Chapter I : On the concept of “Holiness” and delimitation of “Palestine” 

1. On the Concept of “Holiness”

According to Webster’s International Dictionary, the word ‘holy’ means: (1) set apart or dedicated to the service or worship of God or a god; (2)  dedicated to or laying claim to being dedicated to a sacred or selfless purpose; (3) venerated because of association with someone or something holy. In Random House Dictionary, the meaning, among others, is: ‘specially recognized as, or declared, sacred by religious use or authority’.

I think the meaning should be regarded historically and not only statically. In developed religions, the world is divided into two definite parts, one of which is given special treatment. This special part is called ‘holy’ or ‘sacred’, and is distinguished from the other part by taboos, rituals, worship, and other acts of veneration. [See p. 35, Introduction to Religion, by W. L. King, Harper, 1954.]

Also, something can be ‘holy’ or ‘sacred’ by contiguity or association. To quote from the same book: ‘Religions at all levels of development frequently build shrines and houses of worship at their sacred spots. These places of worship . . .  sometimes gain a sacredness in their own right; for not every temple, church, synagogue or mosque is built at a place that was formerly sacred. Its very construction hallows the spot, however unholy before. Nevertheless, a multitude of them have been built on locations previously sacred to the faith-the place of the founder’s birth, the scene of one of his great deeds, the site of some striking event in the history of the religion, or a locality bearing some association with a hero or saint. Jerusalem, called the Holy City by Christian, Jew and Muslim, is an excellent illustration’ [p. 37, ibid.]. In this sense, Jerusalem, the Holy City, has endowed the rest of Palestine with holiness by contiguity and association. Moses, the founder of the Jewish faith, was never associated with Jerusalem; but his having been a Jewish leader and Jerusalem having been chosen by David as his capital and by Solomon as the site of the Temple, with the association between the three Jewish leaders, have had the effect of making Jerusalem holy for the Jews for their entire history. Historical or legendary association may also endow a place, such as a site, a town, or even a country, with sanctity. This hardly needs illustration, as it is prevalent among many nations and in many religions. The Promised Land is sometimes regarded as ‘holy’ because of the ancient Jewish belief that God promised the land of Canaan to Abraham and his descendants. This ‘holiness’ does not require the presence of any ancient buildings, monuments, or even relics. Palestine, the Holy Land, is ‘holy’ to the Jews, although, after the first century A.D., and for a considerable time, they ceased to have anything physical in the country to which they could direct their veneration. The Jewish religious presence was almost effaced. The position, in so far as Christianity and Islam are concerned, is different. The two faiths constantly had their historical and legendary associations fortified by actual presence and by historical monuments and shrines.

Holiness can also develop as a side-effect, or as an offshoot, of nationalism. This particular case applies to Palestine from the Muslim point of view. Although Palestine as a whole was not regarded by Muslims in the early period of Islam as particularly holy in its entirety, it became so as a result of the Crusades which forced upon the Muslims the idea of its holiness, by extension. The Jewish immigration, in bulk after 1918, reinforced the idea further.

Of the three or four concepts of ‘holiness’ mentioned above, those applicable to Christianity and Islam seem to be more comprehensive, in the sense that they fulfil all the essential characteristics of holiness. There are the religious, the historical, the concrete, and the continued presence elements, with popular traditions and folklore.

2. On the delimitation of Palestine

Palestine, known by its various other names as ‘The Promised Land’, ‘The Land of the Book’, ‘The Land of Canaan’, ‘The Holy Land’, and ‘The Land of Israel’, was known to the Arabs and the Muslims as ‘Filistin’ or ‘Filastin’, which is another version of ‘Philistia’ or, perhaps, the Hebrew name ‘Pelesheth’. The territory promised to Abraham and his seed (Gen. 15:18-21) was bounded on the east by the river Euphrates, on the west by the Mediterranean, on the north by the ‘entrance of Hamath, and on the south by the “river of Egypt”’. This vast territory is what the Israelis now claim to be their rightful patrimony, and they, on the basis of the legendary ‘Land of Promise’, have founded their true, but unavowed, policy of expansion. Over the entrance of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, is a map showing the ‘Land of Promise’ in its Biblical boundaries. Palestine was only a part of this territory, extending in the north from the southern end of the Lebanon mountains and in the south to the wilderness of Paran (known in Arabic now as Badiat al-Tih(1).  Under the Arabs, Filistin extended from Rafah in the south, to Al-Lajjun (Megiddo) (part of the plain of Esdraelon), and from Jaffa in the west to Jericho in the east [Al-Istakhri, quoted p. 92, Chrestomatha Arabica, by Aug. Arnold, London, 1853]. The country across the Jordan, from Aila, the modern Aqaba or Elath, up to the north of Beisan (Bethshan), used to belong to Filistin. Tiberias used to belong to Jordan, and the northern parts of Palestine, north of the Plain of Esdraelon, used to belong to the Province of Syria [p. 94, ibid.]

This Arab division was not permanent under diverse rulers. It underwent various modifications and alterations. The latest Arab name, just before, or for a short period after, The British Occupation, was ‘Southern Syria’, because Palestine then was mainly divided between the Wilayets (Governorates) of Damascus and Beirut, both in Syria as it was then constituted, with Jerusalem and its environments forming what was then internationally known as the ‘Sanjaq Mustaqil’ – Self-Governing Prefecture’.(2) Nevertheless, the name ‘Filistin’, thanks mainly to Arabic literature, historiography, geography and Islamic tradition, was kept alive. In Christian literature, Palestine as The Holy Land also looms large. To take one or two points in the history of the name, Palestine under Constantine was divided into three provinces: Palestina Prima, Palestina Secunda, and Palestina Tertia. Under the Turks, after 1517, Syria was divided into five Pashaliks, or provinces, and one of them was the pashalik of Palestine [p. 138, Travels Through Syria and Egypt, vol. ii, London, 1787 by M. C. F. Volney]. Apparently, this division roughly corresponds to the Arab division of the country, where there were three principal towns to control the three districts around them, namely, Beisan, Qisaria (Caesarea), and Ramla. Under the Turks, Gaza, and sometimes Jerusalem, was the principal town in the south instead of Ramla [ibid.] The Arabic Qisaria was known under the Romans as Caesarea Palestinae [p. 185, Dr. Smith’s Classical Dictionary, London, 1904].

The Arabs in the south, and south-east were constantly connected with Palestine throughout its history. Some authorities even go to the length of saying that the Canaanites were Arabs. The Idumeans, the Moabites, and the Nabathaeans were more Arab than anything else, and these had a great deal to do with the history of Palestine under the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans. Herodes I, commonly known as Herod the Great, King of the Jews, was an Arab. The Arabs were known to have carried out an extensive trade between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, across the Sinai Peninsula, and from Aila or Elath to Gaza. One of the ancestors of the Prophet, Hashim ibn Abd-Manaf, is buried in Gaza(3). The second Caliph of Islam, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, was taken prisoner at Gaza in one of the trade missions before Islam, ‘because it (Palestine) was the route for the people of Hejaz’ [p. 94, Chrestomatha Arabica by Arnold, London, 1853]. Even the Prophet himself is said to have passed through the same route, and some Christian authorities claim that the Prophet, on one of his commercial journeys, met, at a monastery in Sinai, a Christian monk who initiated him into a certain version of the Christian religion.

Thus the Arabs, before Islam, were aware of the existence of Palestine and of what was happening there. Kings of Arabia were in contact with Jews in Palestine, and according to a tradition in Kitab al-Aghani (tenth century), a phase of the settlement of the Jews at Medina in Hejaz is associated with one of the great Jewish revolts of A.D. 66-70, or 132-5 [p. 211 (note), A History of Jerusalem by J. Gray, London, 1969]. This author says in the same place that ‘Muhammad himself had seen the cities of Syria on his humbler trading expeditions, and was evidently aware of, and indeed horrified by, the havoc wrought by the Persian invaders and their Jewish allies in the sanctuaries in Jerusalem’. According to the commentary of Al-Khazin, the Qur’anic verse: ‘But who does greater wrong than he who bars the sanctuaries of God from having His name mentioned in them and who busies himself to destroy them’ refers to Titus Vespasianus, the Roman, and his fellows ‘who attacked the Israelites, slaughtered their fighters, took into captivity their families, burned the Torah, destroyed Beit al-Maqdis and cast carrion into it and slew swine in it, and this remained in ruins until the Muslims rebuilt it during the reign of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab’. Palestine is also said to have been referred to in the Qur’anic verse: ‘And We gave them (Mary and Jesus) a shelter on a lofty ground having meadows and springs’ [p. 686, The Holy Qur’an, by Muhammad Ali, Woking, 1917].