North African Muslim migrations to the Holy Land
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Over the course of history since the Muslim conquest of North Africa there was a constant movement of Muslims of North African descent towards the Levant which had been previously conquered by the Arabs, and in particular into the Holy Land. Despite being devoted Muslims, these migrants had kept their identity as North Africans in folklore and through their surnames.[citation needed]
History[edit]
Since the Medieval there was a constant passing of Muslims from the Maghreb in the Land of Israel.[1][citation needed] Mujir al-Din, a Muslim historian and geographer mentions that the Moroccan Quarter in Jerusalem was founded by Al-Afdal ibn Salah ad-Din, the son of Saladin, as a Waqf for Muslims from North Africa, he even started a madrasa called "Al-Fadaliya" after himself in this neighborhood.
After the Moors, whose roots are a mixture of North African and Arabian descents, were expelled from Iberia in the 1491 Reconquista, some of them fled into the Holy Land and were absorbed into the Moroccan Quarter where they've served as special guardians of the Temple Mount's mosques. The Mugrabi Gate and Mughrabi Bridge that serves Muslims who climb to pray on the Mound to this day is named after these North African Muslim settlers.[citation needed]
Ottoman era[edit]
During the days of the Ottoman Empire, the Holy Land was divided into 4 different political units known as Sanjaks: Sanjak of Jerusalem, Sanjak of Acre, Sanjak of Nablus and Sanjak of Gaza.[2]
These 4 sanjaks were barely populated and had a sum of about 300,000 people of all faiths (Jews and Samaritans who lived there since the Late Bronze Age collapse, Christians whose roots are from various Christian reigns over the Holy Land, and Muslims who were slightly fewer than the Christians in numbers).[citation needed]
In the 19th Century the Ottomans had decided to move some of their residents from other regions and vassal states to the Holy Land to maximize the profit that the land can produce and to increase the taxes that were taken from its population. In addition to that organized movements of people, whom many came from Egypt and the rest of North Africa, there was another spontaneous movement of Bedouin tribes, such as the Arab Abu Kishak and the Tarabin Bedouins, from the wilderness of Egypt towards the Holy Land.[citation needed]
After their arrival here, these North African Muslims had began to marry the Muslims who sat here before them and despite their known origins as Berbers, they've began using the term "arab" for their identification. Their surnames which indicated their North African roots however were kept, among the most famous ones of these last names there are: "Al-Masri" and "Masrawa" which means "Egyptian"; "Al-Bardawil' which is "of Lake Bardawil"; "al-Fayum" which means "of Fayum"; "al-Tartir" which means "of Tartir" - a village in Northern Egypt[3]; "Mughrabi" and "al-Mugrabi" which stands for "of the Maghreb"; "al-Jazairi" which means "the Algerian"; and "Al-Arj" which means "the Moroccan".[citation needed]
1948 and onwards[edit]
Due to the Israeli-Arab conflict many of the descendants of these North African Muslims who migrated to the Holy Land prefer not to talk openly about their North African roots as it stands in contrast to the palestinians' claim of "existing in the Holy Land since time immoral".[citation needed]
Sources[edit]
- ↑ Ya'akov Shimoni, The Arabs of the Land of Israel, Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 1946, pp. 99–98.
- ↑ "Ottoman Rule (1517–1917)". jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 2018-12-24.
- ↑ [1]
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