Jerusalem: The Biography

Qaitbay, a Circassian slaveboy who became a Mamluk general, had spent years of exile in Jerusalem. Since he was banned from entering a Muslim household, he befriended the Franciscans who introduced him to a French dish: it seems he remained nostalgic about their vegetable omelettes when he ascended the Mamluk throne in 1486, for he welcomed the friars to Cairo and allowed them to build in the Church – and gave them back Mount Zion. They wanted vengeance on the Jews, whom Qaitbay therefore banned from ever approaching the Church or the convent on Mount Zion: Jews were routinely lynched and often killed even for absentmindedly passing the Church, a situation that lasted until 1917. But the sultan also allowed the Jews to rebuild their Ramban Synagogue. And he did not neglect the Temple Mount either: when he visited in 1475, he commissioned his Ashrafiyya madrassa that was so beautiful it was described as ‘the third jewel of Jerusalem’ while his fountain there, a bellshaped dome resplendent in red and cream ablaq, remains the most gorgeous in the whole city.

But for all Qaitbay’s interest, the Mamluks were losing their grip. When the qadi of the city, Mujir al-Din, watched the daily sunset parade at the Tower of David, ‘it was completely neglected and disorganized’. In 1480, Bedouin attacked Jerusalem, almost capturing the governor who had to gallop across the Temple Mount and out through the Jaffa Gate to escape. ‘Jerusalem is mostly desolate’, observed Rabbi Obadiah of Bertinoro, just after the Bedouin attack. From the distance, ‘I saw a ruined city’, agreed one of his disciples, with jackals and lions loping across the hills. Yet Jerusalem was still breathtaking. When Obadiah’s follower viewed it from the Olivet, ‘my spirit overflowed, my heart mourned and I sat down and wept and rent my garments’. Mujir al-Din, who loved his city, thought it was ‘filled with brilliance and beauty – one of the famous wonders.’^*

In 1453, the Ottomans finally conquered Constantinople, inheriting the splendour and ideology of the universal Roman empire. For generation after generation, the Ottomans were bedevilled by wars of succession and the challenge of a resurgent Persia. In 1481, Qaitbay welcomed the fugitive Ottoman prince, Jem Sultan. Hoping that a dissident Ottoman kingdom would divide the dynasty, Qaitbay offered Jem the kingdom of Jerusalem. The gambit led to ten years of wasteful warfare. Meanwhile both empires were threatened by rising powers – the Mamluks by Portuguese advances in the Indian Ocean, the Ottomans by the new Persian shah, Ismail, who united his country by imposing the Twelver Shiism that is still revered there. This pushed the Ottomans and Mamluks together in a short-lived, pragmatic embrace: it was to prove the kiss of death.⁷

PART SEVEN

OTTOMAN

This noble Jerusalem has been the object of desire of the kings of all nations, especially the Christians who, ever since Jesus was born in the city, have waged all their wars over Jerusalem … Jerusalem was the place of prayer of the tribes of djinn … It contains the shrines of 124,000 prophets.

Evliya Celebi, Book of Travels

Suleiman saw the Prophet in his dream: ‘O Suleiman, you should embellish the Dome of the Rock and rebuild Jerusalem.’

Evliya Celebi, Book of Travels

The great prize contended by several sects is the Holy Sepulchre, a privilege contested with so much fury and animosity that they have sometimes proceeded to blows and wounds, at the door of the Sepulchre mingling their own blood with their ‘sacrifices’.

Henry Maundrell, Journey

So part we sadly in this troublous world

To meet with joy in sweet Jerusalem.

William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part Three

Rather than walk about holy places we can thus pause at our thoughts, examine our heart, and visit the real promised land.

Martin Luther, Table Talk

We shall find that the God of Israel is among us … for we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people upon us.

John Winthrop, A Modell of Christian Charity

THE MAGNIFICENCE OF SULEIMAN

1517–1550

THE SECOND SOLOMON AND HIS ROXELANA