The Excellence of Jerusalem

References (1)

1. Not 'quintessential' in that Jerusalem, for the early Church, was in measure displaced by Antioch as the springboard of mission westward. Its centrality was a matter of deep association, not of utter necessity. The essence of early Christianity was its 'being scattered abroad', having no sacred territory, no 'chosen' people and no indispensable language. See below:- On the Fada'il see, e.g.: LI.Levine ed. The Jerusalem Cathedra, No.I, 'Muslim Literature in Praise of Jerusalem', Isaac Hasson, pp.168-84. Also S.D.Goitein: Studies in Islamic History and Institutions, Leiden, 1966, pp.135-48. His shift of the capital from Madina to Damascus was a new departure. Since Madina was being forsaken, Jerusalem may have been a prudent and auspicious choice, or - in Qur'anic terms - a preference for 'the olive' over 'the fig', these in Surah 95.1 understood by many to symbolise Syria and Palestine, or Damascus and Jerusalem. Sophronius received Umar in full patriarchal robes, whereas Umar presented himself in 'the clouts of battle'. The contrast was eloquent of much else in the event. See, for example, Walter E. Kaegi: Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests, Cambri.dge, 1992. 6 There would certainly be disaster were Jewish Zealots ever to succeed in plotting re-possession of Temple Mount with a viewto Temple re-building. Secularism in Israel would never accede to such defiance of the fates. See George Adam Smith: Jerusalem from the Earliest Times to A.D. 70, London, 1907, Vol. 1, p.3. Seeing that the verses chosen from the Qur'an for its decoration come, in the main, from Surahs 3 and 19 - the long; nativity narratives of Isa, Ibn Maryam al-Masih, the 'style' by which the Jesus of the Christian / Gospels is known in the Qur'an. · Such widespread, north-south commerce - 'the caravans of the Quraish' (106.1) is a strong tradition, though recent research has thrown doubt on its extent and volume. Certainly Makkan prestige seems to have undergone development under the Prophet's great grandfather in the later decades of the 6th century. On this reading of ummi, see my The Event of the Qur'an, London, 1971, Chaps. 2 and 3. The hunafa (s. hanif) were seekers, or worshippers, of One God in the antecedents of original Islam, apparently cherishing millat-lbrahim, 'the community of Abraham'. Scholars are uncertain about the provenance of the hunafa but they were clearly a formative influence in the sense of mission of Muhammad prior to his 'night of power' in Qur'an-experience