A Catalogue of the Islamic Documents From Al-Haram As-Sarif in Jerusalem

A Catalogue of the Islamic Documents From Al-Haram As-Sharif in Jerusalem

by Donald P. Little

The approximately nine hundred Islamic documents comprising the Haram collection were discovered in two batches, in August 1974 and October 1976, in the Islamic Museum located within the precincts of al-Haram as-Sarif in Jerusalem, the third most holy place in the Muslim world. Situated in a vaulted hall built by the Crusaders, just west of al-Masgid al-Aqsa and adjacent to Bab al-Magariba in the west wall of the Haram, the museum had been closed for renovation and repairs for more than a year when the first discovery was made by the curator, Amal Abul-Hajj (now Hull). Not unnaturally, her curiosity had been aroused by the fact that some of the display cases in the museum contained locked drawers with contents unknown; when unlocked and opened by the long-time custodian of the museum, one of these turned out to be stuffed with no less than 354 documents written on paper and parchment of various sizes. In spite of their crumpled condition and the near illegibility of the scripts which covered many, Abul-Hajj was able to read enough dates to determine that they were six hundred and more years old and that they seemed, accordingly, to relate to the period of Mamluk rule in Jerusalem and Palestine. Just this much information derived from cursory examination brought her soon to the realization that, given the small number of medieval Islamic documents of any kind known then to exist, she had made a discovery which might well be of major significance for the study of the Islamic history of Jerusalem.

Language: English
ISBN: 9783899130270
1984, Paperback, 492 pages, 17.0 x 24.0 cm

New but with Cover discoloring due to age.