By Eyal Chowers : Peace and the nation-state
Talkback
Title: Pal Nationalism is False , Fabricated and Incited Name: Joseph E . Post 3 City: Givatayim State: Israel
The status of Jerusalem is a case in point. Where does Jerusalem fit in Islam and Muslim history? It is not the place to which they pray, is not once mentioned by name in prayers, and it is connected to no mundane events in Muhammad`s life. The city never served as capital of a sovereign Muslim state, and it never became a cultural or scholarly center. Little of political import by Muslims was initiated there. One comparison makes this point most clearly: Jerusalem appears in the Jewish Bible 669 times and Zion (which usually means Jerusalem, sometimes the Land of Israel) 154 times, or 823 times in all. In the Qur`an not even once. The Ottoman period (1516-1917) Jerusalem suffered from the indignity of being treated as a tax farm for non-resident, "After having exhausted Jerusalem, the pasha left," (very rapacious officials.) observed the French traveler François-René Chateaubriand in 1806. At times, this rapaciousness prompted uprisings. So insignificant was Jerusalem to the Turkish authorities that it was sometimes a mere appendage to the governorship of Nablus or Gaza. Mark Twain in 1867 found that Jerusalem "has lost all its ancient grandeur, and is become a pauper village." The city being of such evidently minor religious importance, why does it now loom so large for Muslims, to the point that a Muslim Zionism seems to be in the making across the Muslim world? Why do Palestinian demonstrators take to the streets shouting "We will sacrifice our blood and souls for you, Jerusalem" and their brethren in Jordan yell "We sacrifice our blood and soul for Al-Aqsa" ? Why does King Fahd of Saudi Arabia call on Muslim states to protect "the holy city [that] belongs to all Muslims across the world" ? Why did two surveys of American Muslims find Jerusalem their most pressing foreign policy issue? Because of politics. An historical survey shows that the stature of the city, and the emotions surrounding it, inevitably rises for Muslims when Jerusalem has political significance. Conversely, when the utility of Jerusalem expires, so does its status and the passions about it. This pattern first emerged during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad in the early seventh century. Since then, it has been repeated on five occasions: in the late seventh century, in the twelfth century Countercrusade, in the thirteenth century Crusades, during the era of British rule (1917-48), and since Israel took the city in 1967. The consistency that emerges in such a long period provides an important perspective on the current confrontation. Politics, not religious sensibility, has fueled the Muslim attachment to Jerusalem for nearly fourteen centuries; the growth of Muslim feeling in the course of the Countercrusade applies through the centuries ,often in the history of Jerusalem, heightened religious fervour may be explained in large part by political necessity. This pattern has three main implications. First, Jerusalem will never be more than a secondary city for Muslims; "belief in the sanctity of Jerusalem , cannot be said to have been widely diffused nor deeply rooted in Islam." Second, the Muslim interest lies not so much in controlling Jerusalem as it does in denying control over the city to anyone else. Third, the Islamic connection to the city is weaker than the Jewish one because it arises as much from transitory and mundane considerations as from the immutable claims of faith. (Middle East Quarterly Fall 2001.The Muslim Claim to Jerusalem by Daniel Pipes}