Abdullah Hamad .. A Sudanese Diary in Jerusalem

Jerusalem, Lod, Jaffa, and Hebron; Milestones that were taken up by the eyes of an educated Sudanese preacher and merchant prior to the Great Palestinian Revolution of 1936, as if Abdullah Hamad Muhammad Khair (1897-1963) had predicted the path of the issue in the long term, and the great revolution in the short term; As he said – describing the feelings of the Palestinians -:

The Arabs preserve their customs and traditions, and take pride in their nationalism, and redeem them with soul and value, and the days will result in incidents recorded in history with a blood supply of heroic martyrs.

The people of Omdurman and students of its scientific institute accompanied the trip, worked in trade, wrote in the Sudanese press since its inception, founded the Ansar al-Sunna group, and supported the construction of the Juba Mosque in southern Sudan, and religious passion pushed him – after performing the Hajj several years – to complete a visit to the holy sites, with a first visit The two Qiblahs and the Three Holy Sanctuaries, as well as intertwined cultural factors such as the interest in learning about the conditions of Muslims and construction in their countries, and the customs of the Christians in their worship.

He recorded his journey that started from Khartoum and ended in Jerusalem, documenting the stations on the road and cities and their buildings, and the nature of the people in Egypt and Sudan, accompanied by two Egyptians on his journey. They are Abu Zaid Hassan and Mahmoud al-Leithi, and he knew two Palestinians in Jaffa. They are Abdel Halim Abdel-Alim and Mahmoud Abu Samra. He documented the landmarks of Cairo, Helwan and the printing of Egyptians with interest.

He was taken by the train to Lod where the railways meet, and the state of Atbara is civil, and the sheikh did not know what the Atbara revolution and the gift of Lod would do after 80 years of his visit, and he was fascinated by the nature of the Levant, so he invoked a Sudanese example, saying, “Oh who created the Levant, make all the countries at Its people are Sham. “As for the Palestinians, he describes them, saying,” They all have confidence in themselves and wish on the day of the exam. You do not see signs of cowardice and shamefulness on them, nor are they desperate. “

As for Al-Aqsa itself, it has received accurate documentation that includes its chapels and mihrabs, the method of visitation and the usual prayers.

Indeed, the sheikh documented for us the view of the original Saladin pulpit before it was burned. The pulpit “is of ebony wood, and it is a sign of beauty and good composition, and it has many inscriptions, as well as the mihrab, with inscriptions sweetened with gold water.” As for the writing on it, it says, “In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. , He commanded the architecture of this sacred mihrab and the Al-Aqsa Mosque – which is based on piety – Abdullah and his guardian Yusef bin Ayyub Abu Al-Muzaffar, King Al-Nasir, the goodness of the world and religion, when God opened it to his hands in the months of the year eighty-three and five hundred, and he asks God to thank this blessing and give away his luck Of forgiveness and mercy. “

Sheikh Abdullah was keen to talk to the imam praising him, as his sermon was strong, patriotic and eloquent, and the imam elaborated on Palestine and its concerns at the time, and I believe that the imam in question here is Sheikh Hasan Abu al-Saud (1897-1957), the Shafi’i mufti, and Rafiq al-Hajj Amin al-Husseini.

Then he went to Hebron, visited the Ibrahimi Mosque, and set off until he reached the Dead Sea following the shrines, then visited the important Christian churches, then visited Bethlehem and the Church of the Nativity there, then visited the Gethsemane Church – which Ibn Battuta calls in his Gethsemane journey – as well as the Church of Mary, peace be upon her, and he read On the grave attributed to her Al-Fatiha, and his journey has ended, Piafa, who tasted her tea, and unfortunately died of her melon.

Sheikh Abdullah’s writings were not devoid of jurisprudential concerns, as he was keen to pray in mosques that have shrines separate from the mosque, and he condemned heresies, birthdays and the accompanying polytheism, and he was pained by the situation of the Sudanese students in their crenellated corridor in Al-Azhar for the lack of their financial resources, calling for a solution to that.