha’aban 492 H). The Crusaders continued killing the Muslims for one week. They killed more than 70,000 inside Al-Aqsa Mosque, including many groups of Muslim chiefs, scholars and worshippers. Both the Fatimid and the Abbasid States did not do anything to help but rather kept silent regarding these events. Jerusalem was ruled by the leader of the Crusades, Godfry of Bouillon, who was called humbly the “Jerusalem defender”. Nablus and Hebron surrendered to the Crusaders.
It is narrated that only 300 knights and 2,000 infantry of the Crusaders remained for this reason–they could not expand their dominion over more territories because most of them returned home after Jerusalem was conquered. Therefore, the kingdoms of the Crusaders became like islands surrounded by enemies. Nevertheless, these kingdoms continued to survive for 200 years whereafter the last one perished because of lack of supplies and expeditions. The Muslims were weak because they split into groups, making their numbers very small. They did not take advantage of the opportunity to overcome the Crusaders during their periods of spreading out over large areas in limited numbers. The Muslims lagged till ot was too late. The Crusaders became strong during the Muslim period of weakness and it was no longer an easy task to drive the Crusaders out.
The Crusaders continued to capture more cities in Palestine. Jaffa was captured during the besieging of Jerusalem by Genoan ships (in the Mediterranean Sea) on 15 June 1099 CE. They also captured the eastern area of Lake Tiberias (Al-Sawad area) in May of 1100 CE. The Crusaders also captured Haifa by force during the month of Shawwal 94 H (August 1100 CE) with the help of a great fleet from Venice. They dominated over Arsouq peacefully and drove its inhabitants out. They captured Qeisarya by force on 17 May 1109 CE. They killed its inhabitants and robbed their property on 17 May 1101 CE. Thus, the Crusaderimposed their dominion over Palestine except Ashkelon owing to the Egyptians (the Fatimid) supplying it with ammunition, men and funds every year. Although the Crusaders used to besiege Ashkelon every year, they failed to capture it until the year 1153 CE (548 H). In that year, Ashkelon’s inhabitants managed to drive the Crusaders back. But, when they got desperate and were about to retreat, they received tidings that Ashkelon’s people were in dispute. So, the Crusaders waited with patience. The reason for the dispute between the parties of Ashkelon was because of a power struggle; each party alleged that they alone achieved the victory. However, the dispute increased in size till one person from one of the two parties was killed. This led to a much worse situation and, consequently, war broke out between them and many of them were killed. The Crusaders were hoping for this window of opportunity and shortly thereafter, they advanced to Ashkelon and easily occupied it.
Although the Crusaders were small in number, they managed to maintain great control by building fortified castles that were built like islands in many areas in Sham. And as the struggle continued between the Muslims themselves, some of them resorted to getting help from the Crusaders to overpower their foes. The Muslims at large were weaker, and the Crusaders became more powerful and dominant, to such a degree that they played the role of a guardian policing the region.
The struggle between Baktash and Tagatken over Damascus continued, and Baktash sought help from the king of the Crusaders in 498 H and from all those “who wanted corruption.” However, the king’s only help was to push Baktash for further corruption, which ultimately led to his downfall and the triumph of Tagatken. At the battle between the Fatimids and the Crusaders in 498 H, in an area between Ashkelon and Jaffa, the Fatimids were supported by a force of more than 300 knights from Damascus, and the Crusaders were helped by a group of Muslims led by Baktash Bin Tatash. When the Sultan’s army, under the leadership of Barsaq Bin Barsaq, came from Iraq in 509 H to Damascus for the sake of fighting the Crusaders, the rulers of Halab and Damascus feared for their own interests and power. They collaborated, under the leadership of Tagatken, with the Antakya Crusader troops to oppose the Sultan’s army. Tagatken fought the Crusaders of Bayt Al-Maqdis and won back the city of Rafnya after the Crusaders captured it.
Generally, however, the Muslim struggle (Jihad) against the Crusaders continued, though it actually lacked a strategic plan or organization. Some of the other reasons for the continuation of the struggle include the fact that there were many Muslim leaders, who appeared and disappeared frequently, which led to a lack of stable leadership. Also, the conflict with the Crusaders was distributed on many fronts simultaneously in Belad El-Sham. Furthermore, Muslims did not have a powerful centre that could be used as a launching base for their assaults on the Crusaders. More often than not, the battles were mainly in the form of a single Muslim city or castle trying to defend itself, or expand, against the Crusaders.
The wars continued between the Muslims and the Crusaders. Sometimes the Muslims triumphed, and in other times the Crusaders achieved the victory. It was not difficult for Muslims to get into the middle of Palestine and fight the Crusaders at Ramleh or Jaffa, for instance, but the Crusaders continued to have great control over the areas they occupied.
As a result, many new Muslim leaders appeared, but they were not strong enough to unite the Muslim forces for the fight against the Crusaders. Nonetheless, these leaders kept the spirit of resisting the Crusaders alive, and they inflicted them with many casualties and damages. They deprived the Crusaders from the security they were after, and managed to kill and capture many of their prominent leaders. For example, when Mu’een Al-Dawlah Saqman was fighting a war with Shams Al-Dawlah Jakramesh, and Harran was surrounded by the Crusader forces in 497 H, they started to contact each other and pledged a solemn oath for sacrificing themselves for the sake of God and His retribution. They gathered near Al-Khabour area in an army composed of more than 10,000 men from various nationalities, among who were Turks, Arabs and Kurds. They met with the Crusaders at Al-Bleekh River and defeated them. The Muslims captured the Crusader leader Burdawel and traded him for 35 dinars. They were also able to reclaim 160 Muslim prisoners of war that had previously been captured by the Crusaders. In this battle, however, more than 12,000 Crusader soldiers were killed.
Imad El-Deen Zanki carries Al-Jihad banner
The long era of Al-Jihad against the Crusaders entered a new phase with the appearance of Imad El-Deen Zanki Bin Aqsnaqr, who founded the Zanki State at Mousel and Halab. Zanki was appointed as a ruler of Mousel in 521 H after he had shown great skill and efficiency in ruling the States of Basra and Waset in Iraq. During the holy month of Muharram in the year 522 H, he managed to gain control over Halab. Zanki started to fight the Crusaders, and he defeated them in many battles.
Zanki’s efforts for uniting the Moslems against the Crusaders were relentless. He recaptured the cities of Hama, Hams, Ba’albek, Sarji, Dara, Ma’rra, Kafr Taleb, Al-Akrad, Shahrazour, Al-Hadeetha and many other cities, as well as Al-Soor castle in the Abu Bakr area, Al-Hameediya castle, Ba’reen’s castle and Al-Ashhab’s castle from the Hakarian Kurds.
In the year 534 H, Zanki tried to capture Damascus twice, but his effort was in vain. Damascus was really the key to getting Palestine back. Unfortunately, Mu’een El-Deen Anz, the ruler at the time, contacted the Crusaders and made an alliance with them against Zanki and promised them the city of Banias and they agreed. But Zanki went after them before they came to Damascus and they decided to back off. Nonetheless, Mu’een El-Deen kept his promise of giving up Banias, not to the Crusaders, but to the Muslims!
The most famous triumph ever made by Zanki, however, is his conquering the city of Al-Raha, and his destroying the kingdom of the Crusaders that was established there. He besieged the city for four weeks, and opened it perforce on the sixth of Jamadi Al Akhera in the year 539 H. He also captured all the cities that were under the province of the previous kingdom in the Peninsula. He also liberated the city of Surooj, and all the cities that were captured by the Crusaders adjacent to the east side of the Euphrates, except the city of Beerah.
After a life of Jihad that lasted for 20 years, Imad El-Deen Zanki was martyred in the middle of September in the year 1146 CE (5 Rabee’ El-Awal 541 H). This was accomplished by an act of treason by some of his followers while he was besieging Ja’beer’s castle at the age of 60 or so. According to Ibn El-Katheer, Zanki was an able politician and was highly respected and esteemed by his military and civil subordinates. Before he came to power, the country was a wasteland full of corruption and alliances with the Crusaders by the previous rulers. When he came into power, all of that was changed, and he set the country right and brought its prosperity back to it. “Zanki was the best of kings in form and manners. He was courageous and powerful and managed to take control over all the other kings at the time. He was very kind with women, and very generous with all his subordinates.” After his untimely death, Zanki was later known as the Martyr.
Zanki worked in the most difficult circumstances of conflict between the rulers and princes of the Salajiqa dynasty on the one hand, and between them and the Abbasid dynasty on the other. In addition to that, he suffered from the atmosphere imposed by the inheritance ruling traditions and the greed of princes and rulers to obtain any city or a castle that they could reach. Moreover, the Crusaders were very powerful and strong during his time. Despite that, he managed to substantiate a firm base of Jihad against the Crusaders to the north of Irand Syria. He also defeated the Crusaders and humiliated them more than once. Zanki made it possible to fight for regaining the lost land, and he was a model leader under the banner of Islam who brought back the hope of liberating the occupied holy grounds of the Muslims all over the world.
After he passed away, his State was divided between his two sons according to the inheritance tradition; Nour El-Deen Mahmoud took the State of Halab and its subordinates, and Sayf El-Deen Ghazi took the State of Mousel and its subordinates.
Nour El-Deen Mahmoud was born 20 years after the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of the Crusaders on 17 Shawwal in 511 H (February 1118 CE). He was tall, good-looking with dark complexion and a light beard. He married the daughter of Mu’een El-Deen Anz in the year 541 H and had a girl and two sons.
Under his rule, a new great phase for Jihad started in Belad El-Sham. During his reign, which lasted for 28 years, Nour El-Deen Mahmoud had one goal–uniting Muslims and liberating their occupied lands.
He left no stone unturned for the sake of uniting Muslims and elevating them in all the aspects of life within an integrated Islamic pattern to regain the Islamic glory and expel the unjust occupation of the Crusaders.
To accomplish this purpose, Nour El-Deen Mahmoud initiated an Islamic renaissance that stressed the need for the Islamic solution. Ibn El-Katheer describes him, saying, “Of all the kings I read about in pre-Islamic periods, and in the Islamic period as well, I never saw a king more just and kind to his subordinates among the Rashideen caliphs and Umar Bin Abdul Aziz than Nour El-Deen Mahmoud. He was very clever and witty, and was well aware of his time.” He never valued men for their social status and wealth. He only esteemed those who were honest and hard working.
He was also known for his piety and love of God. He was very keen to perform all the prayers and celebrate the ceremonies of Islam. He performed the Isha’ prayer (the evening prayer), and then after midnight would awake to start praying till it was time for the dawn prayer. He also fasted a lot.
He was known for his sound erudite knowledge. He was well versed with the Hanafiah tenet and was given license to relate the Prophet’s talks and speeches. He wrote a book on the concept of Jihad. He was a sedate person and was bestowed with a great deal of charisma. “He was fearful though lenient and merciful. And in his court there was only science and religion and consulting on Jihad. In all his life he never uttered a bad word in anger or pleasure. He was a grave, silent man.”
He was disinterested and modest “to such a degree that his expenses were not different from the poorest and neediest of his subordinates.” When his wife complained from the hardships of the difficult life he put her in, he gave her three shops he owned in Hams city and told her, “That is all that I have. And do not expect me to lay a finger on the money of the Muslims I am entrusted with because I fear the wrath of God.”
The grave Sheik Al-Naysabouri told him once: “I beg you, do not jeopardize yourself and Islam. If you were killed in a battle, the Muslims will all be killed.”
The continuation of Jihad against the Crusaders
The Crusaders whose cities and castles were conquered gathered in the city of Sour. Salah El-Deen Al-Ayoubi was very lenient with them and allowed them to go to that city freely. So they started to send calls for help and received back up and support till they were strong again. Furthermore, Salah El-Deen Al-Ayoubi set free the king Jae in the year 584 H on the condition that he should go to France. Rather, Jae headed to Sour and took the leadership of the Crusaders with the help of the fleet of Biza the Italian. On that occasion, Ibn El-Katheer says, “It was all done because of the mistake by Salah El-Deen to let all those he captured go free. Thereafter, he was full of remorse for what he had done.”
The Crusaders attacked the city of Akka from Sour in the year 585 H (1189 CE), and they waited there till they got the support they needed from the third campaign of the Crusaders, which was called upon by Pope Urban the Second to regain Jerusalem. Three European kings led the campaign–the Emperor of Germany Fredrik Barbarosa, whose most men died on the trip, Richard “the Lionhearted” king of England, who came by sea, and Philip Augustas, the king of France. King Richard was a remarkable man. He “had the evil of the Crusaders and their hatred for Muslims. He was courageous, smart and patient. He was a great source of trouble for Muslims.” These three forces besieged the city of Akka (on Rabee’ El-Thani-Jamadi El-Aoula 587 H [June 1191 CE]), and it fell into their hands on 17 Jamadi El-Aoula 587 (12 July 1191 CE). With this occupation, the Crusaders managed to create a base for themselves in Palestine again. The Muslims hit back, and there were many battles between both sides. However, the Crusaders continued their march and expanded their territories on the south coast by occupying the cities of Haifa and Jaffa.
It is important to note that the struggle was a bitter and bloody one between the two sides. Ibn El-Katheer noted that Salah El-Deen defended Akka very bravely, and he and his forces fought for it for 37 months and killed more than 50,000 soldiers from the Crusaders. The third campaign of the Crusaders ended when Salah El-Deen made the Ramleh treaty with Richard the Lionhearted on 21 Sha’aban 588 H (1 September 1192 CE). The treaty was held for three years and three months, during which time the Crusaders took control of the coast from Jaffa to Akka and were allowed to visit Jerusalem and to carry out their commercial activities with either of the two sides. It is of extreme importance to elaborate here on some of the clauses of the treaty, which, unfortunately, some of those defeatists who live among us now take against Salah El-Deen as a man who wasted the rights of Islam and Muslims and turned to making up with the Jews:
1. Salah El-Deen was not in favour of the treaty. When he gathered the consulting princes to discuss the issue, his opinion was to refuse the treaty. According to Al-Imad Al-Asfahani, Salah El-Deen said, “Thanks to God we are great in force, and our victory is approaching. We are used to Jihad, so it is difficult for us to live without it, and we have nothing to do more than fighting the Crusaders. I see that I should leave everything regarding the treaty behind. We should opt for Jihad instead, and God is with us, and upon His Grace and Care we depend.” However, his counselors agreed to the treaty on the pretext that the country was about to be totally destroyed; the soldiers were very tired and fatigued, and food supplies were scarce. If there were no treaty, the Crusaders would insist on fighting, which would be very bad for the Muslims. If there was a treaty, the country would take a rest and restore its prosperity, and the soldiers would rest as well and be able to prepare for retaliation. They all agreed that the Crusaders were not of the kind that abide by their word of promise, so they advised Salah El-Deen to make the treaty so that the forces of the Crusaders would dismantle and divert. They kept pushing and pressuring him till he finally agreed to the treaty.
2. This treaty was a short, temporary truce. It was not intended to last as a permanent solution. The Islamic shariah (the Muslim code of religious law) authorizes the making of temporary truces with the enemy for the general good of the Muslims. The history of Islam is full of such treaties. However, the battles continued immediately after the treaty.
3. This treaty did not contain any admittance on the part of the Muslims for the Crusaders to have any legal right in Palestine. The treaty simply stated that there should be no fighting over the lands they had occupied for a certain period of time.
What a great difference there is between this treaty, of which Muslims had made many over their history, and the peace agreement made now with the Zionist entity in our contemporary time.
Salah El-Deen died shortly afterward, mayGod rest his soul, on 27 Safar 589 H (4 March 1193 CE), i.e., only six months after the treaty.
The Ayoubis and their struggle with the Crusaders
After his death, Salah El-Deen’s successors were fiercely fighting each other–a thing that weakened the Muslims and strengthened the kingdom of the Crusaders in Akka, which was expanding at the expense of the Muslims. The love of power and pleasure, even at the expense of principles and values, was the basic characteristic of some of the Sultans of the Ayoubi State. They made alliances more than once with the Crusaders to help them against their rivals. Sometimes they even offered Jerusalem city to the Crusaders in exchange for help against the Sultan of Sham or Egypt and vice versa!
The Crusaders were very happy with the role they played, but their greed was centred on everyone and everything. But their spring did not last very long.
The fourth campaign sent by the Crusaders to the west in 601 H (1204 CE) ended in Constantinople and did not reach as far as Sham or Egypt. As to the fifth campaign, it was launched from Akka under the leadership of its own king, Johanna Bareen, to the city of Demiat in Egypt between 615-618 H (1218-1221 CE). When the Ayoubian Sultan Al-Kamel Mohammed Bin Mohammed Bin Ayoub realized the gravity of the situation, he offered peace to the Crusaders in exchange for the surrender of Jerusalem and most of Salah El-Deen’s liberated cities. They refused and asked for the southeast of Jordan, too, i.e. the cities of Karak and Shoubak. As a result, the great king Issa Bin Ahmed Bin Ayoub, the ruler of Damascus, ruined and sabotaged the walls of Jerusalem in 616 H (1219 CE) so that they could be of no use to the Crusaders should they invade the Holy City. But the Ayoubis finally gathered their forces and managed to defeat the Crusaders, who returned, humiliated, to Akka after they had missed a great opportunity.
The discord between Al-Kamel Mohammed and the great Issa led to the former going to seek help from Fredrik the Second, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, who became regent on the throne of the kingdom of the Crusaders in Akka. Al-Kamel promised the emperor the city of Jerusalem if he helped him against his brother the great Issa. Fredrik the Second led the sixth campaign of the Crusaders and reached Akka in the year 625 H (1228 CE). Even though the great Issa died and his brothers Al-Kamel and Al-Ashraf took his State and gave his son Al-Nassir Dawoud the cities of Karak, Balqa, Agwar, Salt and Shoubak, and Al-Kamel was not in need for Fredrik the Second any more, he gave him Jerusalem just to fulfill the promise he made to him! Fredrik, at the time, did not have the power to force Muslims to surrender Jerusalem. He even begged, at certain stages of his negotiation with Al-Kamel, for it. Fredrik was quoted as saying to Al-Kamel, “I am your subordinate and faithful slave. If your Highness granted me the honour to take the country, it would be a great gift that would make me proud of myself amongst all the kings of the sea.” Al-Kamel responded, and made the Jaffa treaty with Fredrik in 626 H (18 February 1229 CE). The treaty was meant to last for 10 years. It stated that the Crusaders would take the Holy City of Jerusalem, Bayt Laham, Tabneen, Honeen, Sayda and a strip of Jerusalem land that went through Al-Lad and ended at Jaffa, in addition to the cities of Nassira and the west of Al-Jaleel. The treaty also stated that the holy shrine of Al-Sakhra dome and its mosque should be left to the Muslims.
Thereafter, Jerusalem was returned to the control of the Crusaders. “The Muslim people were very saddened by the loss of Jerusalem; they were crying and performing obsequies everywhere. The scholars and preachers repeatedly said that this incident was a shame on the Muslim kings, and the people of Damascus started to hate Al-Kamel and resent him for what he did.” And Ibn Katheer is quoted as saying, “It was a great shock for Muslims, and the whole nation was weakened and self disappointed (131).”
The struggle between the successors of Salah El-Deen continued. Al Nassir Dawoud, the monarch of Jordan, seized the opportunity of the termination of the Jaffa treaty and the fortification of Jerusalem by the Crusaders. In violation of the stipulations of the treaty, he took back Jerusalem and expelled the Crusaders from it on 6 Jamadi El Aoula 637 H (7 December 1239 CE). However, Al-Salah Isma’il, the monarch of Damascus, gave it back to the Crusaders in the year 638 H (1240 CE)! He did it in exchange for their help to him against the ruler of Egypt, Al Salah Najm El-Deen Ayoub. Not only that, but he also gave them the cities of Ashkelon, Sayda, Tabarriyya and the rest of the coastal cities, as well as Alshaqeef castle, Al-Mojeb river, Safad castle and Amel mountain. This behaviour increased the resentment and malcontent of the Muslims, “who were very angry at Al-Saleh Isma’il.” Once again, Jerusalem was in the hands of the Crusaders.
When Al-Salah Isma’il mobilized his forces to join the Crusaders against Al-Salah Ayoub in Gaza, most of his soldiers refused to join the Crusaders against their fellow Muslims. Instead, they took the side of the Egyptian soldiers and defeated the Crusaders bitterly. But Al-Salah Ayoub made another treaty with the Crusaders in 638 H (1240 CE), and they regained their control over Jerusalem and the other territories under their rule.
Again, the Ayoubis started to fight amongst themselves for power, and Jerusalem was the prize, manipulated to achieve their greed for power and control. Al-Salah Isma’il once again offered the Crusaders an alliance in Akka in exchange for permanent control over Jerusalem and the holy places, including the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque. Al-Nassir Dawoud joined him with this proposal. Meanwhile, Al Salah Najm El-Deen Ayoub, the monarch of Egypt, offered the Crusaders the same thing.
The Crusaders chose Al-Salah Isma’il for the alliance. He invaded Egypt with the assistance of Al-Nassir Dawoud, and Al-Mansour Ibrahim, the king of Hams. On the other hand, Najm El-Deen sought help from the Khawarezmia, who came to him with an army comprised of more than 10,000 soldiers, and occupied Tabbarriya and Nablus. These forces entered Jerusalem on 17 July 642 H (1244 CE) and restored the city entirely to the Muslims. With that, Jerusalem was finally under control by the Muslims. They kept its Islamic identity until 10 December 1917 CE, when the English occupied it.
Then the Khawarezmia helped Al-Salah Ayoub against Al-Salah Isma’il and his allies, and the second Gaza battle took place (near the city of Gaza in a place called Herbia) in 642 H (1244 CE). Al-Salah Isma’il and the Crusaders were severely defeated, and the casualties of the Crusaders were estimated to be more than 30,000 soldiers and more than 800 prisoners were taken to Egypt. This battle was the strongest blow to the Crusaders after the battle of Hitteen and is considered one of the most crucial battles in the history of Palestine because the Crusaders never were able to regain their strength even though they tried to keep what they already had.
Then Al-Salah Ayoub took control over the cities Jerusalem, Hebron, Bayt Jabreen, Al-Agwar and Damascus in the year 642 H (1245 CE). He punished the Crusaders and occupied Tabbarriya castle and Ashkelon. Because of this, the kingdom of the Crusaders was limited to the gates of Jaffa in the year 644 H (1247 CE). Egypt was later attacked by the seventh campaign by the Crusaders, headed by Louise the Ninth, the king of France, in the year 646 H (1249 CE). The campaign failed, and the king was taken prisoner and later was set free to go to Akka. One year later the Ayoubi dynasty was terminated in Egypt, and the Mamaleek dynasty took over in the year 647 H (1250 CE). Thereafter, a new phase of Jihad against the Mongolians and the Crusaders began.
Al-Mamaleek and their confrontation with the Tatars
In the seventh expatriation century, the thirteenth century, the Mongolian (Tartarian) threat to the Islamic State started to emerge. The Mongolian tribes were all united under the leadershiof Jenkis Khan and started a huge campaign of expansion. They controlled Manchuria, China and Korea, and they destroyed the army of the Khawarezmia Muslim State in 1221 CE. The Khawarezmia army was the strongest hurdle against the Mongolian expansion to the Islamic world, which had previously triumphed over the Mongolians more than once.
Jenkis Khan died in the year 624 H (1227 CE), but the Mongolians continued their march and entered Middle Asia and Russia and controlled Moscow and the Ukraine. They attacked Poland and defeated the German and Scandinavian armies and went deeply into Europe. They also headed to the Islamic world and took Turkestan, Afghanistan, India and Persia.
The Mongolians were very ruthless and merciless with the countries they occupied. The whole world was afraid of their savagery and barbarism. They were winning the battles not only by their force and efficiency, but also by the psychological fear they inflicted in the minds of their opponents. The Mongolians invested the thunderbolt tactics in their wars, which were dependent upon swift movement. They also depended on the psychological war tactics by letting their opponents know about their horrible austerities before they even met them.
The Muslim State at the time was suffering from disjunction and weakness, so it was easy for the Mongolians to sweep entire Islamic armies and take over their kingdoms. The Muslim leaders were so weak then that one of them sent a pair of slippers on which his face was drawn so that the feet of Holako could honour him if he wore the slippers!
Thereafter, the Mongolians took Iraq. They besieged Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid dynasty, which was suffering from great weakness, the cause of which was the conspiracy of the minister Ibn Al-Alqami with the Mongolians to topple the Caliph. In addition, he demobilized the majority of the official army, which was once composed of more than 100,000 soldiers; it was reduced to only 10,000. Baghdad fell at the hands of the Mongolians in the year of 656 H (1258 CE). For 40 days, the Mongolians massacred the people of Baghdad. Ibn Katheer states that there were more than 800,000 dead and some say as many as 2,000,000. It is said that the Caliph Al-Mu’tassem Bi’llah was put in a bag and killed by kicking.
The Mongolians invaded the rest of the cities and took over Harran, Al Raha and Deyar Bakr, then they crossed the Euphrates and took Halab in the year 658 H (1260 CE). The Ayoubi rulers in Sham were very coward and defeatists; Al-Nassir Yousef Al-Ayoubi, the ruler of Halab, announced his submission to the Mongolians who, despite that, entered Halab and massacred the citizens to the degree that there were streams of Muslim blood throughout the city. Al-Mansour Bin Al-Modhaffar, the ruler of Hama, took his sons and women and escaped to Egypt, leaving Hama and its people behind him to meet there doomed fate. Al-Nassir Yousef went from Damascus to Gaza so that he could go to Egypt. He deserted Damascus and its people. Thus the Ayoubi dynasty was terminated in Belad El-Sham very quickly.
The Mongolians reached Damascus and took it without force in the year 1260 CE, and then betrayed its people. During the spring, they occupied Nablus and Karak and headed to Gaza without facing any resistance whatsoever. Thus, Palestine was divided between the kingdom of Akka ruled by the Crusaders and the Tartarian Mongolians. Palestine was once more under the onus of the blasphemers.
The Crusaders and the Tatars
Europe was very happy with the Mongolian invasion of the Islamic State and tried to coordinate with them against their common enemy. They also tried to spread Christianity amongst the Tartarians themselves. They partially succeeded at first, for it was known that the Mongolian leader Holako had an inclination towards the Nastorian Christians, and his court was full of many of them. His wife was a Christian, too. She played a major role, of which the Church was very proud, in diverting the Mongolian march from Europe. Instead, the march was directed at the Islamic State. Moreover, the Mongolian leader of the Ayn Jalout battle, Katbaga, was a Christian. The Christian influence was so great on the Mongolians that one priest described the Tartarian invasion as “a Crusader campaign in the full sense of the word–a full Nastorian Christianity.” The West even hoped that Holako and his leader Katbaga would eliminate the Muslims entirely. Hatoon the First, the king of Armenia, and Bohemond the Sixth, the prince of Tripoli, along with the Crusader princes in Sour, Akka and Cyprus, made an alliance with the Mongolians that stressed the elimination of Muslims in Asia and the return of Jerusalem to the Crusaders.
At that time, Egypt, under the Mamaleek dynasty, was ruled by the Sultan Al-Modhaffar Qutz in 657 H (1259 CE). He was a leader known for his piety and love of God and Islam. He was the student of the greatest scholar at the time, Al-Aziz Bin Abdul Salaam. Ibn Katheer said that Qutz was “a courageous hero who loved doing the good and following Islam; people loved him very much and kept making invocations for him.”
After a few months of his ascension to power, he faced the problem of the Tartarian invasion and received a threatening letter from Holako, before he left Syria, telling him to surrender Egypt. The letter read, “Look what we have done with the others and take a lesson from them; surrender, because we show no mercy to begging or crying. Where do you think you could escape from us? Who can protect you from our swords? Neither your forts nor men nor invocation can save you from us.”
But Qutz, the Muslim leader who only feared God, knew that victory comes from God, and if he prepared well for the battle and made everything connected to God, victory would be achieved. He decided to announce the holy Jihad and to confront the Crusader invasion. After reading the letter, he gave orders to kill the messengers and divide them into two halves, and their heads were to be hung over one of the gates of Cairo (The Gate of Zuweela), as a sign of an unflinching determination to fight and challenge the Tartarian invasion.
Furthermore, Qutz decided to seize the initiative and attack the Tartarian forces to boost the morale of the Muslims and to emphasize the spirit of Jihad that fosters the concept of martyrdom for the sake of God. Further, he would be defending the Muslim land of Egypt and would liberate the occupied Muslim land in Belad El-Sham, including Palestine and the holy Al Aqsa Mosque. This would send the Tartarians a message that he was a new kind of man they had never encountered before, because the best way to defend is to attack.
In the holy month of Ramadhan in the year 658 H (1260 CE), the Muslim army, under the leadership of Qutz, crossed the borders and liberated Gaza, where he stayed for one day. Then they headed north to meet the Tartarian forces. The two armies met at the Ayn Jalout area to the northeast of Palestine.
Ayn Jalout Battle
Ayn Jalout witnessed one of the most crucial battles in history on Friday, 25 Ramadhan 658 H (6 September 1260 CE). The Tartars had the logistic and scientific potential to win the fight against the Muslim army. Their advantages included:
· Efficiency and experience gained from the great number of wars they witnessed.
· High morale because they were never defeated.
· They had a large number of fighters and more weaponry.
· The efficiency of their cavalry who knew many advanced fighting techniques such as the thunderbolt method, which was a distinctive feature of the Tartarians.
· They were able to manage well because they were close to the bases of their supplies and support.
· The strategic locations of their army were better than those of the Muslim army.
Despite the overwhelming superiority of the Tartarian army, the Muslim army scored a momentous, exceptional victory. The Qutz army was characterized by the fact that it was an “Islamic” army aimed at consolidating Islam and protecting its Holy Land. The great scholars and religious men of Egypt joined this army making it was a sacred army constructed and built for the sof prioritizing the word of God and supporting its religion, Islam, in the land. Moreover, the army was further characterized by having a faithful leadership who cherished a true “will to fight”, the crucial factor in winning any battle.
Qutz told his army to wait until they finished the Friday prayers: “Do not fight them till it is sunset and the shadows appear and the winds stir, and the preachers and people start to implore God for us in their prayers”, and thereafter the fighting began.
Jullanar, the wife of Qutz, was killed during the battle. He rushed towards her saying, “Oh my beloved one”. She told him while uttering her last breath, “Do not say that, and care more for Islam.” Her soul ascended to God after telling her husband that the Jihad for the sake of God and Islam is more important than love and personal relations. Qutz stood up saying “Islamah…Islamah”. The whole army repeated that word after him until they achieved their victory.
During the battle, the horse of Qutz was also killed, and he stepped down and started to fight on the ground till they brought him another horse. He refused taking the horse of the other princes who volunteered their horses to him saying that he did not want to impede them from their holy duty, rescuing himself instead. He was asked why he did not ride on a horse and why he jeopardized himself and Islam. He answered, “If I was killed, I would have gone to Heaven, and as to Islam, Almighty God is well capable of protecting it.” After the battle was over and the victory was achieved for the Muslims, Qutz stepped down from his horse and smeared his face with the dust of the battleground and kneeled to God in thankfulness and gratitude.
The Muslims immediately started to chase the Mongolians, and Qutz entered Damascus five days after Ayn Jalout battle. The chase continued to Halab, and when the Mongolians felt the approach of the Muslims, they left behind the Muslim prisoners, and suffered a great deal. In one month’s time, the Muslims were able to restore Belad El-Sham entirely from the hands of the Tartars and the Mongolians.
This battle is considered to be one of the greatest battles in history in which the Mongolian invasion was put to an end. It was the beginning of the end of the Mongolians, who were forced to retreat. This liberated Belad El-Sham from their occupation. As for the Mongolians who stayed in the Muslim State, they embraced Islam in great numbers and that was another victory for the religion of God.
Al-Mamaleek and their elimination of the Crusaders
Although the Tartarian Mongolians were expelled from Palestine and the Muslims crushed them at Ayn Jalout, the kingdom of the Crusaders in Akka kept its control over the coastal area that stretched from Jaffa to Akka. The Sultans of the Mamaleek dynasty took the responsibility of liberating the rest of Palestine till they managed to expel the last Crusader from the Holy Land 30 years after the Ayn Jalout battle.
Al-Dhaher Bebars succeeded the Sultan Qutz, whose reign lasted for about one year. Bebars played a major role in fighting the Crusaders in Belad El-Sham, for he was constantly assaulting their bases there. Sometimes he resorted to making treaties with them if he felt there was a need. The custom was that the treaty should last for 10 years and 10 months and 10 days and 10 hours. After finishing with the internal problems in his State, he turned to fight the Crusaders. In the year 662 H (1263 CE), he went to Palestine. When he arrived at Akka, the Crusaders came to ask him for renewing the treaty saying that they would release the Muslim prisoners and keep the promises they made. But Bebars did not consider their demands and went on to attack their various bases, especially Akka, so that he would know their level of strength and exhaust their resources and strike them at the right time and place.
He once again headed to Palestine in the year 664 H (1265 CE) and took control over Qaysarryat El-Mahsana and destroyed its walls. A part of his army attacked Akka and Haifa. He conquered Arsouf in the same year.
The next year, he went to Palestine again and besieged the city of Safad and conquered it. He then came back to Palestine in the year 666 H (1267 CE), and the Crusaders asked him for a treaty. He used to follow the policy of divide-and-rule with the Crusaders so that their forces would not be united against him all at once. This policy helped him conquer the city of Antakya in the year 667 H (1268 CE). This is considered the greatest victory the Muslims ever achieved over the Crusaders since Salah El-Deen liberated Jerusalem in the year 583 H (1187 CE). Bebars agreed, after conquering Antakya, to make a treaty with Akka that lasted for 10 years on the condition that he should rule half of Akka, and he should control the heights surrounding Sayda.
The Sultan Al-Mansour Sayf El-Deen Qalawoun continued liberating Belad El-Sham from the Crusaders after Al-Dhaher Bebars died. At his time an alliance against the Muslims was formed among the Crusaders, the Tartarians and Sanqur Al-Ashqar, the deputy of Damascus, who turned on the Moslems. But their alliance failed and Qalawoun started to tighten his grip on the Crusaders and occupied Al-Marqab Fort in the year 684 H (1285 CE). He conquered Al-Ladeqyya in the year 686 H (1287 CE) and Tripoli in the year 688 H (1289 CE). Qalawoun took advantage of the unstable state of the Crusaders in Akka in particular and in Belad El-Sham in general because of the ongoing struggle over power. He was very strong and powerful and could eliminate the presence of the Crusaders in the eastern Arabic region. On the Shami coast, the Crusaders were in control of only Akka, Sour, Sayda and Etleet.
Qalawoun found that it was time for the total elimination of the Crusaders in Palestine. He used the incidence of the Crusaders attacking and killing some Muslim pilgrims as an excuse to announce Jihad against the Crusaders. He summoned his forces from Egypt and Sham. He stayed out of Cairo waiting for the arrival of the assistance forces, but he suddenly fell ill and died in the year 689 H (1290 CE). His son Ashraf Salah El-Deen Khaleel succeeded him. The Crusaders wanted to take advantage of the situation and offered Ashraf another treaty, but he refused and took his forces and besieged Akka and liberated it in the year 1291 CE. The king of Akka, Henry the Second, escaped to Cyprus. After conquering Akka, Ashraf took Sayda , Sour, Haifa and Etleet. He gave orders to destroy all the fortifications in those cities. Thus, the last base of the Crusaders was destroyed at the hands of Al-Mamaleek dynasty, and the existence of the Crusaders in Palestine and Sham was finally terminated after two centuries (492 - 690 H [1099-1291 ]). With this accomplishment, Palestine was back under Islamic rule again till the British forces occupied it.
The history of Palestine pre-Islam
Introduction:
Palestine was predestined by God Almighty to be the land from which prophets and messengers took upon their shoulders the banner of monotheism and called upon their people to abide by it.
In its ancient history, Palestine witnessed models of leadership by many prophets and their subsequent command over their people. These prophets waged violent struggles for the sake of fixing the banner of truth on this holy land.
Jerusalem city
Before plunging into details, it is important to keep in mind the fact that Muslims do believe in all prophets, that Muslims consider the heritage of all prophets as their own, that Muslims consider their Islamic creed as an extension of the creed of the prophets prior to the coming of Islam and that the creed for which all prophets previous to Mohammed had called for is the same creed for which prophet Mohammed (peace and blessings be upon him) had called.
Consequently, the stockpile of experience by all of the prophets in their call for truth and God worshipping is not separate or different from the Muslims’ call and their stockpile of experience.
Consider the following verse taken from the Holy Qur’an (Surah [S] XVI:36) as translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali: For We assuredly sent amongst every people an apostle (with the command), “Serve God, and eschew Evil.” It is the creed of oneness to which every messenger had called. When a certain people reject their messenger, they reject all messengers. Consider what God Almighty says in the Holy Qur’an: The people of Noah rejected the apostles (S.XXVI:105); The ‘Ad (people) rejected the apostles (S.XXVI:123); The Thamud (people) rejected the apostles (S.XXVI:141); The people of Lut rejected the apostles (S.XXVI:160); and The Companions of the Wood rejected the apostles (S.XXVI:176).
When they encounter the contemporary Jewish allegation of their right to Palestine, many historians engage themselves with archaeology and with the people who had settled, ruled or passed through Palestine and how long the rule of each one lasted. They eventually come up with the conclusion that the Jewish dominion over Palestine throughout history was so short in time and limited in place compared with the Arab and Muslim dominion. Although this aspect is very useful in refuting the historical and ideological aspects of the Jewish allegation, many writers and historians, it seems, have committed the following two major mistakes:
1. To consider the heritage of prophets, which were sent by God to the Jews to rule over them, as a heritage solely for the Jews (this is exactly what the Jews want), and
2. To abuse the biographies of a number of prophets sent to the Children of Israel by using evidences based on the deviated Torah or the Jews themselves. When they use this reasoning, they intend to show the “shameful behaviour” of the Children of Israel and their leaders once they settled in Palestine in order to degrade the value of their State and to show the decline of their level of civilization. Followers of this method of evidence talk about accusing prophets of cheating, of lying, of adultery and of raping the rights and killing the innocent to prove the cruelty, deceit and meanness of the Jews and to distort their image of rule and dominion at that time.
The Holy Qur’an has sufficiently provided us with the ways to identify the Jewish manners and has warned us regarding their debauchery and immorality. But their prophets and their virtuous followers are something else. Prophets are the best examples of all human beings. They should not be abused and most certainly God Almighty should not be abused. We should not follow the deviated stories of the Children of Israel, which abuse both prophets and God.
The deviated Torah and the Talmud, for instance, say that God (the Most High, Exalted and Great) plays with whales and fish for three hours every day. They also say that He cried over the demolition of the temple till His size was diminished from seven heavens to four heavens, and that earthquakes and hurricanes occur as a result of God’s tears, which supposedly fall into the sea in response to the demolished temple. The Holy Qur’an mention their allegations in the following verses: The Jews say: “God’s hand is tied up (S.V:64)”; God hath heard the taunt of those who say: “Truly, God is indigent and we are rich! (S.III:181)”.
The Jews attribute Prophet Jacob with the theft from his father an idol made of gold and with his having wrestled with God(!!) near the city of Nablus, thus he was named Israel. In addition, he has been attributed with offering bribes to his brother, cheating his father and keeping silent regarding the alleged adultery and polytheism of his two daughters. Such things are understandable considering what the Jews say about the rest of prophets.
The Jews have deviated from the Torah or the Old Testament, and they follow the path of the deviated Torah as seen in their manners, debauchery and immorality, under the pretence of what they had attributed falsely and untruly to their prophets. Historians, especially the Muslim ones, should not embark rashly in their search into Palestine’s history accusing God’s prophets and messengers, as the Jews did in their fabrications, in order to prove other prophets’ rights in Palestine.
If the creed-and-faith tie is the ground upon which Moslems of all kinds and colours are united, then Muslims have the priority to hold the heritage of the prophets, including the heritage of the prophets of the Children of Israel. Muslims are still holding the banner already held up by the prophets and are still following their path. All of those prophets were Muslims and believers in the unity of God according to the Qur’anic understanding. Consider the following verse as spoken by God (Almighty) as revealed in the Holy Qur’an: Abraham was not a Jew nor yet a Christian; but he was true in Faith, and bowed his will to God’s (which is Islam), and he joined not gods with God. Without doubt, among men, the nearest of kin to Abraham, are those who follow him, as are also this Apostle and those who believe: and God is the Protector of those who have faith (S.III:67-68), and God Almighty also says: … And remember Abraham and Isma’il raised the foundations of the House (with this prayer): “Our Lord! Accept (this service) from us; for Thou art the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing, Our Lord! make of us Muslims, bowing to Thy (Will) and of our progeny a people Muslims, bowing to Thy (Will) (S.II:127-128)”, and God Almighty also says: And, who turns away from the religion of Abraham but such as debase their souls with folly? Him We chose and rendered pure in this world: and he will be in the Hereafter in the ranks of the Righteous. Behold! his Lord said to him: “Bow (thy will to Me)”: He said: “I bow (my will) to the Lord and Cherisher of the Universe!” And this was the legacy that Abraham left to his sons, and so did Jacob: “Oh my sons! God hath chosen the Faith for you; then die not except in the Faith of Islam.” Were ye witnesses when Death appeared before Jacob? Behold, he said to his sons: “What will ye worship after me?” They said: “We shall worship thy God and the God of thy fathers, of Abraham, Isma’il and Isaac, the One (True) God: to Him we bow (in Islam) (S.II:130-133)”.
In general, the nation of monotheism is considered as one nation that came from Adam (peace be upon him) till God inherits the earth and all above the earth. God’s prophets and messengers and their followers are part of the nation of monotheism, and the call for Islam is an extension of their call. Muslims have the priority to hold God’s prophets and messengers and their heritage.
The prophets traditions are our tradition; their experiences are our experiences; their history is our history and the legality given by God to them and their followers to dominate over this blessed holy land is an indication of our legality and right to hold this land and to rule it.
God Almighty had given this land to the Children Israel when they were following the right path of God and when they were representing the nation of monotheism in ancient times. We are not shameful, and we do not hesitate to mention this fact, otherwise, we would contradict expressly the Holy Qur’an. For instance, when Moses (peace be upon him) said to his people: “O my people! enter the holy land which God hath assigned unto you, and turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin (S.V:21)”. This legality was linked with the commitment by the Jews for monotheism and conformity with God’s method. But, when they rejected to believe in God, disobeyed His messengers, slew His prophets, broke their covenants and oaths, rejected to follow the Islamic creed preached by Mohammed (peace and blessings be upon him) to whom the prophets of Jews had given glad tidings to their people, as mentioned in the following verses: “Those who follow the Apostle, the unlettered Prophet, whom they find mentioned in their own (Scriptures), in the Law and the Gospel (S.VII:157)”; “and giving Glad Tidings of an Apostle to come after me, whose name shall be Ahmed (S.LXI:6)”, they incurred the curse of God and His wrath: “But because of their breach of their Covenant, We cursed them, and made their hearts grow hard (S.V:13)” …Say: shall I point out to you something much worse than this (as judged) by the treatment it received from God? Those who incurred the curse of God and His wrath, those of whom some He transformed into apes and swine, those who worshipped Evil, these are (many times) worse in rank, and far more astray from the even path!.
Therefore, the legality of dominating over the Holy Land was changed to the nation that follows the prophets’ methods and carries their banner–the nation of Islam. The question as to who has the legal right to dominate the Holy Land, according to our understanding, is not related to race, kind, or people, it is rather related to who is following the correct method.
To continue discussing the Jewish allegation of their right in Palestine according to the Old Testament provisions, we would refer to what they mentioned in the changed Old Testament of giving this land to Abraham (peace be upon him) and his progeny. It includes the following: “…The Lord said to Abraham: Leave your land, your tribe, the house of your father and go to the land I am leading you to … .So, Abraham went as the Lord told him … Then, they came to the land of Canaan … and the Lord appeared before Abraham and said: ‘To your progeny I give this land’….” In the altered Torah, there is also the following: “…And (Abraham) lived in the land of Canaan. Then the Lord said to him: ‘Raise up your eyes and from the place where you were, look around you to the north, south, east and west, because all the land that your eyes can see I give to you and to your progeny for ever’….” It also includes: “… The Lord made a covenant with Abraham saying to your progeny I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river; the Euphrates…”.
To refute these issues, in addition to our understanding of them in their fundamental religious context, we can say the following:
1. If there was a covenant, it was given to Abraham (peace be upon him) and his progeny, and the Children of Israel are not the only progeny from Abraham. The naturalized Arabs were also from the progeny of Abraham (the Children of Isma’il-peace be upon him) and Mohammed (peace be upon him) is one of them.
2. If these issues are linked with progeny and reproduction, all evidences show that the great majority of the Jews in our time are not from Abraham’s progeny, because most of the Jews nowadays are from the Caspian Jews who embraced this religion in the ninth and tenth centuries CE (Common Era).
3. The Holy Qur’an has clarified the chiefdom (Imamah) issues of Abraham and his progeny without any confusion. Consider what God Almighty says: And remember that Abraham was tried by his Lord with certain Commands, which he fulfilled: He said: “I will make thee an Imam to the Nations.” He pleaded: “And also (Imams) from my offspring!” He answered: “But My Promise is not within the reach of evil doers (S.II:124).”
When Abraham asked God for the chiefdom to be held by his offspring, God pointed out to him that his offspring are not entitled to have the chiefdom and oppressors should not be allowed to obtain it. What more injustice, unbelieving and hindering from the path of God and corruption in the earth had been and is still being committed by the Children of Israel!!
Regarding the historical allegations of the Jews, historians have sufficiently refuted them. The period of the dominion of Islam is the longest one throughout history. Peoples who had settled in Palestine more than 1,000 years before the coming of the Jews remained settled there until now. They were mixed with the Arab immigrations before and after the Muslim Conquest. These now comprise the people of Palestine with its Islamic religion, Arabic language and Arab traits.
Palestine in the ancient ages
Man lived in Palestine since early ancient ages. There are ruins which trace back to the ancient Stone Age (500,000-14,000 BC) and the middle Stone Age (14,000-8000 BC). This age in Palestine is called Al-Natoofieh civilization, attributed to Al-Natoof caves, north of Jerusalem. Al-Natoof origin is not yet known. Their civilization was concentrated on the coast. They lived in caves such as those found on Al-Karmel Mountain.
In the Modern Stone Age (8000-4500 BC) the cave life of man in Palestine was changed to settlements. He changed from food collector to food producer. The first evidence supporting settlement life appeared in Jericho, which is the most ancient city in the world. It was established in 8000 BC.
The Brass Stone Age ran from 4500 BC to 3300 BC. A lot of archaeological civilization locations that trace back to that era were discovered in the Beer Sheba region, between the Hebron mountains and the Dead Sea and along the sea coast of Al-Khudiera.
The beginning of the third millennium BC was characterized with the emergence of the old empires in the east accompanied by the discovery of writing and the start of writing history. From here, historical ages started in Palestine.
The era that extended from 3200 BC to 2000 BC is called the Ancient Bronze Age. It was characterized by the emergence of the fortified defending towns built on high hills.
They were spread out in large numbers, and most of them were built in the middle and north of Palestine. The most important locations were in Bashan, Majideo, Al-Afoula, Ras Al-Nakoura and Tal Al-Farei’a north of Nablus. In the third millennium BC, the population of Palestine increased, and the cities grew and became political and economic powers. This period can be called the period of “small-States of towns.”
During the third millennium BC, the Ammonites, the Canaanites and also the Yabousians and the Phoenicians, which are considered sub-branches of the Canaanites, had migrated to settle in Palestine. Their emigration to Palestine was around 2500 BC. The Canaanites settled on the plains of Palestine and the Ammonites settled in the mountains. The Yabousians settled in and around Jerusalem; they built the city of Jerusalem and named it “Yabous” then “Hierosolyma”. The Phoenicians settled on the north coast of Palestine and in Lebanon.
Reliable historians believe that the Ammonites, the Canaanites, the Yabousians and the Phoenicians had come from the Arab peninsula and that the majority of the current population of Palestine, especially the villagers, are the offspring of those old tribes and peoples or the Arab and Muslims who settled there after the Muslim Conquest.
During that period, the emigration of the Canaanites took place on a large scale. They became the original population of the country. The name of “Land of Canaan” was the oldest name to which the land of Palestine had been known. The Canaanites built most of the towns in Palestine. Their number-within the borders of the current Palestine-was more than 200 towns during the second millennium BC, hundred of years before the coming of the HebraiJews. In addition to Jericho and Jerusalem, there were other old towns, namely Shechem (Balatah, Nablus), Bashan, Ashkelon, Akka, Haifa, Hebron, Ashdod, A’aqur, Beer Sheba and Bethlehem.
After that time, the Middle Bronze Age followed from 2000 BC to 1550 BC. The first half of the second millennium BC witnessed the dominion of the Hyksos, who ruled Palestine during the eighteenth to sixteenth centuries BC. It seems that during this age (around 1900 BC), Abraham (peace be upon him) came to Palestine accompanied by his nephew “Lut” (peace be upon him) and there, Isma’il, Isaac and Jacob (peace be upon them) were born.
The Late Bronze Age (1550 BC-1200 BC) started with the withdrawal of the Hyksos dominion from Palestine and the subsequent control by the absolute Egyptian regime. As to the Iron Age (1200 BC-330 BC), it seems that in its early period (approximately 1200 BC), Palestine had received groups of emigrants who came from various regions, the most important ones were “the peoples of the sea” migrations. It seems that they came from western Asia and from islands of the Aegean Sea (Crete and others). At the beginning, those peoples launched their attacks against the coasts of Syria and Egypt, but Ramses the Third, Pharaoh of Egypt, drove them away from his country in the Blouzioun battle (near Port Said) and gave them permission to settle in the southern part of Palestine. In the archeological inscriptions, the name of “PLST” was mentioned and, accordingly, those peoples were called “Palestians” and then the letter “n” was inserted in their name (maybe because of the plural). So they became the “Palestinians”. The Palestinians built five kingdoms, including the cities of Gaza, Ashdod, Jet, Aqroun and Ashkelon. These cities were possibly ancient Canaanites, and they expanded and organized them and built two new cities, namely Lod and Saklash. They occupied the rest of the coast up to the Al-Karmel Mountains. Then they captured Marj Ibn Amir. The Palestinians soon mixed with the Canaanites, used their language and worshipped their gods (Dajoun, B’al and Ashtar). Although the Palestinians had been mixed with the people, they gave this land their name, so, it was called Palestine.
It is apparent from the comparative historical indications that Moses (peace be upon him) led the Children of Israel towards the Holy Land in the second half of the thirteenth century BC, i.e. in the Late Bronze Age. This Age and the Early Iron Age witnessed the beginning of the Jews entering Palestine and the emergence of the Kingdom of David and Solomon (peace be upon them) between 1004 BC and 923 BC. This period was divided into two kingdoms: the Israel Kingdom (923 BC-722 BC) and the Judah Kingdom (923 BC-586 BC). Each one ruled over a limited part of the land of Palestine. From 730 BC, Palestine, in general, was under the Assyrian dominion, which came from Iraq, till 645 BC. Thereafter, the Babylonians were the successors in dominion till 539 BC. The Assyrians and the Babylonians exchanged the domination over Palestine with Egypt. Then, the Persians invaded Palestine and ruled it from 539 BC to 332 BC. After that, Palestine entered the Greek Hellenistic Age. It was ruled by the Ptolemaics till 198 BC and was followed by Seleucias till 64 BC, at which time the Romans came and dominated over Palestine. After the division of the Roman Empire, Palestine was still influenced by the Eastern Roman Empire “Roman State”, with Constantinople as its capital. Thereafter, the Muslim Conquest took place and gave it its Arab-Islamic character.
The mission of truth and the tour of prophets in the Holy Land
Abraham (peace be upon him), was the first of the Prophets whom we know lived and died in Palestine. He is the father of all Prophets, as many prophets descended from his offspring, including Prophets Isaac, Jacob, Yousef, Isma’il and Mohammed (peace be upon them).
According to traditions, Abraham (peace be upon him), was born in Orr in Iraq and lived there for a period of time. He destroyed idols, called for monotheism and faced Al-Namroud with evidence. They tried to burn him at the stake as a punishment for destroying the idols, but God Almighty made it cool and a means of safety for him. Abraham migrated with his nephew Lut for the sake of God: He said: “I will go to my Lord. He will surely guide me (S.XXXVII:99).”
It seems that Abraham in the beginning migrated with his companions to Harran (Al-Raha), which is presently located to the south of Turkey and north of Syria. From there, he migrated to the land of Canaan (Palestine). God Almighty says: “But we delivered him and Lut (and directed them) to the land which we have blessed for the nations.” Historians estimate that his arrival in Palestine was around 1900 BC. This date for the ancient history of Iraq represented the end of the “Third Orr” reign, which was ruled by the Samaritans and the beginning of the old Babylon era in which the Semitic elements that came from the Arabian Peninsula (Ammonites) prevailed.
Abraham (peace be upon him), dwelled in “Shechem” near Nablus. From there, he moved towards Ramallah and Jerusalem, passing through Hebron and then Beer Sheba, where he settled for some time. He then departed for Egypt. He returned from Egypt accompanied by Hajar. She was presented to him as a gift by the Egyptian leader. It was also mentioned that she was the daughter of Pharaoh or an Egyptian princess. Then he returned to Palestine and passed through Gaza, where he met Abu Malek, the Emir of Gaza. Then he moved between Beer Sheba and Hebron. Thereafter, he ascended to Jerusalem. Lut (peace be upon him) moved to the south of the Dead Sea as he was sent by God as an apostle to the people of that region, while Abraham remained in the mountains of Jerusalem and Hebron. Isma’il (peace be upon him) was born to Abraham from his wife Hajar. Thirteen years later, Isaac was born to Abraham from his wife Sarah. It seems that Abraham’s sons were born while he was in his old age. This we know from the following verse of the Holy Qur’an, spoken by Sarah: She said: “Alas for me! Shall I bear a child, seeing I am an old woman, and my husband here is an old man? (S.XI:72)”
It seems that Abraham (peace be upon him) visited the Hejaz many times. He brought Isma’il and his mother Hajar to Mecca. The story of Hajar running back and forth between the Safa and the Marwa hills and the gushing out of the Zamzam water is well known. Then Abraham returned and built the Ka’ba with Isma’il: And remember, Abraham and Isma’il raised the foundations of the House (with this prayer): “Our Lord! Accept (this service) from us: for thou art the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing (S.II:127).” However, the place of settlement of Abraham remained Palestine, where he died and was buried in Al-Makfeelah cave near Hebron, which is the city named after his name (peace be upon him). It is said that his age was 175 years.
Abraham (peace be upon him) was contemporaneous with Jerusalem’s ruler “Malaki Sadeq”, who seemed to be a monotheist and a friend of his. At that time, the believers in God were very few. Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) related that Abraham said to his wife Sarah after he had visited one of the powerful people at that time: “There are no believers on earth except for you and myself.” This apparently happened when they went to Egypt. This can be concluded from the verse of God Almighty: Abraham was indeed a model (Ummat: Nation), devoutly obedient to God (S.XVI:120)…”
However, Abraham, the Father of the Prophets, was one of the firm-willed prophets. He had a missionary role in calling for the message of monotheism in Palestine. He used to establish mosques and prayer niches for the worship of God everywhere he used to visit. It seems that he did not have trouble or distress with the people of Palestine, and he was not forced to leave it because of his religion and message. He remained settled in Palestine with full freedom of movement until his death.
Lut (peace be upon him) dwelled south of the Dead Sea. He was sent as an apostle to the village of “Sodom”. The people of that village were committing le, i.e. sodomy. Their apostle Lut prohibited them from doing so, but they did not obey him. As a result, God punished them for that and turned their village upside down and rained down on them brimstones hard as baked clay. God Almighty says in the Holy Qur’an: We also sent Lut. He said to his people: “Do ye commit lewdness such as no people in creation (ever) committed before you? For ye practise your lusts on men in preference to women: ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds.” And his people gave no answer but this. They said, “Drive them out of your city: these are indeed men who want to be clean and pure!” But we saved him and his family, except his wife: she was of those who lagged behind. And we rained down on them a shower of (brimstone): Then see what was the end of those who indulged in sin and crime! (S.VII:80-84)” and “When Our Decree issued, We turned (the cities) upside down, and rained down on them brimstones hard as baked clay, spread, layer on layer, marked as from thy Lord: nor are they ever far from those who do wrong!” (S.XI:82-83).
The Holy Qur’an indicated that Abraham (peace be upon him) was contemporary with Lut’s mission and the destroying of his people. Angels came and gave him glad tidings of Isaac and told him that they were sent to destroy Lut’s people. He, then, said to them: “… But there is Lut there. They said: ‘Well do we know who is there: we will certainly save him and his following, except his wife’…” Thus, God Almighty gave victory to his apostle Lut and purified his holy land from “…the town which practiced abominations…” The glad tidings came to Abraham that Isaac would carry the banner of monotheism after him in the Holy Land so that the spreading of God’s light would continue.
Isaac lived in the land of Palestine. God Almighty blessed him with Jacob (peace be upon him) and Israel, who is considered by the Jews as their father. Isaac and Jacob were the light of guidance after Abraham (peace be upon him). Consider the following marvelous Qur’anic text: And We bestowed on him Isaac and, as an additional gift (a grandson), Jacob, and We made righteous men of every one (of them). And we made them leaders, guiding (men) by Our Command, and We sent them inspiration to do good deeds, to establish regular prayers, and to practise regular charity; and they constantly served Us (and Us only) (S.XXI:72-73).
Jacob (peace be upon him) was born in the eighteenth century BC (around 1750 BC) in Palestine. But, it seems that he immigrated to Harran “Al-Raha”, where he got married and produced 11 sons, among whom was Joseph (peace be upon him). His twelfth son, Benjamin, was born in the land of Canaan (Palestine). Jacob (peace be upon him) and his children returned to Palestine and lived in Sa’ar near Hebron. The history concerning his son, Joseph, is well known and detailed in Surah Yousef (Joseph) in the Holy Qur’an. The story unfolds as Joseph’s brothers plot against Joseph and throw him down to the bottom of a well. Then Joseph was found by a caravan of travelers who sold him as a slave in Egypt. He grew up there, prayed to God, rejected women’s temptations and was in prison till he was honoured by God and was put in charge of the storehouses of the land of Egypt. This was a result of his skillful interpretation of a dream by a king, and his absolution was proved. Joseph brought his father, Jacob, and his brothers to Egypt where God restored Jacob’s sight after his eyes became white from the sorrow he experienced over his perceived loss of Joseph. Joseph had also forgiven his brothers. Some narrations mentioned that Jacob lived in Egypt for 17 years, but he was buried near his grandfather and father–Abraham and Isaac–in Hebron.
The period during which Jacob and his children lived in Egypt coincided with the domination by the Hyksos over Egypt from 1774 BC to 1567 BC; they were not originally from Egypt.
However, it seemed that Joseph and his brothers, the children of Jacob (Israel), were all kept busy with the liberty of work and worship in Egypt. They played their role in the calling for monotheism. However, their condition changed in the successive generations. The Children of Israel fell under the oppression of the Pharaoh till God sent Moses to Pharaoh to take the Children of Israel out of Egypt to the Holy Land.
The Children of Israel after Moses (peace be upon him)
The Children of Israel during that period were the people of truth-keepers and bearers of the monotheism banner. The Pharaoh of Egypt at that time was so arrogant and overbearing. He even went so far as to allege that he was of the divinity. In fact, he was a debaucher and oppressed the Children of Israel. He was known to slay their sons, and keep their females alive: Truly Pharaoh elated himself in the land and broke up its people into sections, depressing a small group among them: their sons he slew, but he kept alive their females: for he was indeed a maker of mischief (S.XXVIII:4).
Moses (peace be upon him) was born under these circumstances. He grew up in the house of Pharaoh by an intriguing arrangement of God Almighty. The story of Moses, his growing up, his calling of Pharaoh, his feeling with the Children of Israel from Egypt and the destruction of Pharaoh, are well-known to everyone.
God Almighty had ordained to give the land of Palestine to that believing group at that time. And we wished to be gracious to those who were being depressed in the land, to make them leaders (in faith) and make them heirs, to establish a firm place for them in the land, and to show Pharaoh, Haman, and their hosts, at their hands, the very things against which they were taking precautions (S.XXVIII:5-6). Moses was sent to Pharaoh for this mission, helped by his brother Aaron, who was also a messenger. Moses said: “O Pharaoh! I am an apostle from the Lord of the Worlds, one for whom it is right to say nothing but truth about God. Now have I come unto you (people), from your Lord, with a clear (Sign): So let the Children of Israel depart along with me (S.VII:104-105).” But Pharaoh rejected this, exhibited haughtiness and did not believe in the signs and miracles brought about by Moses. Sorcerers who were gathered by Pharaoh believed in the call of Moses. However, it seemed that those who manifested their faith and joined the Children of Israel were a limited number of the young men of the Children of Israel. Their faith was mixed with the fear of Pharaoh lest he should persecute them. But none believed in Moses except some children of his People, because of the fear of Pharaoh and his chiefs, lest they should persecute them; and certainly Pharaoh was mighty on the earth and one who transgressed all bounds (S.X:83).
Then Moses (peace be upon him) led the believers of his people eastwards across the sea, and Pharaoh and his hosts followed them. Then the story of the dividing of the sea, of the saving of the Children of Israel by God and of the drowning of Pharaoh and his hosts was revealed: “Then we told Moses by inspiration: ‘Strike the sea with thy rod.’ So, it divided, and each separate part became like the huge, firm mass of a mountain. And we made the other party approach thither. We delivered Moses and all who were with him; but we drowned the others”.
Here, we have to stop at some historical opinions and narrations which showed that the number of the Jews who departed Egypt with Moses was only around 6,000 or, according to some narrations, 15,000. From the historical aspect, it seems that this period fell during the thirteenth century BC, and the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt was exactly during the last third of that century. This period coincided with the rule of “Ramses II”, who is presently known as “Ramses the Second”. By the power of God Almighty, the corpse of this Pharaoh is presently exhibited at an Egyptian museum. This reminds us of what God Almighty says: “This day shall we save thee in thy body, that thou mayest be a Sign to those who come after thee! But verily, many among mankind are heedless of Our Signs! (S.X:92).”
After the saving of the Children of Israel by God Almighty, the epiof Moses and Aaron suffering with them are manifest. Their characteristics included the weakness of faith, ignorance and cowardice. For, immediately after they crossed the sea, they soon came upon a people devoted entirely to idols: They said: “O Moses! fashion for us a god like unto the gods they have (S.VII:138).” Then when Moses went to the place (of communion) with his Lord, his people worshipped the calf, in spite of Aaron’s presence among them: The people of Moses made, in his absence, out of their ornaments, the image of a calf (for worship): it seemed to low (S.VII:148) …” So they said: “This is your god, and the god of Moses, but (Moses) has forgotten (S.XX:88)!”
They were about to kill Aaron when he prohibited them from committing acts of disbelief. He said to his brother Moses: “…The people did indeed reckon me as naught, and went near to slaying me!”, in addition to many other situations.
Then Moses led the Children of Israel towards the Holy Land. He said to them: “O my people! Enter the Holy Land which God hath assigned unto you, and turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin.”
But they had chosen to turn back!! “They said: O Moses! In this land are a people of exceeding strength: Never shall we enter it until they leave it: if (once) they leave, then shall we enter.” The advice was unpalatable to the crowd, who repeated: “They said: O Moses! While they remain there, never shall we be able to enter, to the end of time. Go there and thy Lord, and fight ye two, while we sit here (and watch).” Sayyid Qutb, God’s mercy be on him, commented on this attitude of the Children of Israel saying, “The real nature of the Jews had been clearly manifested here without any indication of even a slight effort to hide their true nature. They felt that the danger was near and once confronted with it, nothing would protect them from it, even God’s promise to them that they would be the proprietors of the land and that God had written it for them. They wanted it without cost, without effort and an easy victory to be sent down to them, just as the Manna and the quails were sent … So, these incidents embarrassed the cowards and made them insolent and afraid of the danger in front of them. Thus, it was the insolence of the disabled who could only be insolent and his tongue impudent. The Holy Qur’an says: ‘…Go there and thy Lord…’ He would not be their god if his Divinity entailed them to fight! ‘…While we sit here (and watch).’ They did not want sovereignty, pride or the Promised Land because that required them to fight a people of exceeding strength. That was the end for Moses, peace be upon him; the end of an extreme effort of travelling a long distance and enduring humiliation, misery and deviation by the Children of Israel.”
Moses, peace be upon him, suffered too much so he prayed to his God: “O my Lord! I have power only over myself and my brother; so separate us from this rebellious people!” God Almighty responded to his apostle: “God said: ‘Therefore will the land be out of their reach for 40 years: In a distraction will they wander through the land:” So, God decreed that they should be left to wander distractedly through the wilderness after they were very near to the Holy Land. It seemed that God Almighty had adjudged that this generation of the Children of Israel should not see the Holy Land till another generation with strength from the desert’s hardship would grow in them. “This generation had been spoiled due to humiliation, captivity and persecution in Egypt. They were no more fit to this sublime mission.”
Moses, peace be upon him, died before he could enter the Holy Land. In the Prophet Mohammed’s tradition, narrated by Abu Huraira, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said that: “When Moses had come to die, he said, “My lord! Let me be so near to the Holy Land as far as a stone throwing”; and that Prophet Mohammed said: “By God! If I were near it I would show you the spot of his tomb beside the road near the red hill.”
Entering by the Children of Israel into the Land of Palestine
After the new generation had grown up and the years of wandering in the wilderness ended, the Children of Israel were led by an apostle called Joshua Ibn Noon, peace be upon him. The Jews called him “Yashou”. He succeeded Moses in their leadership, and he crossed the Jordan River with them in the year 1190 BC. Together, they conquered the enemy and occupied the city of Jericho. Then he led them in the invasion of “A’ai”, near Ramallah, and attempted to conquer Jerusalem but he could not because the number of the Jews was small. It was difficult for them to spread out and to occupy and control all the regions. The information about Joshua had come from the tradition of the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) who said that when Joshua met his enemies in a battle that lasted till the sun was going to set, he prayed to God not to set the sun until the battle was over in his favour. God Almighty responded to his prayer and delayed the setting of the sun till Joshua achieved victory.
Joshua, peace be upon him, was succeeded by leaders known as “Judges”. Their time was known as “The time of the Judges” and lasted for about 150 years. Despite the attempts by the Judges to guide their people to the right path, this period was dominated by rebellions, disasters, disputes and a general decline in morals and religion among the Children of Israel. The Jews settled in that period in the heights surrounding Jerusalem and in the northern plains in Palestine.
When the Children of Israel became aware of their deteriorated condition, the leaders among them asked one of their Prophets (called Samuel) to appoint for them a king who might lead them to fight in the cause of God. However, their Prophet, who was well acquainted with their tempers, said to them: “Is it not possible, if ye were commanded to fight, that ye will not fight?” They said: “How could we refuse to fight in the cause of God, seeing that we were turned out of our homes and our families?” But when they were commanded to fight, they turned back, except a small band among them (S.II:246). Their Prophet told them that God had appointed for them Talut as a king over them. But they objected for they were “…better fitted than he to exercise authority…(S.II:247)” and that “he is not even gifted with wealth in abundance (S.II:247)?” Their Prophet said that God had chosen him above them and had gifted him abundantly with knowledge and bodily prowess.
The faithful leader Talut became the king of the Children of Israel about 1025 BC. The Israelite narrations named him “Shauel”. God tested his followers; they were told not to drink the water from a certain stream. However, they failed even this simple test: “Only those who taste not of it go with me: A mere sip out of the hand is excused.” But they all drank of it, except a few (S.II:249). Those few who passed the first test, failed the next test when they saw Goliath and his forces. They said: “This day we cannot cope with Goliath and his forces (S.II:249).” Only a small faithful band fought with firmness till the end, achieving the victory given by God to them. David, peace be upon him, was a raw youth who knocked down Goliath by using his slingshot.
The history of Talut is not clear. However, the Israelite narrations mentioned that around the year 1004 BC, the Philistine army defeated Talut “Shauel” in the “Galobou’” battle. They killed three of his children, forced him to commit suicide, cut off his head, and nailed his body, as well as his children’s, on the wall of the city of Bashan.
A new chapter was opened in the history of the Children of Israel under the rule of David, peace be upon him. He succeeded Talut in the year 1004 BC. Monotheism spread throughout the Holy Land. David was considered the real founder of the kingdom of the Children of Israel in Palestine. The Jews had very limited power over a small percentage of Palestine during the period preceding David’s rule. The “time of the Judges” period was spent in sporadic fighting among the small groups (tribes). Each tribe hardly defended tharea of land it was occupying.
David, peace be upon him, was born in Bethlehem. His reign lasted for 40 years from approximately 1400 BC to 963 BC. In the beginning, his capital was “Hebron”, where he stayed for seven years. Then around 995 BC he overcame Jerusalem and moved his capital there. He carried on with his fight against unfaithful people in the Holy Land till he was able to conquer them in the year 990 BC. He forced Damascus to pay land-taxes and conquered the Muabis, the Edomis and the Ammonites. During that period, the followers of monotheism dominated for the first time over most of the region of Palestine. But, most probable, the borders of David’s kingdom did not connect with the sea except at a place near Yoya (Jaffa). The borders of the Kingdom of Israel at its zenith measured 120 miles long (longest points) and 60 miles wide (widest points). Its area was not more than 1,200 square miles–20,000 square kilometres, which is about 7,000 square kilometres less than the current area of Palestine.
The Jews occupied the hilly areas, but failed to occupy the plains, especially most parts of the coast of Palestine. These parts had never been dominated by their State during its survival.
The Jews of this time were proud of David, peace be upon him, and considered themselves bearers of his banner and heritage. However, the Muslims also consider David their Prophet, and they have more of a right than the Children of Israel do to consider him so. Muslims do believe in him as one of God’s prophets. They like and honour him and feel proud of him because he established the State in Palestine built on monotheism. They are following his path and carrying his banner even in the present time, after the Children of Israel retreated, became infidels, denied God and broke their covenants with God.
We know from the Holy Qur’an that God Almighty had blessed David, peace be upon him, with knowledge and wisdom, and gave him the gift of the Psalms. He was given a strong kingdom. Hills and birds were celebrating the praises of God with him and were expressing, in their singing, God’s praises in unison with him: …and remember Our Servant David, the man of strength: for he ever turned (to God). It was we that made the hills declare, in unison with him, Our Praises, at eventide and at break of day, and the birds gathered (in assemblies): all with him did turn (to God). We strengthened his kingdom, and gave him wisdom and sound judgement in speech and decision (S.XXXVIII:17-20). And God Almighty says: O David! We did indeed make thee a vicegerent on earth: so judge thou between men in truth (and justice): nor follow thou the lusts (of thy heart), for they will mislead thee from the Path of God…(S.XXXVIII:26). God Almighty made the iron soft for David. In his hands it became pliable like wax or paste formed in the way he wanted without melting it in fire, and this was a miracle given by God to David. Although David was given a kingdom, he was a craftsman using iron and did not eat except for what he made by himself. David also developed in his time the manufacture of armour. When the armour was made of one solid plate, it was heavy in weight to a warrior and hindered his movement. Thereafter, God guided David to make it from rings of chains fitted into each other. It did not hinder the movement nor could arrows penetrate it. “It was we who taught him the making of coats of mail for your benefit, to guard you from each other’s violence: Will ye then be grateful?” God Almighty also says: We bestowed Grace aforetime on David from Ourselves: “O ye Mountains! sing ye back Praises of God with him! and ye birds (also)!” And We made the iron soft for him; (Commanding), “Make thou coats of mail, balancing well the rings of chain armour, and work ye righteousness; for be sure I see (clearly) all that ye do (S.XXXIV:10-11).”
Solomon, peace be upon him, inherited wisdom, knowledge and prophecy from his father David. Narrations passed down through history indicated that Solomon was one of the 19 sons of David. He was born in Jerusalem, and his rule over the Holy Land lasted for about 40 years from 963 BC to 923 BC.
God Almighty bestowed upon Solomon a kingdom which had never been granted to anyone after him. God Almighty gave him the Jinn to work for his service. He also made the wind obedient to him. Solomon was well known for his wisdom, justice and strong dominion. God also taught him the language of birds and animals.
King Solomon’s reign was in itself a divine miracle given to him by God as a sign of his prophecy. Under this miraculous faithful rule, supported by the Jinn, men, birds and wind, Palestine was blessed. God had honoured Solomon with the miracle of a spring of melted brass flowing from the earth. The Kingdom of Solomon witnessed a great deal of construction and building. His kingdom was expanded to reach the kingdom of Sheba in Yemen.
Solomon is mentioned several times in the Holy Qur’an, highlighting his knowledge, dominion and prophecy: He said, “O my Lord! Forgive me, and grant me a Kingdom which, (it may be), suits not another after me: For Thou art the Grantor of Bounties (without measure).” Then We subjected the Wind to his power, to flow gently to his order, whithersoever he willed, as also the evil ones, (including) every kind of builder and diver, as also others bound together in fetters. “Such are Our Bounties: whether thou bestow them (on others) or withhold them, no account will be asked.” And he enjoyed, indeed, a Near Approach to Us, and a beautiful Place of (final) Return (S.XXXVIII:35-40).
God Almighty said: “..And Solomon was David’s heir. He said: ‘O ye people! We have been taught the speech of birds, and on us has been bestowed (a little) of all things: This is indeed grace manifest (from God).’ And before Solomon were his hosts, of Jinn and men and birds, and they were all kept in order and ranks.” And God also said: And to Solomon (We made) the Wind (obedient): its early morning (stride) was a month’s (journey), and its evening (stride) was a month’s (journey); and We made a Font of molten brass to flow for him; and there were Jinns that worked in front of him, by the leave of his Lord, and if any of them turned aside from Our Command, We made him taste of the Penalty of the Blazing Fire. They worked for him as he desired, (making) Arches, Images, Basons as large as Reservoirs, and (cooking) Cauldrons fixed (in their places): “Work ye, sons of David, with thanks! But few of My servants are grateful (S.XXXIV:12-13)!” And God as well said “(It was Our power that made) the violent (unruly) wind flow (tamely) for Solomon, to his order, to the land which we had blessed: for we do know all things. And of the evil ones, were some who dived for him, and did other work besides; and it was we who guarded them.”
From the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) we can conclude that Solomon had great bodily power, was a lover of the fighting for the cause of God, and had many wives. Abu Huraira narrated that the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, said: “Solomon said: that I would ramble this night to 90 women, or 100, in another narration; all of them would beget a knight who might fight for the cause of God. The king said to him: ‘Say God willing!’ But he did not say and forgot. He rambled to them. None of them became pregnant except one who delivered a half man. I swear by whom the life of Mohammed is in his hand that if he said: ‘God willing’, they might all fought for the cause of God as knights.”
The death of Solomon, peace be upon him, was a sign of God and a lesson addressed to men and Jinn that the Jinn did not know the unseen. Solomon, peace be upon him, had stood up to say his pray in his chamber leaning on his rod. He died and remained in this posture for a long period while the Jinn were working hardly without getting the knowledge of his death till a little worm ate his rod and he fell down on the ground; God Almighty said: Then when We decreed (Solomon’s) death, nothing showed them his death except a little worm of the earth, which kept (slowly) gnawing away at his staff: so when he fell do, the Jinns saw plainly that if they had known the unseen, they would not have tarried in the humiliating Penalty (of their Task) (S.XXXIV:14).
The two kingdoms of Israel and Judah
The rule of David and Solomon lasted for about 80 years, which was considered a golden period during which Palestine was ruled under the banner of monotheism and faith prior to the Muslim Conquest.
The Jews after the State of Solomon (peace be upon him)
After the death of Solomon, his kingdom was divided into two parts comprising two separate States with fights between them from time to time. Both suffered from internal corruption, military and political weakness and foreign influence. When Solomon passed away, the representatives of the 12 tribes of the Children of Israel held a meeting at Shechem (near Nablus) to set up Rehbe’am bin Solomon as a king. However, according to narrations, the representatives from 10 of the tribes agreed not to set him up as a king because he did not promise them to reduce taxes. They, instead, elected “Yarba’am” from the tribe of Ephraim as a king and called their kingdom “Israel”. They took Shechem as their capital (then Tarzah then Samaria).
As to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, they maintained their loyalty to Rehbe’am bin Solomon and established the kingdom of “Judah”, with Jerusalem as its capital under his rule.
The kingdom of Israel lasted during the period from 923 BC to 721 BC. The Encyclopedia Britannica disdainfully named it “The Tail Kingdom”. Because of the invasion by the residents of Damascus, it lost all its lands located in the east of Jordan and north of Yarmouk. “Omri” was the most famous king of the kingdom of Israel whose reign lasted from 885 BC to 874 BC. He built Samaria and took it as the capital.
His successor “Akhab” reigned from 874 BC till 852 BC. He allowed his wife, “Isabel”, the daughter of the king of Sidon and Tyre, to enjoin the worship of the Phoenician God “B’al”, which consequently caused a revolution carried out by an officer named “Yaho”, who overthrew “Akhab” and restored the worship of “Yahweh”.
In the period of “Yab’am the second” from 785 BC till 745 BC, the third of in the line of “Yaho” ancestry, his kingdom expanded towards the north on the account of the Aramaians. But this situation did not last for long because of the emergence of the Assyrian king “Tajilat Blissr the third” (745 BC-727 BC), who put an end to this expansion. His successor “Shillmanasar the fifth” and after him “Sarjon the second” had punished Joshua, who was the last of the kings of “Israel”. They exterminated his kingdom in 721 BC. Then, the Assyrians moved the people of Israel to Haran, Khabour, Kurdistan and Persia and replaced them with groups of Aramaians. It seems that the banished Israelis were completely mixed in with their neighbours in exile. Thereafter, there was not a trace left of the ten tribes of the Children of Israel.
According to the Israeli narrations, which should be considered very carefully and with caution because there is very little available to prove or disprove most of them, the Kingdom of Judah was one of great turmoil during the period 923 BC to 586 BC. Idol worshipping had spread during the period of Yarba’am bin Solomon’s rule (923-916 BC). The manners of the people were corrupted owing to the spread of sodomy. When his son, Abyam, succeeded him from 915 BC to 913 BC, their manners remained corrupted. And when Yahoram bin Yahoshfat ruled during the period 849 BC to 842 BC, he killed his six brothers along with a group of the people’s chiefs. As for Youhaz bin Yatam, who ruled during the period 735 BC to 715 BC, it is mentioned that his heart had been attached to the love of idols. He even went so far as to sacrifice his own children on the altars of idolatrous gods and gave himself the free reins of lust and evil-doing. Mansi bin Hazqiya, who ruled from 687 BC to 642 BC, had misguided his people from worshipping god and built idolatrous temples for them.
Such things are not strange to the Children of Israel. Their manners with Moses (peace be upon him) would testify to this. The Holy Qur’an also points out that they have changed, replaced and deviated from the words of God, and slew many prophets: “We took the covenant of the Children of Israel and sent them apostles. Every time there came to them an apostle with what they themselves desired not–some (of these) they called impostors, and some they (go so far as to) slay”. History proves that they slew the prophet Haziqual because he prohibited one of his judges from committing iniquities. The king Mansi bin Hazqiya killed the prophet Ashiya bin Amous. He gave orders to hang him on a tree stump because the prophet had offered him advice and preachment. The Jews killed the prophet by throwing stones at him because he blamed them for iniquities they themselves did.
It seemed that the Kingdom of Judah faced many weakness factors, as well as falling under the foreign influence for a long period of time. It was attached and defeated several times, and the attackers entered Jerusalem itself. Sheshaq, the Pharaoh of Egypt, entered Jerusalem and took it over in the late tenth century BC.
Arabs had also attacked Jerusalem during the period of Yahoram (849 BC-842 BC). They entered it and occupied Yahoram’s palace and captured his children and women. As to the king Hazqiya (715 BC-687 BC), he was forced to declare his full surrender to the king of the Assyrians, Sarjon the Second, after he seized the Kingdom of Israel. Mansi Bin Hazqiya paid the tax to Assyrhadon and Assyrbanybal, two kings of Assyria. The Assyrians tied up this king with brass chains and sent him to Babylonia. Then, he returned to Jerusalem and died there. During the rule of Yoshyia bin Amon (640 BC-609 BC), the Egyptian Nackhaw had only been ruling for three months. Yoshyia captured him and sent him back to Egypt where he died. He was replaced with Yahoyaqim bin Yashyia (609 BC-548 BC). This ruler had overtaxed his people in order to pay tax to his Egyptian master and reverted to idol worshipping. During the time of Yahoyaqim, the Babylonian Buchadnezzar defeated the Egyptian Nackhaw, north of Syria in the year 605 BC and advanced till he entered Jerusalem. There he conquered Yahoyaqim, humiliated him and forced his country to surrender to his influence. And when Yahoyaqim revolted against Buchadnezzar, the latter entered Jerusalem, with his army, and tied Yahoyaqim up with brass chains till he died.
When Yahoyaqim ruled from 598 BC-597 BC, Nebuchadnezzar, or Buchadnezzar, besieged Jerusalem and captured the king and his family, the chief of the Jews and about 10,000 of its population, which is known as the first capture, and robbed some of the temple treasures and sent them to Babylon. Thereafter, Nebuchadnezzar appointed Sodkiya bin Yoshyia (597 BC-586 BC), who swore the oath of loyalty to him. However, Sodkiya, during the last days of his regime, revolted against the Babylonians, who in turn advanced towards Jerusalem and besieged it for 18 months till it surrendered. Nebuchadnezzar captured Sodkiya, tied him up with brass chains and sent him to Babylonia where, as mentioned, his children were slain before him and his eyes were poked out. Then Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem. He demolished the temple, robbed the treasures and wealth, and captured about 40,000 Jews and sent them to Babylonia, known as “the second Babylonian capture”. The remaining Jews migrated to Egypt, including the Prophet Arimyah. The Kingdom of Judah fell in 586 BC.
The Talmud recorded that the fall and the destroying of the Jewish State would not have happened unless the sins of the Children of Israel had reached the utmost and their sins overburdened the great God. When they refused to listen to Arimyah’s words and warnings and after destroying the temple, the Prophet Arimyah addressed his speech to Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldaeans. He said: “You should not think that by your strength alone you were able to overcome the chosen People of God; it was by their unchaste sins that drove them to this torture”.
The Old Testament had referred to the collapseof the kingdom of the Children of Israel as being a direct result of these sins. It mentioned that Prophet Ashiya said: “Woe to the sinful people, the people of heavy sins, the progeny of evil-doers, the depraved children who abandoned God and despised the holy Israel, who had retreated and fallen back” (Ashiya Book-Chapter 1). The Old Testament also said: “The land had been profaned under its people because they abandoned the laws, changed the obligations and broke the eternal covenant” (Ashiya Book, Chapter 24).
Alternative dominions of Persian, Greek and Roman over Palestine
The Jews lived, after the fall of their kingdom, in Palestine during the period of the Babylonian Capture in Iraq. It is apparent that during this period, they started recording the Old Testament, i.e. not less than 700 years after the emergence of Moses (peace be upon him), till the late second century BC, when they ended its recording (after more than 400 years). During that period, the Jews abandoned their religious obligations and imitated the countries in which they lived concerning the worshipping of idols.
The opportunity to return once again to Palestine came to the Jews when the Persian Emperor, Qorash the Second, overcame the Babylonian Chaldaean State (539 BC). The Jews helped him. He overcame Media, and extended his influence throughout Palestine, which consequently entered under the Persian Domination period (539 BC-332 BC). Qorash permitted the Jews to return to Palestine and permitted them to re-build the temple in Jerusalem. However, a rather small number of the Jews took advantage of this opportunity to return. This was because most of those captured admired the new land, and only a small number of extremists objected to the mixing with other people, the thing which protected the Jews from extinction.
One of the historians mentioned that the number of returnees was 42,000, representing a minority compared with the actual number. Those Jews built the temple, and the building was completed in the year 515 BC. In the Jerusalem region, the Jews enjoyed some kind of autonomy under the Persian dominion. This autonomous area did not exceed a radius of 20 kilometres in any direction.
In the year 332 BC, the Macedonian Alexander occupied Palestine during his famous campaign in which he occupied Greater Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Iran and parts of India. Alexander kept the Jews safe. Since that date, Palestine entered the Greek Hellenistic Era, which lasted till 63 BC.
After the death of Alexander, a conflict had broken out among his leaders, which caused his kingdom’s division. Palestine and the rest of Syria, from the south of Lattakia, Lebanon and parts of Syria (such as Damascus), Egypt, Borqa (Libya) and some of the Aegean Sea Islands, were under the control of the leader Ptolemy. His rule and the rule of his successors was called the Ptolemaics Era, which lasted in Palestine from 302 BC to 198 BC. The Ptolemaics felt sympathy for the Jews, whose affairs were administered to by the “Great Priest”. Then came the Seleucids, whose share, after the death of Alexander, included North Syria, Asia Minor, Rafidain (the Tigris and the Euphrates) and the Iranian heights.
They dominated over Palestine as a result of the Banion battle in which the Seleucid King Antiokhis the Third achieved a complete victory over the Ptolemaics. The domination of the Seleucids over Palestine lasted up to 63 BC.
The Seleucids attempted to colour the Jews’ life with the Greek Hellenistic. So, Antiokhis the Fourth tried to turn the Jews away from their religion. In the year 167 BC, he sent one of his leaders to them and commissioned him with canceling the Jewish religious rites and to replace their God, Yahwa, with the Olympic God, Zeus. He appointed an idolatrous Greek priest in Jerusalem and prohibited their circumcision and the possession of the holy books and enjoined on them the eating of pork. Under these orders, the Jews were divided into two parts: the first were those who turned away, convinced or forced, from the Law. Those were the “Hellenistics” or the “Greekists”. They resided in Jerusalem and in the Greek towns. The second group, which was less in number, fled from Jerusalem. They were called “the Party of Saints”.
In general, the Greeks influenced the Jews. The Aramaic language replaced the Hebrew language, and the Greek language became the language of the educated class. From among the Jews, a group had emerged to support the Greeks and they managed to reach power under the leadership of the Great Priest Jayson.
As for the Jews who fled from Jerusalem, “the Party of Saints”, they entrusted their leadership to Mattathyas (Mattayeeh), the head of the Ashmonians Family, who passed away after a while. His son Judah, also called Maccabee, which means the hammer, succeeded him. He revolted against the Seleucids and defeated them more than once (166 BC-165 BC). A lot of Jews joined him. This made Antiokhis the Fourth stop oppressing the Jews. He permitted them to perform their religion side by side with the Greek supporters. The Maccabees returned to Jerusalem on 25 January 164 BC. The Jews are, till now, celebrating this occasion under the name of the “Lights Feast” (Hanukah).
After that, a self-rule regime for the Jews was established in Jerusalem. It became either wider or narrower, and the aspects of its independence became stronger or weaker, according to the conflict among the super powers of the period (the Romans, the Ptolemaics and the Seleucids) over Palestine. The regime became hereditary in the progeny of Judah, the Maccabee. The Maccabees ruled as “Chief priests” and they called themselves kings, although they were subordinates and paying land-tax to the Seleucids. In the year 143 BC, the Emperor Dimetrius the Second exempted the Jews from taxes and gave the nickname “ruler” to Simon, and the Jews agreed among themselves to consider him as their king. Thus, a royal regime was established, and the Seleucids recognized it and also gave Simon the right of striking coins.
During the era of the Jewish King Alexander Janous (103 BC-67 BC), his regime expanded to include Trans-Jordan, which was called “Iberia” by the Jews, and the coast. The borders of his kingdom were about to make contact with the borders of Solomon. His widow, Salom Alexandra, ruled after him till the year 67 BC. Thereafter, both her sons fought against each other over the power, and the Nabatean Arabs interfered in supporting Hercanous the Second against his brother Aristopolous. In the year 63 BC, the famous Roman leader Pompeii destroyed the small Jewish state and appointed Heirkanous the Second to be chief of priests. He demolished the walls of Jerusalem, removed the other parts from the hands of the Jews and left the Maccabee dynasty to survive under the Roman dominion.
During the period 47 BC-40 BC, the “colony” entered under the domination of Edam’s ruler, Ante Peter. In the year 40 BC, the Persians stormed Palestine and appointed Ante Johanous, the brother of Hercanous the Second, to be the ruler and the chief of the priests. The rule of Ante Johanous” lasted for three years. He was the last of the Maccabee dynasty. In the year 37 BC, the Romans conquered the Persians, restored their domination over Palestine and appointed Herod, the son of Ante Peter, a ruler. Although Herod became Judaized and tried to conciliate with the Jews, he was detested by them. In general, he was a tyrant, unjust and extremely loyal to the Romans. He carried out the renovation of the temple, doubled its area, lifted its ceiling up and characterized it with great perfection and architecture.
The rule of Herod lasted till the year 4 BC, which was contemporary with the two prophets Zakariya and his son Yahya (peace be upon them). This was also contemporary with Maryam bint Imran (peace be upon her). By the end of his life, Jesus (peace be upon him) was born.
Zakariya (peace be upon him) was a carpenter. He was the sponsor of Maryam bint Imran. He had a son called Yahya (peace be upon him), whose birth was made possible by God Almighty since Zakariya was old and his wife was barren. Zakariya and Yahexerted great efforts to call the Children of Israel to guidance and truth.
The glad tidings of Yahya came witnessing the truth that “He would be noble, chaste and a prophet of the company of the righteous,” i.e., to master his people and to turn himself, virtuously and devotionally, away from lusts and to be a prophet. When Yahya was born and reached the age of receiving orders, God Almighty said to him: “O Yahya! take hold of the Book with might (S.XIX:12).” It meant that he should take what was included in the Book of God vigorously and diligently. God gave him wisdom and reason even though he was young: And We gave him Wisdom even as a youth (S.XIX:12). Yahya performed his duty of preaching, and calling for enjoining what was right and forbidding what was wrong. He was known in the Christian literature as “John the Baptist”. “The Baptist” was ascribed to the fact that he was baptizing people (washing them with water) to purify them from sins. Yahya had announced good tidings of the coming of Jesus (peace be upon him).
Yahya (peace be upon him) sacrificed his life defending his firm attitude against Herod’s wishing to marry Yahya’s niece. The girl, whose name was Herodya, was very beautiful. She and her mother bore spite against Yahya for his refusing to allow her to marry Herod. The girl, fully embellished, danced in front of Herod till she mastered his feelings. He then requested her to ask for a wish. She then wished to have the head of Yahya! He responded to her wish and killed Yahya and presented his head on a plate to this adulteress. So Peace on him, the day he was born, the day that he dies, and the day that he will be raised up to life (again) (S.XIX:15).
Herod was not satisfied with his crime, as he also slew Zakariya (peace be upon him) by using a saw! Zakariya defended his son, Yahya, and objected to the validity of the marriage owing to kinship impediment.
Maryam (peace be upon her), the mother of women of all nations, was born before Yahya (peace be upon him). Her mother dedicated her unto God when she was in her womb: Right graciously did her Lord accept her: He made her grow in purity and beauty: To the care of Zakariya (S.III:37). And God had chosen Maryam: Behold! the angels said: “O Mary! God hath chosen thee and purified thee–chosen thee above the women of all nations (S.III:42).” God Almighty predestined His great miracle that Maryam shall deliver her son, Jesus, without having a father and that would be accomplished by the word from God: “Be”. Here, we have to pause and to read the following miraculous Qur’anic text about Jesus and his Message: Behold! the angels said: “O Mary! God giveth thee glad tidings of a Word from Him: his name will be Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, held in honour in this world and the Hereafter and of (the company of) those nearest to God; He shall speak to the people in childhood and in maturity. And he shall be (of the company) of the righteous.” She said: “O my Lord! How shall I have a son when no man hath touched me?” He said: “Even so: God createth what He willeth when He hath decreed a Plan, He but saith to it, ‘Be’ and it is! And God will teach him the Book and Wisdom, the Law and the Gospel, and (appoint him) an apostle to the Children of Israel (with this message): ‘I have come to you, with a Sign from your Lord, in that I make for you out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird, and breathe into it, and it becomes a bird by God’s leave: and I heal those born blind, and the lepers, and I quicken the dead, by God’s leave; and I declare to you what ye eat, and what ye store in your houses. Surely therein is a Sign for you if ye did believe’ (S.III:45-49).”
Jesus, the son of Maryam, was born in Bethlehem around 4 BC. Narrations mention that Maryam fled with Jesus, together with Joseph “the Carpenter”, to Egypt, fearing for her son, away from Herod’s injustice and tyranny. They quickly returned to Nazareth, where he spent his childhood and grew up. Thereafter, he was known by the name “Jesus the Christ”, and his followers were known by the name “Christians”.
Jesus, the son of Maryam, was one of God’s signs sent to mankind. He declared himself as such at the very outset. He spoke when he was just a babe in the cradle. He assured the people that he was indeed a servant of God, and he gave his people the glad tidings that God had made him a prophet: He said: “I am indeed a servant of God: He hath given me revelation and made me a prophet; and He hath made me blessed wheresover I be, and hath enjoyed on me Prayer and Charity as long as I live (S.XIX:30-31).”
There, in the Holy Land of Palestine, Jesus (peace be upon him) carried out his obligation of calling for God. He exerted great efforts for the sake of the Children of Israel, giving them guidance and the glad tidings of the coming of the seal of the prophets, Mohammed (peace be upon him): “… and giving Glad Tidings of an Apostle to come after me, whose name shall be Ahmed (S.LXI:6).” Despite all the miracles God made apparent through him and the truth and the light included in his message, the Children of Israel rejected, denied and stood against him. Only a few of them believed in him.
According to historical narrations, Jesus went to Jerusalem (Hierosolyma) and visited the temple around 30 CE at the time of the Easter feast. He denounced the presence of moneychangers and sellers in the temple.
According to the chapter St. Matthew (21:12-13) of the Bible, “… and Jesus went to the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves. And said unto them, it was written, my house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.”
The Jews and the noble persons bore spite against Jesus. According to the chapter of St. Matthew (19:47) of the Bible, “… and he taught daily in the temple. But the chief priests and the scribes and the chief of the people sought to destroy him”. The religious Jewish Council (Synhadrin) quickly held a meeting and decided to arrest Jesus and immediately sentenced him to death, accusing him of blasphemy and of dissenting from the religion.
They then brought him before the Roman governor at that time, Pontious Pilate, who had alone the right of execution. But this Pilate did not find any fault in Jesus that would cause him to be made worthy of death. But the Jews cried out all at once, saying “Crucify him, crucify him; his blood must be on us and on our children.” As a result of the pressure on him by the Jews, Pilate sentenced him to death. However, God Almighty sent him His mercy and raised him up unto Himself when they thought they had killed him. “But they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not: Nay, God raised him up unto Himself (S.IV:157-158).”
This page of history of the conflict between the truth and the falsehood over the Holy Land had been turned over. The Children of Israel rejected the last prophet sent to them, accused him of sorcery and plotted against him.
The Disciples believed in Jesus. They called for his message after him, and they encountered oppression and harm because of their message. The Disciples continued in calling the Jews for their creed and orated in the temple. When the number of Christians multiplied after some years, the Jews feared the spread of Christianity and demanded to seize Peter and others in order to be tried before the Synhadrin Council. However, the Council was satisfied with clearing them and thereafter released them. The new guided persons fled to Samaria, Kaisarieh and Antakiyah. They founded there many Christian groups. Peter also went to Rome where he founded a Christian group. He focused on the Jews in his call. As for Paul he was calling the idolatrous, as he called the Jews. In his calling, he was using philosophical idioms and concepts to interpret Christianity according to the Hellenistic culture prevailing at that time. Paul Peter were, in the end, sentenced to death during the era of the Roman Emperor Nero in 64 CE. But, the message proclaimed by Jesus (peace be upon him) was soon distorted, and the Gospel, as revealed to him, was changed. His followers were, after him, influenced by the Hellenistic civilization and the Roman regime, and their call was mixed with a lot of tradition, rites and teachings that prevailed in the countries in which it was spread. It became easy for people to embrace it. Christianity did not become ingrained in the society until the Emperor Constantine, in the year 325 CE, believed in it. Thereafter, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Constantine took care of Palestine and built the Holy Sepulchre Church, which became the most important Christian church. He also built the Church of Ascension on the Mount of Olives, and he built the Nativity Church in Bethlehem. However, the Palestinian people at that time embraced Christianity till the Muslim Conquest took place in Palestine.
The end of the Jewish presence in Palestine
Once again, reference is made to the affairs of the Children of Israel in Palestine after Jesus’ ascension. The Romans commenced ruling Jerusalem and the rest of Palestine directly from about 6 CE. During this time period, they deposed Archilles, who succeeded his father, Herod, owing to the abuse of power by him. During the period of their governor, Pontious Pilate (26-36 CE), the events of Jesus Christ (peace be upon him) took place. In November of 66 CE, during the period of the Emperor Nero, the Jews revolted against the Roman rule, but the Roman military leader Tetas had managed to squelch the revolution in September of 70 CE. It took four years. After a light besiege, he entered Jerusalem where he killed, robbed, burned and completely destroyed the temple built by Herod. Then, Jerusalem became a demolished city, and many of the captors were sold cheaply as slaves in the Roman Empire markets. Every Jew’s desire was to be purchased by a person who would treat him with kindness and who would not send him to a wrestling ring with beasts. This was a sport in which the Romans used to enjoy viewing the beasts eating the people! This leader also built a triumph arch in Rome on the occasion of his conquering the Jews. It still exists there and has inscriptions of that victory remembrance where the candlestick, with its seven heads and which was well known to belong to the Jews, had been taken from the temple. It still can be seen today.
The Jews once again rebelled against the Romans under the leadership of Barcokhapa, whose original name was Simon. Their revolution lasted through the years 132-135 CE. Under his leadership, a large number of the Jews were gathered. He managed to occupy Jerusalem, but the Roman Emperor Hadrian sent a huge army under the leadership of Julius Cephrius, who defeated the Jews and occupied Jerusalem again. The Jews fled to Battier, where the debris of the citadel in which the Jews were fortified is still there. It was called “The Kherbit of the Jews” by Arabs. Hadrian severely slew the rebels, destroyed “Hierosolyma” and ploughed its location, killed and captured a great number of the Jews and prevented them from entering, living or coming near Jerusalem. He allowed the Christians to live in it provided that they should not be of Jewish origin. Hadrian built up a new city on the debris of Hierosolyma and called it “Elia capitolina”. Later on it was known as “Elia”, which was the first name of Hadrian the First. He constructed an idolatry temple for Jupiter on the same site of the old temple.
The Jews were prohibited from entering Jerusalem for the next 200 years. They rarely entered it or lived in it until the nineteenth century.
They were dispersed throughout the world, and they no longer had any connection with Palestine except for the reminiscences that consisted mostly of disbelief, debauchery, injustice and the killing of the prophets. They received their penalty from God, which manifested itself in His wrath, His curse, His depriving them from the Holy Land and His dispersing them throughout the world.
Conclusion
The following summations can be derived from the previous text:
1. The Muslims have remained the inhabitants of Palestine up until the present.
2. God had promised to give the Holy Land to the Children of Israel when they were following the straight path of God and the prophets were their guides. However, when they changed their attitude and rejected and disbelieved in God, this right was rescinded.
3. Muslims are more entitled to the heritage of the prophets of the Children of Israel. The call for Islam by Muslims is a continuation of the call by the previous prophets. The truth to which the prophets had devoted themselves to realize is the same truth that the Muslims are devoted to realizing.
4. The dominion of the Children of Israel had never, at any time, included the whole of Palestine as it is known in its current boundaries. The period of their domination with complete independence was so short in comparison with the history of Palestine. Even when they had two kingdoms, they were subordinates most of the time to other powers stronger than they were.
5. The self-rule that the Jews enjoyed after they had captured Babylonia was weak and restricted to the Jerusalem area and its suburbs. After that, they enjoyed a limited independence during the Maccabee epoch.
6. After their being dispersed throughout the world owing to their evil doing, the relation of the Jews with Palestine had discontinued, without interruption, for 1,900 years.
Finally, H.G. Wells said in his book, “Brief History of the Children of Israel’s Experience in Palestine after the Babylonian Captivity”, that “The life of Hebrews (in Palestine) was resembling the life of a man who insisted to settle in the middle of a crowded highway, so buses and trucks were continuously running over him … and from the start to the end, their (Kingdom) was just an emergency event in the history of Egypt, Syria, Assyria and Phoenicia, the history which was much greater than their history.”
The well-known historian Gustav Lobon said about the Children of Israel when they settled in Palestine that “they did not borrow from the superior nations except for the meanest things of those civilizations, i.e., they did not borrow anything but infamies, harmful customs, debauchery and superstitions. They offered oblations to all Asian Gods. They offered more oblations to Ashtarout, B’al and Mouloukh than to the God of their own tribe, the frowning and spiteful Yahwa, in whom they had but every little trust.”
He also said, “The Jews lived almost always in massive anarchy. Their history was just a story of abominations.… The history of the Jews from the aspect of civilization was null … (They) did not deserve to be considered among the civilized nations in any shape whatsoever”. Gustav Lobon also said, “The Children of Israel remained, even under the reign of their kings, shedding and always embarked rashly in brutal fighting.” He also said, “The psychological temper of the Jews always remained very close to the most primitive nations. The Jews were stubborn, were dupes and simpletons, were rude like beasts and acted like babies … You could not find a nation like the Jews who lacked the sense of artists.”
The geography of Palestine
Palestine constitutes the southwestern part of a huge geographical unity in the eastern part of the Arab world, which is Belad El-Sham. In addition to Palestine, Sham contains Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. It used to have common borders with these countries, in addition to Egypt.
The borders of Palestine start with Lebanon at Ras El-Nakoura at the Mediterranean sea and head in a straight line to the east till it reaches the area beyond the small Lebanese city of Bent Jubayel, where the separating line between the two countries curves to the north at a straight angle. At that point, the border comes around the fountain of the River Jordan, and a narrow passage adjacent to it from the east connects it with the land of Syria and the lakes Al-Hola, Lout and Tabarriyya.
The border with Jordan begins to the south of Tabarriyya Lake at the drainage of Al-Yarmouk River. It continues along the River Jordan. From the fountain of the River Jordan, the border heads south across the geometrical middle of the Dead Sea and the Araba Valley till it reaches the of Aqaba.
The borders with Egypt could be compared to a straight line that separates the semi-island of Seena and Al-Naqab desert. The border begins at Rafah at the Mediterranean Sea till it reaches Taba at the Gulf of Aqaba.
On the west side, Palestine lies next to the international open waters of the Mediterranean Sea at a distance of about 250 km from Ras El-Nakoura in the north to Rafah in the south.
Because of its location in the middle of several Arab countries, Palestine constitutes a combination of natural and humanistic geography for a wide terrestrial field that comprises the originality of Bedouin life in the south and the style of long settlement in the north. The Palestinian land is featured with being part of the first man’s home, the place for all the celestial religions, the place were ancient civilizations rose and a bridge for commercial activities and the military incursions across so many different historical eras. The strategic location Palestine enjoys allowed it to be a connecting factor between the continents of the ancient worlds of Asia, Africa and Europe. It is a place that allows for easy travel to other adjacent places. It was a crossing bridge for people from a long time, and it enjoys a focal location that attracts all those who want to settle down and live in prosperity. Therefore, it is quite natural that Palestine was the centre for the greed of many to have it under control and to exploit its merits.
For both peace and war, the location of Palestine is of great significance. In the ancient times, Palestine represented one of the most important trade routes. It connected the homes of civilizations of the Nile Valley and the southern areas of the Arab peninsula on one hand and the homes of civilizations in the northern areas in Belad El-Sham and Iraq on the other. Palestine has always been a passage for trade caravans before and after the coming of Islam. The Arab caravans used to head to Palestine from the Arab peninsula in the summer as part of the summer and winter journeys mentioned in the Holy Qur’an.
It was also a passage for the Arabian tribes that came from the Arab peninsula on their way to Belad El-Sham or northern Africa. Some of these tribes settled in Palestine, while others settled in the neighbouring regions.
The importance of the commercial location of Palestine increased during the Mamaleek era when it used to be a passage for the commercial caravans that carried goods from the Far East to Europe and vice versa. The trade ships used to stop at Aden and unload their cargo so that it would be transported by caravans across Yemen and Hejaz and then to the Palestinian ports on the Mediterranean Sea. The ships in the ports waited to be loaded with different kinds of goods such as silk, perfumes, jewelry, and the like, to be transferred to European ports.
Palestine still enjoys the importance of its commercial location because it represents a connection between the seasonal and circular environments in southern Asia and the Near East on the one hand and the environments of the Mediterranean Sea and middle and western Europe on the other. There is no doubt, however, that the different environments with their varied products share a great deal of commercial transactions. Thus the location of Palestine connects the agricultural civilization of the East with the industrial civilization of the West. Therefore Palestine became an important passage for the international trade and travelers alike on land, sea and air.
On the other hand, the Palestinian ports provided its neighbours to the east in Syria and Jordan with its services till the year 1948. The Jordanian international trade depended highly upon these ports, but it changed its geographical direction after the Zionist occupation of Palestine took place. Thereafter, the Jordanian traders headed to the Lebanese and the Syrian ports, in addition to the Gulf of Aqaba. The Iraqi oil that was flowing from the field of Karkouk to the north of Iraq to Haifa’s refinery also stopped in 1948.
If we exclude the Gaza port, whose services were limited to the Gaza district, the rest of the Palestinian ports, whether on the Mediterranean such as Haifa, Jaffa, Asdoud, Akka, Ashkelon or on the Gulf of Aqaba such as Elat, still provide the Zionist entity with a great service. This is because the direction of the Palestinian trade stretches across the ports of the Mediterranean Sea to Europe and North America and Latin America and across the Elat port to southern Asia and the Far East and to the eastern side of Africa.
As to the military significance of the Palestinian location, it issues in the fact that Palestine was the centre of so many military campaigns because it was a passage to other countries in for the military incursions that took place. So many nations and forces occupied Palestine such as the Babylonians, the Ashourians, Al-Hethyeen, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans, till it was finally joined with the great Islamic State and became a very important part of it.
In the late eighteenth century, Palestine was attacked by the campaign led by Napoleon Bonaparte, whose aim was to occupy Belad El-Sham. He failed at occupying Akka because of the great bravery shown by the people of Palestine and the leader of Akka, Ahmed El-Azaz.
In the present century, Palestine was subject to a British invasion during the First World War, which led to the ousting of the Ottomans and the occupation of Palestine under the pretext of a British mandate. Britain and the allied forces took great advantage of Palestine’s location in the Second World War. Before leaving Palestine on 25 May 1948, the British paved the way for the erection of a Zionist entity in Palestine to serve as a base for Western countries and as a separation point that divides the body of the Muslim Arab nation. Since 1948 up to the present, the Zionist entity still holds Palestine captive and exploits its merits and makes use of its strategic geographical location for its hostile and malicious anti-Arab plans.
Borders and area
The border between Egypt and Palestine was drawn in the year 1906, while the borders with Palestine and Syria and Lebanon was drawn in 1920 in accordance with a French-British agreement. The United Nations approved the British memorandum concerning defining the eastern frontier between Palestine and Jordan on 23 September 1922. Britain and France made further modifications to the Palestinian borders with Syria and Lebanon in the years 1922 and 1923. These modifications included some of the Syrian and Lebanese lands as part of Palestine.
The area of Palestine under the British mandate was 27,000 square kilometres, and the length of its borders, on the land and sea, is 949 km, 719 km of which are land borders and 230 km of which are sea borders. The Palestinian-Jordanian border is the longest land border for Palestine. It is about 360 km long, whereas the length of the border with Egypt is around 210 km, Lebanon is about 79 km and Syria is around 70 km. The Palestinian coast on the Mediterranean is about 224 km, and the length of the coast on the Gulf of Aqaba is only 6 km.
If we look carefully at the map of Palestine, we would immediately notice its rectangular shape whose length of about 450 km begins from the north near Banias on the Syrian border to the south in the Gulf of Aqaba. The width hardly surpasses 180 km in its longest part. This prolonged shaped is not very useful because it is neither circular nor square, which will ultimately lead to the dismantling of Palestine rather than uniting it. The border Palestine has makes it a land-sea country, albeit the land side predominates. Furthermore, the border seems too long for the country’s total area; for each 37.5 square kilometres, there is 1 kilometre of the border length for Palestine; this is a big ratio indeed. It signifies a great weakness on the military side if compared with the borders of other countries.
The northern borders of Palestine along the Mediterranean begin at Ras Al-Nakoura in the west. It run in a straightforward manner towards the east, and suddenly hto the north as if it were a peninsula that stretches between Syria to the east and Lebanon to the west at a distance of more than 30 km. These borders were designed to satisfy the Zionists. They wanted the northern border to start at the Litani River, i.e., to the north of the present borders comprising about 40 km. They also wanted the fountains of the rivers Banias and Al-Qadhi to be within the borders of Palestine. This unusual request was received with some resistance by the French mandate over Syria and Lebanon. France insisted that the fountains of the two rivers be within the Syrian border to secure the road that connects the southwest of Syria to the north and east of Lebanon in compensation for the rivers of Litani and Banias. This northern expansion was meant to include the higher fountains of the River Jordan. This would include it to Palestine along with some of the Syrian lands that were close to the rivers Banias and Al-Qadhi. Some of the Lebanese villages close to the rivers Hasbani and Litani, such as Mansoura, Salha, Hwueen and Tarbekha, were also included.
The eastern borders from the north to the south clearly begin at the Banias Syrian village and then head towards the south, leaving the River Jordan and its fountains inside the border of Palestine. The border also runs parallel to the hills of Al-Hola, another indication that it also falls within Palestine. The borders also come near the northeastern shores of Al-Tabarriyya Lake, a distance of no more than 10 metres, till it reaches the site of Masfeer at the middle of the eastern shore, where it starts to move away until it reaches the Yarmouk River. The borders begin to move away and are far from the Lake, about 3 km or more. At this point, the border runs parallel with the River Jordan and continues through the Dead Sea till it reaches the Gulf of Aqaba.
The border with Egypt was made in accordance with the agreement made in the year 1906 between the representatives of the Ottoman State and the Khedewui dynasty in Egypt. This border represented a managerial separation between the State of Hejaz and Jerusalem on one part, and with the semi-island of Seena on the other. The border was mostly a straight line, and ran parallel with the longitude 34 to the east. The line runs through the eastern part of Seena across the peaks of the desert hills to connect Rafah on the Mediterranean and Taba at the Gulf of Aqaba. Britain approved the border the moment it was announced.
The regional elevations
Palestine is characterized by the clarity of the shapes of its surface and the simplicity of its geological structure, which is composed of various layers of rocky stones of basalt, mud and granite. This is typical throughout most of the geological ages from the first geological period up to the modern times.
The shape of the land’s surface varies from below sea level depressions and flat plains, which rise a little bit on the sea level, to the medium and high mounds that have several mountains. Despite the fact that Palestine’s area is relatively small-27,000 square kilometres–and its structure is simple, it has the following regional elevations:
1. The region of coastal plains
This region stretches from Ras Al-Nakoura in the north to Rafah in the south. It is confined between mountains in the east and the Mediterranean in the west.
This region is composed of plain flat land close to the sea level. Though the surface is generally plain, there are some small heights, some sand hills and some glens that cut through the region, coming from the mountain heights and heading to the Mediterranean Sea. The land is generally descending from east to west.
It is important to note that the seacoast stretches in a straight line; there are no curves or bays, except for the bay of Akka, which was formed owing to a depression in the land. There are also some little edges that move slightly into the sea such as Ras El-Karmel, Al-Nakoura and Jaffa.
The coastal plains consist of coastal sand precipitation mixed with those of mud and small stones that were brought from the mountains by the glens. This material forms the red sand of the Mediterranean. This sand is characterized with being light, fertile and parasitic. It keeps humidity and can be easily ventilated, making it ideal for citrus fruits, grapes, olives and many other types of plants. In addition to the fertility of the land, it is also rich in groundwater.
Despite the relative flatness of the surface of this plain, it starts to rise inwardly from the sea. It appears as a high plain surrounded at the base with the heights of middle Palestine from the east. It is locally known as the plain of Salouna. This part of the land of Palestine is geographically unique in many ways. The most important part is probably its sea climate, which is very moderate in its temperature. It is the warmest area in Palestine in the winter, and the coolest in the summer. The temperature does not drop below 19 degrees in December and never exceeds 26 degrees in August, on average. More important is the seasonal winter rain, which can exceed 800 cubic millimetres of rain annually in the north in Karmel. However, the average rainfall decreases in the regions further south. The city of Rafah never gets more than 150 cubic millimetres of rain annually.
The Akka plain, which starts from Ras El-Nakoura, has black sand and is suitable for growing vegetables and fruits and oranges. It is 12 km wide at Akka. This plain is full with hills that indicate that it was populated with people who used to farm the land from the time of Al Jazar.
The coastal plain of Sharon starts from Karmel and expands from 200 metres till it reaches 35 kilometres southwards to Jaffa. The sands of Sharon are formed by the crumbling of rocks at various locations and then transferred by natural forces. The salts of the crumbled rocks melt in the water, which gives the soil more fertility. Beneath the precipitated soils there are calcite rocks that were degenerated by the influence of carbonic acid. Because of the abundance of iron in this soil, it appears red, it is easy to crumble, and it is suitable for growing grains and citrus fruits.
2. The region of mountain heights
This region is composed of mounds and small mountain chains through which there are some internal plains. This region is often seen as the backbone of the Palestinian land, and it stretches from the north to the farthest point in the south at the Naqab desert.
The height of the region land does not generally exceed 1,000 metres. The land gradually descends towards the internal plains in the west and more towards the east, till it reaches the Jordan Valley with its mountain edges and high cliffs. The valleys have dug deeply into the calcite mounds from the Mediterranean Sea at the west to the River Jordan at the east. Most of these valleys are dry or seasonal and flood with water immediately after the rainfall.
The region of mountain heights can be divided into two units: Al-Jaleel and the middle mountain chain.
(a) Al-Jaleel. Palestinian expansion of Al Jaleel is often considered an extension of the Lebanese Al-Jaleel, which is also known as the mass of Amel Mountain. The height of the land in Al-Jaleel rises gradually, and it reaches its highest point in the north at Al-Jaleel Al-A’ala. Its lowest point is in the south at the plain of Marj Ibn Amer. Al-Jaleel mass descends sharply to the Jordan Valley at the highest point and the middle point descends to the east. However, it descends gradually to the plain of Akka to the west. Al-Jaleel area is estimated to be 2,083 square kilometres. Al-Jaleel can be divided into the following subdivisions:
(i) Al-Jaleel Al-A’ala (the Highest) consists of a high mountain mound with a length of 40 km from east to west. Its width is 25 km from north to south. The Jarmaq Mountain is considered the highest in its chain with a height of 1,208 metres to the northwest of Safad, which is the highest peak in Palestine. Many valleys extend from Jarmaq and head to the northwest, the northeast and the east. There are other high mountains in Al-Jaleel such as ‘an Mountain (936 m [on which the city of Safad was erected]), Haydar Mountain (1,047 m [to the north of Al Ramah village]) and Adathir Mountain (1,006 m [near the village of Sa'sa'a]). The mound of Al-Jaleel Al-A’ala was subject to great depressions and volcanic eruptions in the ancient geological times. These activities left black basaltic spots over the surface of the mound and many breaking valleys that head to the Jordan Valley. Thus the land there is very coarse and rough.
(ii) Al-Jaleel Al-Adna (the Lowest) begins to the south of Al-Jaleel Al-A’ala. The valley of Shagour separates them from each other. It is less high, with a height of no more than 200 m above sea level. It is also more fertile than the northern parts. Its length is about 50 km from east to west, and its width is more than 15 km from north to south. It is composed of parallel mountain chains extending from east to west, between which there are many wide valleys and open plains. The most important of these mountains are Tabour or Tour mountain (562 m) to the east of Nassira; Al-Dahhi or Harmoun El-Sageer mountain (550 m) to the south of Nassira; and Al-Nabi Sa’een mountain (500 m), which is one of the peaks surrounding Al-Nassira. The most important valleys are Al-Fajjas valley and Al-Beera valley; they both end at the Jordan River. One of its famous plains is the Hitteen plain on which the battle of Hitteen took place and Salah El-Deen defeated the Crusaders. There is also the Battouf plain on which the Zionist entity erected a dam to store the water from the Jordan River. This area also witnessed a depression in the ancient geological periods. As a result, low level plains emerged along with the black basaltic spots. The hot mineral water fountains were erupted in the area of Himma near Tabarriyya.
(iii) The plain of Marj Ibn Amer was named after the clan of Bani Amer from Bani Kalb, who inhabited the area at the first Islamic entrance to the city. It was called the “Marj” (meadow) because of the growth of wild bushy plants on it and because of its wide open area in which cattle roamed freely. This plain was formed as a result of the land depressions that took place a long time ago. It is characterized by its flatness, though with some small heights here and there, and the existence of high steep cliffs at the edges. There are many opening passages that connect the plain to other areas. The most famous passages are the passage of Majdou and the valley of Mukatta’ river, which connect it to the coastal plains of Palestine, and the valley of Zar’een, which connects it to the depression through Baysan and then to Irbid to the east and to Damascus to the north. The road of Janeen-Sahl Arabeh also connects this plain to the middle areas and south of Palestine. This plain separates Al-Jaleel from the mountains of Nablus and Al Karmel. Its height is about 60 to 75 metres above sea level. Its length is about 40 km from west to east, and its width is about 19 km from north to south. Its area is estimated to be 351 square km. In the middle, at Al-Afouleh, its land starts to descend towards the east to the Jordan Valley (the depression of Baysan), where the Jalout valley runs and its waters are drained into the Jordan River. The land also descends towards the west to the plain of Akka where the Mukatta’ river runs till it reaches the Gulf of Akka. Its soil is mostly mud that is suitable for growing grains, and it is considered one of the fertile lands in Palestine. That is why the Zionists settled in it first after the British mandate.
(iv) The middle mountain chain stretches between Marj Ibn Amer to the north and the area of Beer El-Sabe’ to the south. Its area, including Karmel Mountain, is estimated to be 529 square kilometres. It is comprised of a high mound in which there are some closed plains that are surrounded by the mountains. Its surface is irregular and varies between the plain easy lands to the tough mountain terrain. The dry valleys that descend towards the Mediterranean to the west and the Jordan Valley to the east managed to cut this mound into deep calcite formations. The mound is adjacent to the lower part of the Jordan Valley with very sharp rough heights such as Al-Jabal El-Kabeer Mountain, Ras Um El-Kharouba, Um Halal, Qarn Sartaba, Al-Qrantal mountain, Ras El-Fashkha, Ras Turba, Ras El-Marsad, Khashem Asdoum and many others bordering the Dead Sea. The mound descends gradually to the west where it meets the hills of the eastern extremes of the coastal plain. We can divide the middle heights into two halves: Nablus mountain in the north, and the mountains of Jerusalem and Hebron to the south.
Nablus mountains stretch northwesterly to reach Karmel Mountain, which ends in the Mediterranean Sea. It stretches towards the south to the valleys of Dayer Bailout, which are the higher streams for the river Aooja, which heads to the north of Jaffa. It should be noted that the Nablus mountains are not separated from the Jerusalem mountains, rather the mountain bows meet each other, forming a continuing united chain. The length of the Nablus mountains is estimated to be 65 km from north to south. Its width is estimated to be 55 km from west to east.
Ebal (or northern) mountain (940 m) represents the highest peak in this chain and is comparable to the Jarzeem (or southern) mountain (881 m). The city of Nablus is erected on these two mountains, and its buildings cover the valley between the two mountains. There are other mountains as well, such as the Faqou’a mountain and Jabloun mountain to the northeast side of Janeen, the Aqra’ mountain, BaYazeed mountain, Bilal mountain and many others. Throughout these mountains there are some plains such as the Araba plain (30,000 acres), Sanour plain (Marj El-Garaq) with an area of 20,000 acres, and the plain of Makhna, which stretches along the eastern bases of the Ebal and Jarzeem mountains. The most important valleys of the Nablus mountains that descend east to the Jordan River are Al-Baden, Al-Farei’a and Al-Maleh. As to the valleys heading west to the Mediterranean, there is only one important one and that is the valley through which the Aouja River runs, which ends to the north of Jaffa.
The mound of Jerusalem and Al-Jaleel stretches from the middle of Nablus and Jerusalem (the village of Beiteen) in the north towards Beer El-Sabe’ in the south for a distance of about 90 km. This mound lies in the middle between the lower Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea to the east and the southern coastal plain to the west. Its width is from 40 to 50 km, including the part that is next to the Dead Sea and its western cliffs that are adjacent to the coastal plain.
The mound is basically composed of calcite, which makes good building materials, especially in the area of Jerusalem. With the passage of time, the mound was subject to many changes that led to the melting of its calcite formations owing to the influence of rainfalls and the floods of the dry valleys. The mound then was cut into separate hills and mountain chains, in addition to the formation of caves and rough terrain.
The mountains around the mound form two curved bows over it; one of them is known as Al-Khaleel Bow–Bayt Laham, and the other is called the Bow of Jerusalem–Ramallah. A relatively low threshold in the Jerusalem area separates the two bows. The mound is also prone to cracking, especially in the eastern area where waterfalls descend in gradual levels from relatively high altitudes with steep cliffs in the Dead Sea area.
As for the western waterfalls, they descend gradually to the coastal plain and end in the form of hills into the depth of the coastal plain. The mound was clearly divided by the influence of dry and seasonal valleys such as the Ali valley (Bab El-Wad), Al-Sarrar valley and Al-Khaleel valley. The following are the most important valleys descending to the east: Al-Aouja valley and Al-Qalt valley, both of which end in the Jordan River, and the Nar valley and the Zwueera valley, both of which end in the Dead Sea.
The most important mountains in Jerusalem are Tal El-Asour (1,016 m), Al Nabi Samuel (885 m), Al-Ma(819 m), Al-Tour or Al-Zaytoun (826 m) and Al-Makbar (795 m). The most important mountains in Hebron Khalet Batrikh (1,020 m), Halhoul (1,013 m), Su’eer (1,018 m), Bani Na’eem (951 m) and Doura (838 m). The mountain region ends about 24 km to the south of Hebron, near the Dhahirrya village, where the desert mound of Palestine starts.
3. The region of the Jordan Valley
This entrenched region stretches over the eastern part of Palestine from the Sheik mountains in the north to the Gulf of Aqaba in the south. The eastern part of this prolonged region enters the Jordanian borders, while its western side enters the Palestinian lands.
The length of the Jordan Valley is more than 420 km long, and it is a subdivision of a major system that contains a group of entrenched successive valleys. That is, it is a very small part of the African-Asian system that stretches the distance of 6,000 km from the latitude 20 to the south in Mozambique to the northern latitude 45 in Turkey to contain 65 latitudinal degree, i.e., a fifth of the earth’s circumference.
The Jordan Valley is among the depressions that attract great attention all over the world. That is because the Dead Sea is located there, which is the lowest spot below the sea level in the entire world. The Jordan Valley begins at the Sheik Mountain, ascending for about 160 metres above the sea level. No sooner than it starts to descend towards the south, where it reaches the height of 70 metres at Al Hawla lake (previously), and to the sea level at the bridge of Banat Ya’qoub on the Jordan River to the north of Tabarriyya Lake, then it descends below the sea level in Tabarriyya Lake, which is 212 metres below the sea level. Thereafter, it reaches the lowest level below the sea when it gets to the Dead Sea, which is 398 metres below sea level. The deepest point at the bottom of the Dead Sea is about 797 metres below sea level. Then the height of the land starts to increase the more it heads to the south of the Dead Sea, where the height reaches 240 metres above sea level. The Ajram area represents the dividing line between the waters of the Dead Sea to the north and the Red Sea (the Gulf of Aqaba) to the south. The height of the land in the Araba valley starts to go down again to the south of Al-Ajram as it nears the Gulf of Aqaba.
The Jordan Valley was formed out of the severe depressions and cracks that led to its collapse to the depths we see today. It was connected to the sea for a while, and then it was separated from it as the marine formations precipitated from underneath. In the raining age, part of the Jordan Valley was covered with the water in what was known then as the ancient Jordanian Lake, which stretched from the Tabarriyya Lake in the north to about 30 km to the south of the present Dead Sea. This Lake disappeared thousands of years before the historic period, and nothing remained from it but the Tabarriyya Lake and the Dead Sea. We concluded the existence of the Lake by observing the marine precipitation of the formations of Marn El-Lisan. The River Jordan appeared and found its way into these formations.
We can distinguish between two levels of land in the Jordan Valley–the level of the depression and the level of Zour. The depression (Al-Ghor) is the higher of the two levels that is formed from the ancient marine precipitation and is mostly covered by new mud layers. As for the Zour, it is the lower level formed from the precipitation of the Jordan River. The height difference between the depression and the Zour is between 20 to 40 metres. They are separated from each other by a group of rough harsh lands known locally as the Al-Katar.
The width of the Jordan Valley varies from 5 km to the north of Aqaba to 35 km on the latitude of Areha to the north of the Dead Sea.
From its two mountain borders, the bottom of the Valley descends to the Jordan River, which is considered a natural drainage for the water streams in the Jordan Valley. The most important valleys that come to the Jordan Valley from the Palestinian mountain heights on their way to the Jordan River are the valleys of Hindaj, Amod, Al-Beera, Jaloud, Al Farei’a, Al-Maleha, Al-Aouja and Al-Qalt.
The valleys east of the Jordan River are Al-Yarmouk, Al Arab, Zeqlab, Al-Yabis, Kafernajja, Rajeb, Al-Jaram, Al-Zarqa, Shu’eeb, Al-Kufreen and Hasban. These are either dry or seasonal, or permanent valleys. Owing to the difference between the heights upon which these valleys run, they descend suddenly to the depression land unload much of their burden in what is known as the flooding fans surrounding their streams near the bases of the high mountains.
4. The region of the desert mound (Al-Naqab)
This region is composed of a desert mound that stretches along the south of Palestine and takes the form of a triangle, whose basis connects the southern part of the Dead Sea and Gaza on the Mediterranean Sea. Its head is located at the Gulf of Aqaba.
The area of the mountainous part of this mound is estimated to be 8,294 square kilometres, i.e., more than 79% of the total area of the mound. This mound is considered to be a junction between the Jerusalem mound and Hebron to the north and the mound of the semi-island Seena to the south. It is also a southern expansion to the Palestinian heights, which represent the backbone of Palestine. This mound is also adjacent to the Araba valley in the east with a chain of harsh rough mountain borders from which the dry valleys descend on their way to the Araba valley. It then gradually descends to the west to the southern coastal plain, which receives a group of dry valleys on their way to the sea.
The shapes of the surface of the mound vary from the mountain chains and small mounds to the closed and small plains. The terrain is very rough and harsh, to the degree that some scientists describe it as the giants of Naqab instead of the mountains of Naqab.
The sharpness of the appearance of the terrain varies from one site to the other. It is low on the north as if it were a plain, with vast extremes especially the area that stretches to the west and south of Beer Sabe’ city. However, it gets rougher to the south of Beer Sabe’ in the area of middle Naqab where the heights increase to more than 1,000 metres above sea level.
It is interesting to note that the mountains to the southwest of Beer Sabe’ are higher than those in the other areas of Naqab. These mountains represent a natural expansion to Seena’s southern mountains, and its height ranges from between 600 and 1,035 metres above the sea level.
Ras El-Rumman (1,035 m), which lies at the Egyptian-Palestinian border, is considered the highest peak in these mountains. It is also the third highest Palestinian mountain.
These mountains are comprised of Ajrameyya (1,015 m), Quroun El-Rumman (1,006 m), Sammawi (1,006 m), Ras El-Kharashe (1,000 m), Kharouf (1,000 m), Areef (957 m) and Edeed (935 m).
The mountains to the southeast of Beer Sabe’ range in height between 500 and 844 metres, namely Abu Alaleeq (844 m), Huthera (716 m), Ras Erdeha (713 m), Haleqem (625 m) and Um Tarfa (525 m).
The desert mound sustained several depressions in some of its more ancient parts, especially in the middle Naqab. This resulted in the height inconsistencies of the level of the land.
The mound was subject to the influence of many dry valleys and to soil degradation, either by the wind or by water, resulting in the formation of precipitation of sand, mud and small stones. These precipitants moved to far distances, where they precipitated again over wide areas of the northern Naqab, whether in Beer Sabe’ or the eastern, northern or western sides of the Naqab itself. These precipitants resulted in the formation of what is known as the bow desert soil, which is basically composed of sand and small stones.
Climate and water
The climate of Palestine fluctuates between the climate of the Mediterranean Sea and a desert climate. It is affected by both the sea and the desert. The climate of the sea dominates, though there are times in which it is influenced by the desert climate.
