Al-Mughrabi neighborhood .. The living will of Saladin

“I have dwelt here those who abide on land and go astray in the sea, and the best of those who are entrusted with the Al-Aqsa Mosque and this city” ^[1] .

The conversation here goes back to Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi, the Islamic leader who restored Jerusalem more than eight centuries ago and liberated it from the hands of the Crusader occupation.

Details were undoubtedly absent from US President “Donald Trump” and Israeli Prime Minister “Benjamin Netanyahu”, when they sat with great elation to announce their deal, which means nothing more than “Jerusalem for money”.

Also, the agents of Israel who are pressing in Washington to obtain a Moroccan version of the “deal of the century” through America’s recognition of Morocco’s full sovereignty over its southern desert inhabited by a separatist project, in exchange for the kingdom’s normalization with Israel; They don’t seem to have read a single letter from this date.

The first goals of the Zionists

The battle at that time was at its most intense politically, militarily and demographically over Al-Quds Al-Sharif. Its people have turned it into a bond of steadfastness and jihad, and Muslim leaders keen to protect and fortify it against the invasion are pouring money and weapons, and they seek help from Muslims at the far end of the land in order to find it, visit and settle there in order to reconstruct and defend it at the moment of confrontation.

The hadith here describes the conditions of the holy Palestinian city about 800 years ago, although the situation is very similar to what it is today, at that time the Crusader armies were aiming their arrows at the first two Muslim kisses, to occupy it and expel it from the lands of Islam.

The Kurdish leader, Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi, was at the forefront of its defenders, mobilizing local armies for them, then adding to them the armies of the Far Islamic Maghreb, and then turning part of these Moroccan Mujahideen into Jerusalemites, because of their attachment to and keenness on the city, to allocate them to an entire neighborhood in which they formed guards for the Al-Aqsa Mosque. It was the first thing that the Zionist occupation army targeted after the defeat of June 1967, when the Israeli bulldozers demolished homes and mosques in the Mughrabi neighborhood to obliterate the Arab-Islamic identity of the city, and seized the Al-Buraq Wall, which turned into a “weeping wall” under occupation.

As soon as they seized the West Bank, including Al-Quds Al-Sharif, the Israelis made the days of June 11, 12, and 13 of 1967 a miserable day for the city. 135 archaeological buildings ^[ii] .

A fifth of the Liberation Army … the first men of Jerusalem

It is estimated that the Moroccans formed between 20-25% of the army led by Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi and won it in the Battle of Hattin, in which he regained Jerusalem from the hands of the Crusaders in July 1187.

After the end of the war and the victory of the Muslims in the Battle of Jerusalem, Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi clung to the Moroccans and asked them to settle permanently in the city, cutting them off the land that would later become the “Moroccan Quarter.”

After that, many Moroccans rose to prominent positions in the city, such as the judiciary, fatwas, jurisprudence, teaching, etc., and many historical sources – such as Mujir al-Din al-Ulaimi Encyclopedia, “The Great People in the History of Jerusalem and Hebron” – gave us the names of these Moroccans, their ranks, jobs and the advantages they enjoyed in that. age.

During the Mamluk era, the migration of Moroccans towards the East and Jerusalem expanded in the heart of it. The Mamluks finally defeated the Crusaders over the Mongols, and one of the most famous Moroccans who visited Jerusalem and Egypt at that time was the great traveler Ibn Battuta ^[3] .

The Moroccans retained a special place with the Ottomans who entered the city in 1517 AD and annexed it to their state, and in this era the features of the residential area for Moroccans in Jerusalem, which was called the Mughrabi neighborhood, the Mughrabi neighborhood, or the Mughrabi neighborhood were formed. Also a principal and responsible for their endowments, which diversified, flourished, and multiplied within Jerusalem and in the villages and orchards adjacent to it ^[iv] .

A map of the divisions of the lanes inhabited by different communities throughout the history of Jerusalem, showing the Mughrabi neighborhood adjacent to the mosque

The best endowment of the king is a symbol of Islamic consensus

The Mughrabi neighborhood is the part that symbolizes the consensus of Muslims about the sacred, as it is the endowment of the best king bin Sultan Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi. They stopped by on their way to the Hijaz, and in subsequent centuries schools, buildings, chapels, and corners spread there ^[v] .

The total area of ​​what was known as the Maghribi Quarter is 45,000 square meters, equivalent to 5 percent of the total area of ​​the Old City of Jerusalem. This area witnessed a contraction and expansion according to the historical stages. In a previous period, it was known about the Ottoman presence, a great expansion towards an area beyond the walls, and it was known as the “Barraniyya” ^[6] Moroccan sailors .

This endowment took place during the extension of King Al-Fadl to his authority over Damascus between 1193 and 1195 AD, with the aim of encouraging the Muslims of the Islamic Maghreb to move more towards immigration and stability in the Holy City, and thus ensuring its protection.

The benefactors ‘initiatives … the endowments of the Moroccans’ Jerusalem

After that, the initiatives of the benefactors and the mujahideen, especially those from the Islamic Maghreb, including Andalusia, began to expand the Islamic endowments and the spending and livelihood resources of Moroccans residing in Jerusalem, and among the most famous of these we find Sheikh Omar bin Abdullah al-Masmoudi, who made a large endowment on behalf of the neighborhood. Then a woman called Fatima bint Muhammad bin Ali al-Maghribi known as Umm Saud stood, Hajja Safia bint Abdullah al-Jazaery waited, Hajj Qassem al-Shaibani al-Marrakchi stood, and Hajja Mariam bint Abd al-Qadir al-Maghribi ^[7] stood .

The most important endowment for Moroccans in Al-Quds Al-Sharif is the Al-Maghribi Quarter approved by Salah Al-Din Al-Ayyoubi, while King Al-Fadl Noureddine Abu Al-Hassan documented it in a legal way. since then.

According to al-Malik al-Fadl, a school was built inside the neighborhood called “The Best School,” which was the endowment of the Maliki jurists in Al-Quds Al-Sharif, and it was also called the Qubbah School because there was a large dome that distinguished the building of the school from the top, which made this part of the city an early target for Zionism Since the period of the British Mandate of Palestine, they did not delay in storming it and destroying it once they occupied the West Bank in 1967 ^[viii] .

Among the facilities of the Moroccan neighborhood is the ablution of Al-Hara, which is one of the monuments that was established long before the Ottoman era, and it is possible that its creation dates back to the beginning of the 14th century. At the beginning of Islam, the Yemeni Gate, as it was the door through which the Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, entered when he was taken to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Mughrabi Gate has been used since the creation of this special endowment to be the entrance and exit to the Moroccans neighboring Al-Aqsa and those residing in the Maghribi Quarter.

Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi requests supplies from the Sultan of Morocco Yaqoub al-Mansour in 1190 CE, who was fighting on the Spanish front

Between Al-Nasser and Al-Mansour … the Moroccan Navy

A great ambiguity and contradiction in the data surrounds the issue of the formal participation of the “Moroccans” – that is, in the name of their present state at the time, which is the State of the Almohads – in the war that Saladin’s army waged against the Crusaders. Most of the sources believe that pride and refusal to submit to the authority of the Caliph of Baghdad led to the abstention of the Almohad Sultan Yaqoub Al-Mansour, and thus his refusal to respond to the call sent by Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi to send naval forces to confront the coming Crusader invasion through naval forces in particular.

While some sources provide other explanations for this refrain, represented in the fact that the Almohad state was in turn facing a crusade of no less ferocity through its attempt to protect the Islamic presence in Andalusia after the fall of the Umayyad state there and the establishment of the system of dispersed Mamluk principalities that had no way to withstand the attacks of Christians Only seek help from the Moroccan Sultan.

Indeed, the embassy sent by Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi to the Sultan of Morocco in 1190 AD, to request his military support, coincided with the presence of Yaqoub al-Mansour in Seville Andalusia, where he received letters from his governors in both Africa (present-day Tunisia) and Bejaia (now Algeria), informing him of the arrival of Ibn Munqad. The ambassador of Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi, who came with the official request to send naval forces to support the Islamic armies in Palestine ^[ix] .

Some sources claim that the Moroccan Sultan only delayed in responding to the request of Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi and did not refuse that, as historian Ahmed bin Khaled al-Nasiri says in his book “Al-Istiqsa”: “Al-Mansour prepared 180 warships and sent them to repel the Crusader naval attack on both Palestine and the Levant.” Such sources explain this delay in responding to the preoccupation of the Moroccan Sultan with his war in Andalusia against the Christians seeking to recover him ^[x] .

An imaginary drawing of Sultan Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi, editor of Al-Aqsa Mosque

The priority of releasing prisoners … a balanced Moroccan presence

In exchange for the failure of the ruling authority in Morocco to support Saladin, historical sources unanimously confirm the intense Moroccan participation in the military effort led by Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi, which culminated in retrieving it from the hands of the Crusaders.

This participation finds its interpretation in a number of factors, including the reflection of the fall of the Umayyad state on the situation of Muslims in Andalusia, which prompted some of them to migrate from it to the Islamic East, and the change of politically dominant beliefs after the change of the ruling countries in Morocco led to restrictions on some elites and groups of interest. Different sectarian beliefs, which made them migrate to the countries of the Arab East, while the recovery wars waged by the Christians against the Muslims in Andalusia accelerated the wave of emigration towards Egypt, the Levant and Palestine ^[xi] .

As for the Moroccans who came to Palestine from outside Andalusia, their motive for this was what the transfer of the Fatimid state center from Tunisia to Egypt left behind in neglecting the Maghreb region, and then the entry of the tribes of Banu Hilal and Bani Salim to Ifriqiya (Tunisia), and the resulting devastation and devastation. The country is in a state of permanent chaos and turmoil, followed by the arrival of Christian campaigns to the coasts of Morocco and the emergence of signs of European supremacy in maritime navigation, in addition to the consequences of the establishment of the Almohad state of narrowing and persecution of the supporters of the Almoravid state that existed in Morocco before it ^[xii] .

By moving towards the East and settling therein, the Moroccans brought with them their experience and practice in the field of maritime jihad, which made them at the forefront of the Muslim warriors who responded to the Crusades, to the point that some sources talk about making the Fatimid fleets in Egypt a stand on the Moroccans (the arrivals from Africa in particular), which is The role that was continued by Saladin.

From what the sources inferred to prove the importance of the role of Moroccans in the Islamic army at the time, that during the siege of the Islamic armies of the city of Acre in 1191 AD, a messenger came by one of the leaders of the Crusaders with a Moroccan prisoner, and he presented him to Sultan Saladin as a gift, which means the importance of the Moroccan fighters ^{. xiii]} .

Also, one of the indications of the heavy presence of Moroccan fighters in the war to retrieve Jerusalem was the prevailing norms at the time requiring giving priority to acts of charity to destroy the Moroccan prisoners from the hands of the Crusaders, as they were strangers from their homelands and had no relatives to help them.

The famous journey “Ibn Jubayr” says in his book: It is beautiful that God Almighty made the prisoners of the Moroccans in these Levantine Frankish countries, that whoever takes out of his money a will from the Muslims in these Levantine regions and other things, he helps it in the Moroccans in particular, because they are far from their countries, and that they are not a savior They only have that after God Almighty ^[xiv] .

The pilgrims of the House of the Sacred “sanctified” their pilgrimage by visiting the Al-Aqsa Mosque on their way or return from the Hijaz

Ibn Al-Arabi .. Jerusalem Travel Literature

Moroccans have always visited Al-Quds Al-Sharif on their way to or from the pilgrimage, to the point where visiting the city became an urgent necessity for Moroccan pilgrims, and in addition to the motive for visiting the place from which the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, went on the night of the miracle of Isra and Mi’raj, Moroccans were distinguished by choosing some of them to be next to the mosque Al-Aqsa and settling there permanently, whether on the occasion of their pilgrimage, or after their participation in the duty of jihad and repel the Crusaders [xv].

Andalusians formed a large portion of the Moroccans who hesitated to visit Al-Quds Al-Sharif and adjacent to its Al-Aqsa Mosque, to the point of appointing one of the Andalusians as an imam in it after it was recovered from the hands of the Crusaders, Ali ibn Muhammad al-Maafari, who came from the Andalusian city of Malaga, to settle in Jerusalem where he died in the year 1208 ].

The most recent history of the Moroccan presence in Al-Quds Al-Sharif are travel books left by many Moroccan travelers and scholars. Among the oldest of these Moroccan trips or visits are those that chronicle the visit of Judge Imam Abdullah bin Al-Arabi, who deported at the request and embassy of Sultan Al-Murabati Yusuf bin Tashfin, accompanied by his son, Judge Abu Bakr in the year 1092 AD, heading to the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mustazir Billah in Baghdad, before the occupation of Jerusalem at the hands of The Crusaders Seven Years ago [xvii].

Among the things that Ibn al-Arabi left behind was his description of his observations in Al-Quds Al-Sharif, such as the rocky “table” on which he ate his food day and night. A soda that is not affected by shovels, and people used to say: a rock is destroyed, and what I have is that it was a rock originally cut from the ground to accommodate the table descending from heaven. ”[Xviii]

The famous Moroccan geographer, Sharif Al-Idrisi Al-Sabti, in turn, left a precise comparison between the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Cordoba Mosque in Andalusia, and the details of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which he admired for the magnitude of its architecture, and how Christians used to make pilgrimages to it from all over the world. The sanctuary that Suleiman bin Dawood, peace be upon him, built, and was a mosque to which they were pilgrim during the days of the Jewish state, then it was taken from their hands.

After the occupation of Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1967, the occupation immediately demolished the Al-Mughrabi neighborhood, adjacent to the Al-Buraq Wall

The demolition of Moroccan antiquities … a recent revenge

In the early stages of the emergence of the Israeli occupation state over the Palestinian territories, the Moroccan official authorities, while under French colonialism, carefully monitored the conditions and endowments of the Moroccans of Holy Jerusalem. Official documents say that a comprehensive census of these endowments and properties was in the possession of the Moroccan Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs [xx].

Until the 1970s, the Moroccan authorities sent direct financial aid to nearly 3 thousand Moroccans residing in Al-Quds Al-Sharif. This is evidenced by a letter that the Moroccan ambassador to Jordan received in March 1977 from Rouhi al-Khatib, mayor of the occupied Jerusalem municipality, and the letter includes data, information and tables about Moroccan property threatened by the Israeli occupation [xxi]:

“I convey to you and the brotherly Morocco, that the zawiya of the late Sheikh Abu Madian Al-Ghout and its mosque located in the Moroccan Quarter inside the Jerusalem Wall, are threatened at any moment with collapse and demolition due to the Israeli enemy authorities’ continuing operations to demolish neighboring and adjacent Arab properties that were confiscated by those authorities in the Moroccan neighborhood and in Five other Arab neighborhoods by force. “

In his message, Al-Khatib appealed to the Moroccan authorities to add the issue of their real estate and its citizens to the list of issues related to Jerusalem and the Palestinian cause, and to “recommend to your venerable government in a way that alleviates the affliction and preserves the preservation of this charitable religious edifice standing and in its place to fulfill the message that the good people of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya have preserved.” And in cooperation with their brothers, the people of Jerusalem, and with the successive governments that ruled Jerusalem. “

While the countries of the Maghreb were closely following the fate of their monuments in Al-Quds Al-Sharif and resisting the French occupation of them, the French state – as the guardian of these Maghreb countries – corresponded with Israel, demanding that it officially recognize that the village of Ain Karim and the lands attached to it are Moroccan property – Algerian – Tunisian. By lifting the seizure of these properties, then paying compensation for the exploitation of these properties since the Israeli occupation, that is, since May 1948 [xxii]

Exploitation of “Ain Kareem” .. Postponement for a while

After Morocco gained independence in 1956, the Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs received a letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in April 1957, informing it that it had contacted its French counterpart with a letter saying that Israel had accepted the payment of an annual compensation for its exploitation of the lands of “Ain Karim” in the amount of 3000 Israeli pounds, This is based on what was paid by the exploiters of these lands, which is one-tenth of their production. The French Foreign Ministry stated at the time that this matter was not considered a final solution, but rather a temporary measure pending a final solution to the conflict.

The Moroccan Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs responded by refusing to deal with Israel on the basis of this offer, so that those who did not understand that it recognized the Israeli state, which is the same position Tunisia took after it reached a similar offer through French mediation.