Lecture 16

         Under Mamluk rule Jerusalem became more of a religious center rather than a political or military city. Jerusalem also expanded as the Mamluks intensively built schools, hostels, and hospices. The Mamluk architecture was made up of walls built of alternating red and white courses of stone, buildings were domed, and there was usually decorative designs inside the domes and above the entrances. Through all this, the economy suffered a bit from the amount of taxes put in place by the Mamluks, and also the Black Plague that hit the city in 1351. There were three main areas of charitable foundation that the Mamluk partook in: the Haram al-Sharif, outside the Haram, and along the street running east from the Jaffa gate. They developed the Haram by adding towers on the corners, adding minarets, a summer pulpit was built, and the Northern colonnade was added. Also, both the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque were restored. All of this building and renovations took place in what is now the Islamic quarter. Nachmanides had made aliyah in 1267 and founded the Ramban Synagogue. It was during this time that the “spiritualize” Jerusalem really started to take place.

        Ottoman Jerusalem was similar to Mamluk Jerusalem as the city remained more symbolic and religious, rather than political or strategic. Selim defeats Mamluks in 1517 at Marj- Dabik. The Turkish Ottoman kingdom flourished in building a strong centralized government for Jerusalem. Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent repaired and enlarged the aqueducts, rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem (2 miles long), and campaigned to refurbish the Haram and its monuments. He established a shari’a court, in which the Jews would ditch all laws and the Bible would become the rule book to follow. Suleiman encouraged Jewish refuges to settle in Jerusalem to restore the city, and their were no taxes for Jews which caused a tripling in the population. They provided restoration to the Haram and to the Christian church of the Holy Sepulcher (all holy places). It was a now a place where the Jews felt safe and welcomed to live and worship god.