Notes

(1) According to G. Harold Lancaster, ‘The Land of Promise’ comprises East Africa, Uganda, Abyssinia, Somalia, the Sudan, Nubia, Egypt, Arabia, Palestine, Syria, the Syrian desert, Mesopotamia and the district of the Persian Gulf [p. 177, ‘Prophecy, the War and the Near East’, Marshall Bros., London, 1919].

(2) Previously, under Fakhr al-Din al-Ma‘ni (1590-1633), Palestine and Greater Syria were integrated into one unit called ‘Arabstan‘ - the Land of the Arabs [p. 648, The New Schaff-Herzog Religious Encyclopaedia, Michigan, 1953].

(3) Al-Istakhri, as quoted on p. 94, Chrestomatha Arabica of Arnold, London, 1853.

(4) Incidentally, Zion is not only the holy hill in Jerusalem, the Hebrew theocracy, and Jerusalem for the Jews, but it is also the Christian Church and the Kingdom of Heaven for the Christians.

(5) This mosque is believed to have been built of wood in the year A.H 15 (A.D. 637), capable of accommodating about three thousand worshippers [p. 66 in a pamphlet in Arabic, published in Amman, on the burning of Al-Aqsa Mosque on 21 August 1969]. See p. 24 of ‘The Noble Sanctuary’ by Alistair Duncan, Longman 1972.

(6) Mohamed Ibn Tughj, the Ikhsidite, is buried in Jerusalem. Sherif Husein of Mecca is also buried there. The shrine was lately repaired. Harold Lamb, in his book ‘Persian Mosaic’, London, 1943, writes that ‘Umar (Omar) Khayyam, author of the Ruba‘iyyat, is said to have made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In one of the chapters [pp. 106-9], he describes the holiness of  the Jerusalem sanctuaries and how keen Muslims are to visit them.

(7)  But many Western historians still persist in their prejudice against Islam in this respect. For instance, Herbert J. Muller, an American historian, says : ‘… except Mohammedanism, which shared its tradition as the most militant, exclusive and intolerant of the World’s religions [p. 3, ‘Religion and Freedom in the Modern World’, University of Chicago Press, 1963].

(8)  The Jews are accused of having instigated the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchure in 1010 [p. 200, ‘Cairo, Jerusalem, Damascus’ by B.S. Margoliouth, London, 1907].

(9) In the Israeli Proclamation of Independence, 15 May 1948, the following commitment is made : ‘The State of Israel … will safeguard the sanctity and inviolability of shrines and holy places of all religions… ’[p. 187, “A Treasure Hunt in Judaism”, by Harold P. Smith, New York, 1950].

(10) In his book ‘The Intellectual Development of Europe’, vol. ii, p. 42 (London, 1909), Draper deplores this attitude in the literature of Europe in the following terms : ‘I have to deplore  the systematic manner in which the literature of Europe has contrived to put out of sight our scientific obligations to the Muhammedans. Injustice founded on religious  rancour and national conceit cannot be perpetuated for ever’.

Howell-Smith says : ‘But there seems to be a conspiracy of silence among popular historians about the earlier renascence which the Muhammadan Arabs of Spain and Sicily… had introduced into Europe’ [p. 782, Thou Art Peter, London, 1950].

Christopher Dawson, a well-known Catholic writer, deplores this conspiracy of silence, and says : ‘ All this brilliant development of culture is completely ignored by the student of Medieval history’ [p. 134, ‘Medieval Religion and Other Essays’, quoted by Howell-Smith on p. 783 of his ‘Thou Art Peter’].

The deficiency in Western historical literature on Arab civilization in Spain is counterbalanced to a great extent by Joseph McCabe in his book “The Splendour of Moorish Spain”, London, 1935.

(11) Here is another example of intellectual dishonesty. The Domesday Dictionary, Jonathan Cape, London, 1964, reads as follows under ‘China’ : ‘a semitropical island situated north of  the Philippines and south of Japan and Okinawa.’ Obviously, the reference is to Formosa, and China proper is therefore non-existent!.

(12) It is reported that the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, allowed the Jews for the first time to worship at the Western wall of the Haram area.

(13) He also provided a candelabra, which was installed in the middle of the Dome.

(14) Al-Idrisi, the famous geographer (A.D. 1154), regarded Al-Aqsa and the Cathedral Mosque of Cordova as the greatest Muslim shrines in his lifetime, giving precedence to the former over the latter [p. 68 in a pamphlet in Arabic published in Amman, 1969, on the burning of Al-Aqsa Mosque on 21 August 1969].

(15) The mosque is also said to have been built by Abdul Malik, the father, and only completed by his son Al-Walid.

(16) For further information, read “The Noble Sanctuary” by Alistair Duncan (Longman, London, 1972).

(17) The Jews were given permission to worship there by the Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent.

(18) The cave is also called Cave of the Patriarchs, because of a Jewish legend. I am told that a British archeologist found no cave there.

(19) In this book ‘Ahsan Al-Taqasim,’ Al-Maqdissi says : ‘The tomb of Abu-Huraira, one of the earliest and closest companions of the Prophet, i.e. outside the town of Teberius, to the south.’

Ibn-Battouta, another Arab traveller, records that just outside the town lies the tomb of Sukaina, daughter of Al-Husein, grandson of the Prophet, and according to popular tradition, the tomb of one of the grandsons of Ali, the fourth Caliph.

(20) One of the leading men of Saladin.

(21) Under Fakhr Al-Din Al-Ma‘ni II (1590-1635) of Lebanon, Safad, Tiberias, and Nazareth came under the rule of the Ma’n dynasty [p. 729, “History of the Arabs” by Philip K. Hitti, London, 1961].

(22) A Bedouin whose father was installed by the Shihabi governor of Lebanon as Shaykh over the Safad district, young Z_hir (D_hir) made his political debut about 1737 by adding Tiberias to his Shaykhodom’ [pp. 731-2, ibid.].

(23) Perhaps the Jewish occupation of Arab Palestine, supported and protected as it is by the Christian West, may be regarded as an extension of the same attitude.

(24) For instance, ‘The Last Crusade’ by Donald Maxwell, John Lane, London, 1919, 1920.

(25) It is well worth noting here that it was not the Oriental Christians or the Oriental Jews who showed fanatical attachment to Palestine and claimed it as their exclusive Holy Land, but only the Western Christians and Jews.