Ramla
Ramla, also known as Ramle, is a city in the Central District of Israel. Ramle is one of Israel's mixed cities, with significant numbers of both Jews and Arabs.
The city was founded in the early 8th century CE by the Umayyad caliph Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik as the capital of Jund Filastin, the district he governed in Bilad al-Sham before becoming caliph in 715. The city's strategic and economic value derived from its location at the intersection of the Via Maris, connecting Cairo with Damascus, and the road connecting the Mediterranean port of Jaffa with Jerusalem. It rapidly overshadowed the adjacent city of Lydda, whose inhabitants were relocated to the new city. Not long after its establishment, Ramla developed as the commercial centre of Palestine, serving as a hub for pottery, dyeing, weaving, and olive oil, and as the home of numerous Muslim scholars. Its prosperity was lauded by geographers in the 10th–11th centuries, when the city was ruled by the Fatimids and Seljuks.
It lost its role as a provincial capital shortly before the arrival of the First Crusaders, after which it became the scene of various battles between the Crusaders and Fatimids in the first years of the 12th century. Later that century, it became the centre of a lordship in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, a Crusader state established by Godfrey of Bouillon.
Ramla had an Arab-majority population before most were expelled during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The town was subsequently repopulated by Jewish immigrants. Today, Ramla is one of Israel's mixed cities, with a population 76% Jewish and 24% Arab.
History
Umayyad period
The Umayyad prince and governor of Jund Filasṭīn, Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik, founded Ramla as the seat of his administration, replacing Lydda, the Muslims' original provincial capital. Sulayman had been appointed governor by his father Caliph Abd al-Malik before the end of his reign in 705 and continued in office through the reign of his brother Caliph al-Walid I, whom he succeeded. He died as caliph in 717. Ramla remained the capital of Jund Filasṭīn through the Fatimid period. Its role as the principal city and district capital came to an end shortly before the arrival of the First Crusaders in 1099. It received its name, the singular form of raml, from the sandy area in which it sat.Sulayman's motives for founding Ramla were personal ambition and practical considerations. The location of Ramla near Lydda, a long-established and prosperous city, was logistically and economically advantageous. The area's economic importance was based on its strategic location at the intersection of the two major roads linking Egypt with Syria and linking Jerusalem with the Mediterranean coast. Sulayman established his city in Lydda's vicinity, avoiding Lydda proper. This was likely due to a lack of available space for wide-scale development and agreements dating to the Muslim conquest in the 630s that, at least formally, precluded him from confiscating desirable property within Lydda.
In a tradition recorded by the historian Ibn Fadlallah al-Umari, a determined local Christian cleric refused Sulayman's requests for plots in the middle of Lydda. Infuriated, he attempted to have the cleric executed, but his local adviser Raja ibn Haywa dissuaded him and instead proposed building a new city at a superior, adjacent site. In choosing the site, Sulayman utilized the strategic advantages of Lydda's vicinity while avoiding the physical constraints of an already-established urban center. Historian Moshe Sharon holds that Lydda was "too Christian in ethos for the taste of the Umayyad rulers", particularly following the Arabization and Islamization reforms instituted by Abd al-Malik.
According to al-Jahshiyari, Sulayman sought a lasting reputation as a great builder following the example of his father and al-Walid, the respective founders of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the Great Mosque of Damascus. The construction of Ramla was Sulayman's "way to immortality" and "his personal stamp on the landscape of Palestine", according to Luz.
File:PikiWiki Israel 41123 White Mosque Ramla.JPG|thumb|upright=1.2|alt=White stone ruins of a building, including arches and columns, in a grassy area with modern, high-rise buildings in the background|Remains of the White Mosque in Ramla built by Sulayman and his cousin and successor Umar II
The first structure Sulayman erected in Ramla was his palatial residence, which dually served as the seat of Jund Filasṭīn's administration. The next structure was the Dar al-Sabbaghin. At the center of the new city was a congregational mosque, later known as the White Mosque. It was not completed until the reign of Sulayman's successor Caliph Umar II. The Sulayman's construction works were financially managed by a Christian from Lydda, Bitrik ibn al-Naka. The remains of the White Mosque, dominated by a minaret added at a later date, are visible in the present day. In the courtyard are underground water cisterns from the Umayyad period. From early on, Ramla developed economically as a market town for the surrounding area's agricultural products, and as a center for dyeing, weaving and pottery. It was also home to many Muslim religious scholars.
Sulayman built an aqueduct in the city called al-Barada, which transported water to Ramla from Tel Gezer, about to the southeast. Ramla superseded Lydda as the commercial center of Palestine. Many of Lydda's Christian, Samaritan and Jewish inhabitants were moved to the new city. Although the traditional accounts are in agreement that Lydda almost immediately fell into obscurity following the founding of Ramla, narratives vary about the extent of Sulayman's efforts to transfer Lydda's inhabitants to Ramla, some holding that he only demolished a church in Lydda and others that he demolished the city altogether. Al-Ya'qubi noted Sulayman razed the houses of Lydda's inhabitants to force their relocation to Ramla and punished those who resisted. In the words of al-Jahshiyari, Sulayman "founded the town of al-Ramla and its mosque and thus caused the ruin of Lod ".
Abbasid period
The Abbasids toppled the Umayyads in 750, confiscating the White Mosque and all other Umayyad properties in Ramla. The Abbasids annually reviewed the high costs of maintaining the Barada canal, though starting under the reign of Caliph al-Mu'tasim it became a regular part of the state's expenditures. In the late 9th century the Muslim inhabitants were composed mainly of Arabs and Persians, while the clients of the Muslims were Samaritans.The golden age of Ramla under the Umayyads and Abbasids, when the city overtook Jerusalem as a trade center, later gave way to a period of political instability and war beginning in the late 10th century. The Egypt-based Fatimids conquered Ramla in 969 and ten years later the city was destroyed by the Jarrahids, a branch of the Tayy tribe.
Nonetheless, the 10th-century Jerusalemite geographer al-Muqaddasi described Ramla as "a fine city, and well built; its water is good and plentiful; it fruits are abundant". He noted that it "combines manifold advantages, situated as it is in the midst of beautiful villages and lordly towns, near to holy places and pleasant hamlets", as well as bountiful fields, walled towns and hospices. The geographer further noted the city's significant commerce and "excellent markets", lauding the quality of its fruits and bread as the best of their kind. During this period, Ramla was one of the major centers for the production and export of oil extracted from unripe olives, known as anfa kinon, and used in cuisine and medicine.
Conversely, the city's disadvantages included the severe muddiness of the place during the rainy winter season and its hard, sandy grounds due to its distance from natural water sources. The limited drinking water gathered in the city's cisterns were generally inaccessible to the poorer inhabitants.
By 1011–1012, the Jarrahids controlled all of Palestine, except for the coastal towns, and captured Ramla from its Fatimid garrison, making it their capital. The city and the surrounding places were plundered by the Bedouin, impoverishing much of the population. The Jarrahids brought the Alid emir of Mecca, al-Hasan ibn Ja'far, to act as caliph in defiance of the Fatimids. The development was short-lived, as the Jarrahids abandoned al-Hasan after Fatimid bribes, and the caliphal claimant left the city for Mecca. A Fatimid army led by Ali ibn Ja'far ibn Fallah wrested control of Ramla from the Jarrahids, who continued to dominate the surrounding countryside. The following decade was marked by peace, but, in 1024, the Jarrahids renewed their rebellion. The Fatimid general Anushtakin al-Dizbari secured Ramla for a few months, but the Jarrahids overran the city that year, killing and harassing several inhabitants and seizing much of the population's wealth. They appointed their own governor, Nasr Allah ibn Nizal. In the following year, al-Dizbari drove the Jarrahids out of Ramla, but was recalled to Egypt in 1026. In 1029, he returned and routed the Jarrahids and their Bedouin allies.
Persian geographer Nasir-i-Khusrau visited the city in 1047, remarking:
Ramla is a great city, with strong walls built of stone, mortared, of great height and thickness, with iron gates opening therein. From the town to the sea-coast is a distance of three leagues. The inhabitants get their water from the rainfall, and in each house is a tank for storing the same, in order that there may always be a supply. In the middle of the Friday Mosque , also, is a large tank: and from it, when it is filled with water, anyone who wishes may take. The area of the mosque measures two hundred paces by three hundred. Over one of its porches is an inscription stating that on the 15th of Muharram, of the year 425, there came an earthquake of great violence, which threw down a large number of buildings, but that no single person sustained an injury. In the city of Ramla there is marble in plenty, and most of the buildings and private houses are of this material; and, further, the surface thereof they do most beautifully sculpture and ornament. They cut the marble here with a toothless saw, which is worked with 'Mekka sand'. They saw the marble in length, as is the case with wood, to form the columns; not in across; they also cut it into slabs. The marbles that I saw here were of all colours, some variegated, some green, red, black and white. There is, too, at Ramla, a particular kind of fig, and this they export to all the countries round. This city Ramla, throughout Syria and the West, is known under the name of Filastin.