Medieval Jerusalem : forging an Islamic city in spaces sacred to Christians and Jews / Jacob Lassner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lassner, Jacob.

Contributor:

Michigan Publishing (University of Michigan), publisher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jerusalem--History.

Jerusalem.

Jerusalem--In Islam.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [2017]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Medieval Jerusalem examines an old question that has recently surfaced and given rise to spirited discussion among Islamic historians and archeologists: what role did a city revered for its holiness play in the unfolding politics of the early Islamic period? Was there an historic moment when the city, holy to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, may have been considered as the administrative center of a vast Islamic world, as some scholars on early Islam have recently claimed? Medieval Jerusalem also emphasizes the city's evolution as a revered Islamic religious site comparable to the holy cities Mecca and Medina. Examining Muslim historiography and religious lore in light of Jewish traditions about the city, Jacob Lassner points out how these reworked Jewish traditions and the imposing monumental Islamic architecture of the city were meant to demonstrate that Islam had superseded Judaism and Christianity as the religion for all monotheists. He interrogates the literary sources of medieval Islamic historiography and their modern interpreters as if they were witnesses in a court of law, and applies the same method for the arguments about the monuments of the city's material culture, including the great archaeological discoveries along the south wall of the ancient Temple Mount. This book will be of interest to a broad range of readers given the significance of the city in the current politics of the Near East. It will in part serve as a corrective to narratives of Jerusalem's past that are currently popular for scholarly and political reasons.

Contents:

The Holy Land and Jerusalem : singing praise to sacred space

Jerusalem in the imagination of the prophet and his companions

The "furthest place of worship" : Muslim tradition and modern scholarship

The Islamization of Umayyad Jerusalem : the role of Mu'āwiyah b. Abī Sufyān

'Abd al-Malik and the Temple Mount : revisiting S. D. Goitein and Oleg Grabar

The so-called Umayyad administrative center

The Dome of the Rock and Arabic historiography

The "meaning" of the Dome of the Rock

Religion and local politics : praising native abodes

Appendix : The early caliphs, 632-833 CE.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-226) and index.

Description based on information from the publisher.

ISBN:

9780472130368

9780472122868

Publisher Number:

10.3998/mpub.9394056

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.