Palestine A Four Thousand Year History by Nur Masalha

The historical writing on Palestine is dominated by imperial chronologies and colonising methodologies and history ‘from without’ approaches.

In a similar vein, it has been suggested that the term Palestine had been completely forgotten by local Arabs during the late Mamluk and early Ottoman periods and that it was only brought back to them in the late Ottoman period by local Arab Christians in touch with Europe. In her work A History of Palestine: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Founding of the State of Israel, Gudrun Krämer, a German scholar of Islamic history, astutely observes:

And yet, the widespread view that the term ‘Palestine’ was only revived at the time of the European Renaissance with its conscious reference to Greek and Roman antiquity, that it was never used by Jews, that it had been entirely forgotten by local Arabs, and that it was brought back to them by Arab Christians in touch with Europe, can no longer be upheld. (Krämer 2011: 16)

In fact, the memory of historic Palestine was kept alive throughout the Mamluk and Ottoman periods by Palestinian Muslim writers and jurists as well as by Arab and Muslim travellers through Palestine. In the 14th century under the Mamluks the name Filastin was cited by Arab and Muslim travellers, often also in connection with the city of al-Ramla, the former capital of the province of Jund Filastin for several centuries under Islam. Ibn Battuta, the famous Muslim traveller and scholar from North Africa, travelled through most of the Muslim world and visited Palestine in the summer of 1326. He later wrote his account as the Rihlah (‘Journey’ or ‘Travels’):

I journeyed thereafter from Jerusalem [al-Quds] to the fortress of Askalon, which is a total ruin. Of the great mosque, known as the mosque of ‘Omar, nothing remains but its walls and some marble columns of matchless beauty, partly standing and partly fallen.

Amongst them is a wonderful red column, of which the people tell that the Christians carried it off to their country but afterwards lost it, when it was found at its place at Askalon. Thence I went on to the city of ar-Ramlah, which is also called Filastin, in the qibla of those mosques they say three hundred of the prophets are buried. From ar-Ramlah I went to the town of Nabulus ... a city with an abundance of trees and perennial streams and one of the richest in [al-Sham] for olives. The oil of which is exported thence to Cairo and Damascus. It is at Nabulus that the carob-sweet is manufactured and exported to Damascus and elsewhere ... Nabulus has also a species of melon which is called by its name, a good and delicious fruit ... Thence I went to Ajalun ... passing through the Ghawr, followed the coast to Akka [Acre] which is in ruins ... Akka was formerly the capital and port of the country of the Franks [Crusaders] ... and rivalled Constantinople itself. (Ibn Battuta 2005: 57‒58)

But the social memory and political geography of Palestine were kept alive perhaps more vividly by indigenous Muslim Palestinian writers living in the country than by Arab writers travelling through Palestine during the Mamluk period. Writing during the late Mamluk period, Mujir al-Din al-ʿUlaymi ( 1522 ) (مجير الدين العليمي ‒1456), a Palestinian Muslim qadi, historian and Jerusamelite, in his comprehensive work The Glorious History of al-Quds and al-Khalil (al-Uns al-Jalil bi-Tarikh al-Quds wal-Khalil, c. 1495), extensively refers to his native country as Filastin, a term he repeats twenty-two times. Although he also uses the term Holy Land (al-Ard al-Muqaddasah), no other geographical names, such al-Sham, are mentioned. Mujir al-Din divides the al-Sham region into five distinct provinces, two of which are connected with historic and modern Palestine:

• The first Sham is Palestine with the city of al-Ramla at its centre.

• The second Sham is Hauran with the city of Tiberias at its centre.

• The third Sham is the Ghouta with the city of Damascus at its centre.

• The fourth Sham is Hims with the city of Hims at its centre.

• The fifth Sham is Qinnasrin with the city of Aleppo at its centre.

Mujir al-Din constructs a concept of al-Sham which places his own country, Filastin, at its centre as the first region of al-Sham. He also puts Palestine centre stage by proudly quoting other Muslim authors saying:

‘what is lacking on earth, increases in al-Sham, and what is lacking in al-Sham, increases in Palestine’ (Mujir al-Din 1973). He describes Filastin as stretching from a point in the south near al-‘Arish in Sinai to Lajjun in Marj Ibn ‘Amer in the north. This territorial conception of Filastin echoes the boundaries of the Arab province of Filastin throughout early Islam (Mujir al-Din 1495; Gerber 2008: 49; le Strange 2014; Khalidi, R. 1998:

216, note 25). This amply demonstrates how the incredibly fertile social, cultural and geographic memories of the medieval Arab Islamic province of Filastin were nurtured by local Muslim Palestinian judges and writers throughout the Mamluk and early Ottoman periods.

In view of the fact that the polity of Filastin was preserved in the social memory and works of two distinguished Palestinian Muslim scholars and jurists, Mujir al-Din al-ʿUlaymi, (c. 1495) (see below) and Khair al-Din al-Ramli in the 17th century, it is hardly surprising that the archives of the Islamic Sharia Court of Jerusalem in the 18th century also show that the terms Filastin, ard Filastin (‘land of Palestine’, ‘ أرض فلسطين ’) and ahl Filastin (the ‘people of Palestine’, ‘ أهل فلسطين ’) – with specific reference to the cities of al-Ramla, Lydda, Jaffa, al-Quds, al-Khalil (Hebron) and Gaza, and within the wider geographical region al-Sham – remained very much alive in local and regional Palestinian Muslim social memory throughout the Mamluk and Ottoman periods.