The Islamic Merits of Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque in Mujīr al-Dīn’s 15th-Century History of Jerusalem and Hebron

Abstract

Mujīr al-Dīn al-Ḥanbalī al-'Ulaymī, the chief Islamic law court judge of Jerusalem at the end of the Mamluk period in the late 15th century, wrote an extensive history of the cities of Jerusalem and Hebron, entitled al-Uns al-Jalīl bi-Tarīkh al-Quds wa-al-Khalīl. That history covers the history of Jerusalem and to a lesser extent Hebron and Palestine in general, from the Creation up to Mujīr al-Dīn's own day. In his history is a presentation of the Islamic Merits or Virtues of the al-Aqsa Mosque / al-Masjid al-Aqṣa compound in Jerusalem included. This article provides a translation of the section about the Islamic Merits of the al-Aqsa Mosque compound and briefly examines some of its characteristics.Mujīr al-Dīn al-'Ulaymī was born in Jerusalem in 860/1456. He was a Ḥanbalī judge and served as the chief judge of the Islamic Law Court in Jerusalem until just before his death in Jerusalem in 927/1520, four years after the Ottoman conquest. 1 In addition to his duties as judge, Mujīr al-Dīn was a prolific scholar whose best known work is al-Uns al-Jalīl, which he wrote between 900/1495 and 902/1496. The most commonly cited edition of al-Uns al-Jalīl was published in 1973, 2 and a new edition was published in 1999; 3 for the passage translated here, 4 the two editions are virtually identical.The portion about the Islamic Merits of the al-Aqsa Mosque compound translated here follows a long section on the life of the Prophet Muḥam-1