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.