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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Israel
Index
As a geographic unit, Palestine extended from the Mediterranean
on the west to the Arabian Desert on the east and from the lower
Litani River in the north to the Gaza Valley in the south. It was
named after the Philistines, who occupied the southern coastal
region in the twelfth century B.C. The name Philistia was used in
the second century A.D. to designate Syria Palestina, which formed
the southern third of the Roman province of Syria.
Emperor Constantine (ca. 280-337) shifted his capital from Rome
to Constantinople in 330 and made Christianity the official
religion. With Constantine's conversion to Christianity, a new era
of prosperity came to Palestine, which attracted a flood of
pilgrims from all over the empire. Upon partition of the Roman
Empire in 395, Palestine passed under eastern control. The
scholarly Jewish communities in Galilee continued with varying
fortunes under Byzantine rule and dominant Christian influence
until the Arab-Muslim conquest of A.D. 638. The period included,
however, strong Jewish support of the briefly successful Persian
invasion of 610-14.
The Arab caliph, Umar, designated Jerusalem as the third
holiest place in Islam, second only to Mecca and Medina. Under the
Umayyads, based in Damascus, the Dome of the Rock was erected in
691 on the site of the Temple of Solomon, which was also the
alleged nocturnal resting place of the Prophet Muhammad on his
journey to heaven. It is the earliest Muslim monument still extant.
Close to the shrine, to the south, the Al Aqsa Mosque was built.
The Umayyad caliph, Umar II (717-720), imposed humiliating
restrictions on his non-Muslim subjects that led many to convert to
Islam. These conversions, in addition to a steady tribal flow from
the desert, changed the religious character of the inhabitants of
Palestine from Christian to Muslim. Under the Abbasids the process
of Islamization gained added momentum as a result of further
restrictions imposed on non-Muslims by Harun ar Rashid (786-809)
and more particularly by Al Mutawakkil (847-61).
The Abbasids were followed by the Fatimids who faced frequent
attacks from Qarmatians, Seljuks, and Byzantines, and periodic
beduin opposition. Palestine was reduced to a battlefield. In 1071
the Seljuks captured Jerusalem. The Fatimids recaptured the city in
1098, only to deliver it a year later to a new enemy, the Crusaders
of Western Europe. In 1100 the Crusaders established the Latin
Kingdom of Jerusalem, which remained until the famous Muslim
general Salah ad Din (Saladin) defeated them at the decisive Battle
of Hattin in 1187. The Crusaders were not completely evicted from
Palestine, however, until 1291 when they were driven out of Acre.
The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were a "dark age" for
Palestine as a result of Mamluk misrule and the spread of several
epidemics. The Mamluks were slave-soldiers who established a
dynasty that ruled Egypt and Syria, which included Palestine, from
1250 to 1516.
In 1516 the Ottoman Turks, led by Sultan Selim I, routed the
Mamluks, and Palestine began four centuries under Ottoman
domination. Under the Ottomans, Palestine continued to be linked
administratively to Damascus until 1830, when it was placed under
Sidon, then under Acre, then once again under Damascus. In 1887-88
the local governmental units of the Ottoman Empire were finally
settled, and Palestine was divided into the administrative
divisions (sing., mutasarrifiyah) of Nabulus and Acre, both
of which were linked with the vilayet (largest Ottoman
administrative division, similar to a province) of Beirut and the
autonomous mutasarrifiyah of Jerusalem, which dealt directly
with Constantinople.
For the first three centuries of Ottoman rule, Palestine was
relatively insulated from outside influences. At the end of the
eighteenth century, Napoleon's abortive attempt to establish a
Middle East empire led to increased Western involvement in
Palestine. The trend toward Western influence accelerated during
the nine years (1831-40) that the Egyptian viceroy Muhammad Ali and
his son Ibrahim ruled Palestine. The Ottomans returned to power in
1840 with the help of the British, Austrians, and Russians. For the
remainder of the nineteenth century, Palestine, despite the growth
of Christian missionary schools and the establishment of European
consulates, remained a mainly rural, poor but self-sufficient,
introverted society. Demographically its population was
overwhelmingly Arab, mainly Muslim, but with an important Christian
merchant and professional class residing in the cities. The Jewish
population of Palestine before 1880 consisted of fewer than 25,000
people, two-thirds of whom lived in Jerusalem where they made up
half the population (and from 1890 on more than half the
population). These were
Orthodox Jews (see Glossary), many of whom
had immigrated to Palestine simply to be buried in the Holy Land,
and who had no real political interest in establishing a Jewish
entity. They were supported by alms given by world Jewry.
Data as of December 1988
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