The Holy Land

by John Kelman

THE TEMPLE AREA AND THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, FROM MOUNT ZION.

The dome on the right is that of the Mosque of El Aksa, and that on the left is the Mosque of Omar. Between these domes, and just below the principal group of cypresses, is the “Wailing Place.” The hills in the background are the Mount of Olives.

blessing conveyed by so sacred a shadow was grudged. The public authorities in Jerusalem were strongly urged to have the Christian cemetery removed to some more distant place, and it required all the combined influence of the European consulates to prevent a scandalous order to this effect from being issued.” The Ordnance Survey party was on several occasions attacked, and even fired upon. In fanatical Moslem cities like Hebron and Nablus, travellers have to conduct themselves with the utmost discretion, and even then will probably be stoned with more or less effect according to the courage and the marksmanship of the thrower. The Christians return the animosity with a kind of impatient ridicule, which seems to indicate a lack of refined piety on their part. Our camp-waiters were Christians, and they used to give us very freely their opinions on the theological differences between them and the Mohammedans. There would be a reverent if somewhat startling account of the Holy Trinity, and then, in scornful contrast: “Mohammedans only One,—and Mohammed all the rest!” The scorn is hardly to be wondered at when one remembers the intellectual level of the powers that be. This is forced upon one’s notice by countless tales of the custom-house and censorship officials. A map of ancient Palestine was objected to because “there were no maps in those days!” An engineer, telegraphing about a pump, was arrested because the message read: “One hundred revolutions!” In certain Bibles the text was erased, “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners”; and it was directed that the word “Christians” should be substituted, as there were no sinners in the Turkish empire! After a certain amount of that regime, one would no doubt put new meaning into the prayer which invokes God’s mercy “upon all Turks,” as well as on infidels and heretics!

In spite of all this there is a good deal of interchange between the two faiths, or at least of borrowing on the part of Islam from Christian tradition. So many points have the two in common, that a theory has been broached on which Mohammed appears only as the Judaiser (as it were) of later days, who saw the difficulty that Christians had in working with general principles, and set himself to simplify the situation by reducing Christianity to a stereotyped system. Carlyle distinctly calls Islam “a kind of Christianity.” However this may be, there is no question as to the immense amount which Syrian Mohammedanism borrows from the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. Countless tombs and other monuments are dedicated to Joshua and other Old Testament worthies. This, of course, may be due to the fact that many Moslem saints have borne the old names, and as time went on their memories came to be confused with those of their more famous namesakes. Samson’s exploits especially have appealed to the Mohammedan imagination, and he appears under the incognito of “Ismân Aly,” among many other names. St. George is a very popular saint for Moslem worship. It startles us still more to find that in the great fire at Damascus numbers of Moslems threw themselves into the flames in the attempt to rescue the head of John the Baptist; while a copy of the Koran—one of the original four copies—which lay below the relic, was forgotten and destroyed.

The most extensive and curious point of contact between the two religions is found in those mosques which were formerly built as Christian churches, and then appropriated by the conquerors. The Grand Mosque of Damascus is a conspicuous case in point. It is built on the site of a pagan temple, part of whose hoary front still stands, a magnificent fragment of ancient heavy masonry and carving now brown and grey with age. On the ruins of the temple rose the Christian church of St. John the Baptist, whose date is about the beginning of the fifth century. After the Mohammedan conquest the church became a mosque, and fabulous sums were spent on its decoration. It has twice been destroyed by fire, and is now being restored after the last of these destructions.[26] The restoration has a very brand-new appearance, yet it is magnificent with its wealth of marble and of other costly stone. The Mosque of Samaria, conspicuous from a distance by its minaret is another Christian church reconstructed for Mohammedan worship. There was a sixth-century basilica here, but the present mosque is built out of the material of the Crusader church which replaced that. The severity and bareness of its stone walls and pillars are relieved only by one touch of colour—the flags and the lovely green pillars of the pulpit. The wall at the pulpit’s side has been recessed into a mihrab or niche, which points towards Mecca and so gives the worshipper his bearings. In the crypt, where the Crusaders believed they had the tomb of John the Baptist, large slabs of polished marble attest the former wealth of decoration, and these slabs are of peculiar interest because of one curious little fact. It was customary to carve on Christian buildings the sign of the Cross—a Maltese cross, set within a circle. Such a cross may be distinctly seen on one of the stones close to the embedded pillar at the south door of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. On the marble slabs of the crypt in Samaria these encircled crosses are to be seen; but the Mohammedans have chipped away the uprights of them, leaving only the meaningless horizontal bar bisecting the circle, and the obvious mark of the chisel in their rough workmanship leaves the uprights also faintly visible. Perhaps the most interesting case of all is the Mosque el Aksa, close to the Mosque of Omar, within the temple area. This is that “far-off place of prayer” which Mohammed counted among the most holy shrines in the world. Founded by Justinian as a Christian basilica, it was converted into a mosque by Omar, and adorned with unheard-of lavishness by Abd el Melik, who overlaid its doors with gold and silver plates. Since then it has passed through many adventures. Widened to efface some suggestion of cruciform shape, its breadth became unmanageable, and six rows of pillars support the roof. The roof has fallen in, and earthquakes have broken the building more than once, so that most of the masonry is comparatively modern, the great arches of the structure which supports the dome being “anchored” by wooden beams which throw horizontal bridges from capital to capital in Arab fashion. The green-and-gold mosaic with which the interior of the dome and the upper portion of the adjacent masonry is covered, cannot be very old, though their dim and antique beauty is worthy of the older art. The pulpit, richly inlaid with Aleppo work of ivory and mother-of-pearl, was Saladin’s gift seven hundred years ago. But that which most of all attracts the eye and fascinates the imagination is the aspect of the pillars, whose variegated colours are peculiarly rich and harmonious. Up to a certain height they are polished to the shining point by the garments of worshippers rubbing against them as they pass; above that they are smooth, unpolished stone. The capitals, and some at least of the columns, are very ancient, and may have stood in the original basilica.

The Mosque of Omar is not, strictly speaking, a mosque at all. The mosque is El Aksa, and the more famous building is but a glorified praying-station of the nature of a weli in its court. It stands near the centre of a wide open space, practically the only such space in Jerusalem, which occupies one-sixth part of the whole area of the city within the walls. The enclosure is partly artificial, supported on vast substructures of vaulted building which raise the enclosed ground to a general level. The mosque is set up on a platform ten feet higher than this level.

Its history has been a strange one. Behind the time of its erection lies all the story of the Temple, whose sacred ark Jewish tradition affirms to have been concealed here by Jeremiah. But that rock, whose red outcrop breaks through the floor of the mosque, leads us back to a dimmer past, and to the story of Abraham’s sacrifice upon Moriah, whose site this is said to be. Various theories have been advocated as to the place which the rock held in the arrangements of the Jewish temple. The Jews of to-day have a legend that on it somewhere the Unspeakable Name is written, and they explain the miracles of Jesus by the supposition that He had succeeded in deciphering it. We, too, for whom its chief interest and pathos lie in the fact that Christ came hither to worship, and in the things that befell Him here, may accept the meaning at least of that curious legend. For His own words were that He had declared to men the name of His Father, and that declaration has truly revealed to mankind the hidden meaning of their holiest things.