Palestine A Four Thousand Year History by Nur Masalha

The Arabic term for mosaics is fusayfisaa. The Arab term is a transliteration of the Byzantine Greek term Ψηφιδωτό and mosaic art spectacularly flourished during the Byzantine Empire. Byzantine-style mosaics decorated the churches, synagogues and temples of Provincia Palaestina (Prima, Secunda and Tertia) which, from the 4th century onwards, were exquisitely embellished with wall, ceiling and flour mosaics. Both the Nea Church (Νέα Ἐκκλησία) in Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem), erected by Justinian I (527–565),3 and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, built as a great Constantinian basilica, were decorated with mosaics. The original mosaic floor of the Church of the Nativity, with its typical Roman geometric motifs, is partially preserved today. As we have already shown, the very name of the country Palaestina, in Greek (Παλαιστινη), was found on the famous Madaba Mosaic Map, dated 560‒565 AD, in a town which at the time was part of the Byzantine province of Palaestina Prima. Similar Arab Byzantine-style mosaics were found at the Umayyad Hisham’s Palace (Qaṣr Hisham) at Khirbat al-Mafjar, an important early Islamic archaeological site located 5 kilometres north of the town of Jericho. Many of the finds from the excavations at the site are now held in the Rockefeller Museum (formerly Palestine Archaeological Museum) in occupied East Jerusalem.

The Palestine mosaic (wall, ceiling and floor) industry also flourished and grew further under the impact of the Ayyubid and Mamluk building programmes in Jerusalem. The reorientation and re-centring of Palestine in the post-Crusader era by the Ayyubids and Mamluks towards the interior of the country and the rise again of the cities of the mountain (al-Khalil, al-Quds, Nablus, Safad) as a consequence are reflected in work of Mujir al-Din al-ʿUlaymi, The Glorious History of al-Quds and al-Khalil. Mujir al-Din not only repeatedly refers to the term Filastin but also points to the evolution of regional social and cultural identities in Palestine and in particular Palestinian regional arts and identity linked to the cities of al-Khalil (and the area of Jabal al-Khalil) and al-Quds (the area of Jabal al-Quds). These close social, economic, cultural and artistic links between the two cities, which were formed and flourished during the Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman periods, have endured for centuries and survived into the modern period; and they point to the way internal Palestinian factors contributed to the formation of strong regional identities within Palestine, identities which, like the works of Palestinian Muslim writers and qadis – Mujir al-Din in the 15th century and Khair al-Din al-Ramli and al-Tumurtashi in the 17th century – contributed greatly to the concept of Palestine by keeping the history and memories of Filastin alive.

During the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods Palestine came under social, cultural and architectural influences from Cairo and Damascus. But also the key Palestinian cities such as Nablus, al-Quds and al-Khalil exported much of their locally manufactured goods to Damascus and Cairo (see, for instance, Ibn Battuta 2005: 57). Unfortunately, however, the internal Palestinian agency and the productive and creative capacities of Palestine are often ignored or glossed over by historians who are frequently preoccupied with imperial chronologies and prefer to comment on the external influences behind the Islamic art and architecture of Ayyubid and Mamluk Jerusalem, failing to see Palestinian history from within or the autonomous agency of the Palestinians. For instance, historians often point to the aesthetics of the Tankiziyyah Madrasah in Jerusalem, whose style resembles the Tankiziyah Madrasah in Damascus (see e.g. Rosen-Ayalon 2006: 119, 155), but fail to see independent Palestinian schools of arts emerging within Palestine. Indeed, distinct Palestinian craft traditions and schools of arts developed during the Mamluk period and these are found in the glass industry of al-Khalil and the Palestinian School of Mosaics. These traditions have survived into the modern period. In the 13th century during the Mamluk period al-Khalil developed a flourishing and highly respected glass industry, including glass jewellery known in Arabic as zujaj al-khalili; the Old City of al-Khalil still includes a district named the ‘Glass-Blower Quarter’ and Hebron glass continues to the present time to serve as a tourist attraction for the city. Traditionally, the glass was melted using local raw materials, including sodium carbonate from the Dead Sea. Stained glass windows and great works of art in glass produced in al-Khalil also adorn the Dome of the Rock in the Old City of Jerusalem (al-Ju’beh 2008). Al-Khalil’s glass lamps and glass ornaments were exported to Egypt, Syria, Arabia and Africa. The city became well known for its glass production throughout the Arab world and to Western travellers to Palestine in the modern period. It was also represented with glass ornaments at the World Exposition of 1873 in Vienna.4

As in the glasswork industry of al-Khalil, other continuities of historic Palestine can be illustrated by the mosaic art which has a long history in Palestine and the Middle East, starting with palaces and temple buildings in Mesopotamia in the 3rd millennium BC. The ancient mosaic art of the Middle East consisted of patterns and images made from the assembly of small pieces of coloured glass, stone (pebble mosaics) or other materials, used in decorative arts or as interior decoration. Mosaics with patterns and pictures became widespread in classical times.

Islamic Palestine and al-Sham as a whole inherited the material heritage and Byzantine mosaic art of Late Antiquity and this material and cultural heritage was deployed widely in the construction of monumental religious buildings and palaces in Umayyad Filastin and al-Sham. These buildings included the first great Islamic religious buildings in Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock, completed in 691 AD, and the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, completed in 715. The Dome of the Rock and the neighbouring Dome of the Chain also embodied some of the most spectacular Islamic heritage of Palestine, a heritage which continued to inspire generations of craftsmen and artists for centuries under the Ayyubids, Mamluks and Ottomans. Katharina Galor and Hanswulf Bloedhorn comment on the emergence of an independent Palestinian school of mosaics and glasswork during the Mamluk period:

Mosaics of colored and gilded glass, colored paste, turquoise faience, and mother-of-pearl, as well as colored stone and marble, embellished some of the ... Mamluk buildings. The most impressive wall mosaic is located in al-Madrasa al-Tankiziyya. It mihrab is covered with narrow strips of polychrome marble, flanked by reused Crusader columns with capitals, clearly analogous to certain features of Umayyad wall mosaics in the Dome of the Rock, in particular with its mother-of-pearl inlay ... It appears that this late re-emerging art draw its inspiration from seventh-century mosaics in the Dome of the Rock. Historical sources indicate that restorations of wall mosaics were carried out during the Mamluk period in both the Dome of the Rock and the Dome of Chain. Although Syria and Egypt have similar types of wall mosaics, Jerusalem appears to have been the home of a genuine Palestinian school that lasted for centuries. (Galor and Bloedhorn 2013: 230)

The quality of Palestinian glasswork, mosaics and crafts was tightly regulated and this legacy of the Mamluk system of regulation has survived in modern Palestinian vernacular terms such as Hisbe and in Palestinian family names such as the Muhtasib, a leading Muslim family in the city of al-Khalil (Hebron). The quality of Palestinian glasswork, mosaics and crafts was tightly regulated and this legacy of the Mamluk system of economic regulation has survived in modern Palestinian vernacular terms such as Hisbe and in Palestinian family names such as the Muhtasib, a leading Muslim family in the city of al-Khalil (Hebron). The muhtasib system in Islamic Palestine was part of the pre-capitalist ‘moral economy’ (to borrow an expression by English historian E. P. Thompson), influenced by sharia principles of social justice and the public good and widely promoted in the Near East. The muhtasib was an important official appointed by the Mamluk sultan whose duties included the regulation of prices and supervision and inspection of bazaars and trade in Palestine, Egypt and al-Sham. These varied duties also included ensuring that public business was conducted in accordance with the ethical requirements of the sharia (Islamic law). Recurrent epidemics were a regular phenomenon in the urban centres of the Middle Ages and hygienic conditions and the continuous supply of clean water, for public baths and public drinking fountains in the cities, were major achievements of Islamic civil engineering in Palestine throughout the Muslim world. Relying on written official manuals, the muhtasib supervised the regulation of hygienic conditions in the bazaars, weights and measures, money, prices of produce and manufactured goods, safety of public places and food sold publicly. They also ensured that craftsmen and builders adhered to the specification set for their craft and construction standards (Ibn al-Ukhuwah 1976; Broadbridge 1999; Hill, D. 1984).