‘Abdul-Karim Rafeq是一位杰出的叙利亚历史学家，他开创了以伊斯兰教法（沙里亚）法庭记录（sijillat）作为社会史，尤其是城市史研究史料的先河，并就奥斯曼时期的叙利亚和巴勒斯坦撰写了大量著作。他在多处遇到阿拉伯语词汇Filastin（Rafeq 1990；Gerber 2008: 51）。在Rafeq所使用的19世纪后期巴勒斯坦阿拉伯文史料中，有大马士革作者Nu’man al-Qasatli于1879年写成的阿拉伯文手稿，题为《巴勒斯坦及叙利亚部分城镇游记中的Al-Rawda al-Numaniyya》（Rafeq 1990；Gerber 2008: 51），书中对19世纪70年代的巴勒斯坦作了考察。19世纪下半叶，阿拉伯语词汇Falastin与Filastin的使用日益增多，同时地方、区域和国际上越来越普遍地认为近代巴勒斯坦／圣地有别于近代叙利亚，即使不是完全分离，这些都是晚期奥斯曼巴勒斯坦认知范式转变的多重标志。然而，就阿拉伯语本土“文学－学术”文献中Filastin、Filistin和Falastin这些词的文本“用法”而言，应始终牢记巴勒斯坦当时以前现代口耳传承文化为主的背景。另外，关键在于，欧洲在15世纪引入印刷机，逐步带来了大众识字与大规模出版，而巴勒斯坦直到五个世纪之后、即19世纪后期才有了第一台印刷机。随后，雅法一家著名的印刷厂名为“Palestine Press”，即“مطبعة فلسطين”（巴勒斯坦印刷厂）。因此，19世纪后期之前用阿拉伯语撰写的有关巴勒斯坦的“文学－学术”著述数量必然有限（与欧洲语言的浩繁文献相比）。

‘Abdul-Karim Rafeq, a distinguished Syrian historian who pioneered the use of sharia (Islamic law) court records (sijillat) as sources for social and especially urban history and wrote extensively on Ottoman Syria and Palestine, came across the Arabic term Filastin on a number of occasions (Rafeq 1990; Gerber 2008: 51). Among Rafeq’s Arabic sources for late 19th century Palestine was an 1879 Arabic manuscript by Damascene author Nu’man al-Qasatli, entitled: ‘al-Rawda al-Numaniyya in the Travelogue to Palestine and some Syrian Towns’ (Rafeq 1990; Gerber 2008: 51), which provides an 1870s survey of Palestine. This increase in the use of the Arabic terminology of Falastin and Filastin in the second half of the 19th century and the growing perception (local, regional and international) that modern Palestine/Holy Land was distinct, if not separate, from modern Syria, were among the multiple indicators of the paradigm shift in the perception of late Ottoman Palestine. However, with reference to the textual ‘usage’ of the terms Filastin, Filistin and Falastin in indigenous ‘literary-scholarly’ sources in Arabic, the context of the predominantly pre-modern oral/aural culture of Palestine should always be kept in mind. Also, crucially, unlike the introduction of printing presses in Europe in the 15th century – which gradually led to mass literacy and mass publications – Palestine had its first printing presses five centuries later, in the late 19th century – and subsequently one famous printing press in Jaffa was called ‘Palestine Press’, مطبعة فلسطين‘ ’– therefore, inevitably the volume of ‘literary-scholarly’ output on Palestine in Arabic prior to the late 19th century (in comparison with the mountains of sources in European languages) was limited.