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The ongoing conflict between Palestine and Israel must be the most discussed issue in the world today. It comes in and out of the news and grows bigger and bigger every day. The conflict seems to have a never-ending tale, which causes hatred, chaos and confusion among the rest of the world. However, the chaos and confusion caused between onlookers, which in turn causes further divisions between groups, is usually due to the fact that the history and value of the land to each group involved is never really understood. The lack of understanding of such vital factors in the conflict causes more confusion and even more conflict. So the aim here is to understand the meaning of the land to each group. We apologise if in any way the value of the land to each group is misrepresented. Jerusalem is unique among the cities of the world because of its association with the three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which have their holy places within its precincts. All three religions ruled the city at one time or another: the Jews for 72 years in biblical times, the Christians for over four hundred years in the fourth to the seventh and twelfth centuries and the Muslims for twelve centuries from 638 to 1917.
One of the main features of the ancient history of the Jewish people is their connection to a particular territory, once called Canaan and settled by the Israelites in the period after their evacuation from Egypt. In about 1000 BCE, King David, a member of the tribe of Judah, united 11 tribes of Israel and established the Kingdom of Israel with Zion, the city of Jerusalem, as its capital. David’s son King Solomon built the Jewish Temple on Jerusalem which became the Jewish central place of worship. This temple however was destroyed in 586 BCE by the Babylonians and rebuilt some seventy years later, which in turn was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. Today the only visible remain of the Temple of Jerusalem is the Western Wall, known in Hebrew as Kotel. It remains Judaisms most holy site and the direction to which all the Jews face when praying. This wall has had great historical and religious significance to the lives of Jews. Their desire to return to Zion was captured in their prayers and secular literature throughout the millennia.
To Islam Jerusalem is sacred for many reasons, one such reason is the Prophet Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) miraculous journey or isra, to Bait al Maqdis, ‘the house of holiness’, in Jerusalem and his ascent from there to heaven, known as the mi’raj. Muslims believe that Muhammad (peace be upon him), led by the angel Gabriel, travelled in one night from Mecca to the site of Masjid al Aqsa in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is also uniquely linked to one of the five pillars of Islam, the five daily prayers. This is because the earliest Muslims turned towards Jerusalem for prayer, however a later revelation turned the qibla, the direction of prayer, towards the Ka’ba, originally built by Prophet Abraham, in Mecca. After the Prophet Muhammad’s death, Islam expanded rapidly. It is in the early part of the expansion that the Muslim armies conquered Jerusalem. The whole area was renamed and divided into three regions. From this point on, with the exception of the period of the crusader kings (1099-1291), the region remained under Islamic rule until the end of World War One. One of the three regions conquered was called Jund of Filastin (the province of Palestine) and included what became the third holiest site of Islam, Al Quds, the location of al-haram al sharif, or ‘the noble precinct’.
Christianity, like Judaism also began in historic Israel. Jesus was born and lived in Judea in the first century and Christians believe that his life and death fulfilled God’s promises to the Jews for the long awaited messiah, or saviour, as prophesised in the Hebrew Bible. Jesus was crucified and buried in Jerusalem and it was there that, according to the Christian teaching, he rose from the dead. Jerusalem is therefore also the holiest city of Christianity and continues as a focal point of interest for all Christians spread far and wide across the globe. And so begins our story of the fight for one land between three peoples. A land which meant so much to them all, so much to so many people who in the middle of all this confused conflict lost their lives. A fight which seems to be a never ending fairytale and seems to continue to cause the loss of peoples lives in the masses. However, like all fairy tales there must be a happy ending. We pray for that ending.
By
Fatima Mawas |
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