Jerusalem. The Biography

the Muslim statement of faith – the
shahada –
which read ‘There is no God but God’, as it may not have been until 685 that they added ‘Muhammad is the apostle of God’. Jewish and Muslim names for Jerusalem overlap: Muhammad called Palestine ‘The Holy Land’ in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. The Jews called the Temple
Beyt ha-Miqdash
(the Holy House) which the Muslims adapted: they called the city herself
Bayt al-Maqdis
. The Jews called the Temple Mount
Har ha-Beyt
(the Mount of the Holy House); Muslims initially called it
Masjid Bayt al-Maqdis
, the Mosque of the Holy House, and later also
Haram al-Sharif
, the Noble Sanctuary. Ultimately Muslims had seventeen names for Jerusalem; Jews claimed seventy, and both agreed ‘a multiplicity of names is a sign of greatness’.

* The traditional text of the Covenant or Pact of Omar with the Christians claims Omar agreed to ban the Jews from Jerusalem. This is Christian wishful thinking or a later forgery because we know that Omar welcomed the Jews back in Jerusalem, that he and the early caliphs allowed Jewish worship on the Temple Mount and that the Jews did not leave again as along as Islam held sway. The Armenians were already a large Christian community in Jerusalem with their own bishop (later patriarch). They established close relations with the Muslims and received their own Covenant. For the next millennium and a half,Christians and Jews were
dhimmi
, people of the Covenant, tolerated but inferior, sometimes left to themselves, sometimes viciously persecuted.

* This was a handshake which meant a contract to render obedience: the word comes from
baa –
to sell.

* The modern mosque contains both a
mihrab
, a prayer-niche facing Mecca, and a
minbar
, the pulpit. Muawiya’s prayer-hall had the
mihrab
but probably not yet a
minbar
because early Islam was too egalitarian to have a pulpit. However, according to the historian Ibn Khaldun, Muawiya’s imperial reign changed that. His Egyptian governor, the general Amr, invented the
minbar
in his mosque in Egypt and Muawiya started to use it to give the Friday sermon, adding a latticed enclosure around it to protect him from assassins.

* Iran remains a Shiite theocracy. Shiites are a majority in Iraq and a large minority in Lebanon. Hussein’s brother Hasan bin Ali remained in retirement, though he too may have been murdered. His direct descendants include today’s royal dynasties of Morocco’s Alouite and of Jordan’s Hashemite kings. The Twelve Shiite Imams, the Fatimid dynasty, the Aga Khans and the Jerusalemite Family the Husseinis all trace their roots back to Hussein. Their descendants are often known as the Nobility, the Ashraf (the singular is Sherif usually addressed as
Sayyid
).

* Jerusalem’s importance lessened as Mecca’s grew: if Jerusalem had perhaps at one point approached Mecca and Medina as part of the
haj –
‘You shall only set out for the three mosques Mecca,Medina, and al-Aqsa,’ declared one of the
hadith
of al-Khidri – now under the Abbasids,Jerusalem was reduced to a
ziyara
, a pious visit.

* The Abbasids, particularly Maamun, regularly requested copies of Greek classics from the Byzantines, securing for posterity Plato,Aristotle,Hippocrates,Galen,Euclid and Ptolemy of Alexandria. The Arabs developed an entire new vocabulary of science that entered the English language: alcohol, alembic, alchemy, algebra, almanac are just some of the words thus borrowed. Al-Nadim’s famous
Index
shows that they also produced 6,000 new books. Paper was now replacing parchment scrolls: in one of history’s decisive battles, the Abbasids had defeated an invasion by the Chinese Tang emperors, ensuring the Middle East would be Islamic not Chinese and also capturing the secrets of Chinese paper-makers.

* Khidr is the most fascinating of Islamic saints, closely associated with Jerusalem where he was said to celebrate Ramadan. Khidr the Green Man was a mystical stranger, eternally young but with a white beard, cited in the Koran (18.65) as Moses’ guide. In Sufism – Islamic mysticism – Khidr is the guide and illuminator of the holy path. The Green Man seems to have inspired the Green Knight in the Arthurian epic
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
. But he is chiefly identified with the Jewish Elijah and the Christian St George, a Roman officer executed by Diocletian. His shrine at Beit Jala near Bethlehem is still revered by Jews,Muslims and Christians.

* Not all the synagogues had