Jerusalem The thrice loved Land

by Salma Khadra Jayyusi (Editor)

Jerusalem's significance as the citadel of peace and devotion to God is borne out by the simple fact that is held sacred by the adherents of three major religions of the world - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. No other city claims the distinction of having the footprints of God's Prophets and Messengers, including Abraham, David, Solomon, Jesus and, finally, Muhammad (peace be upon them all). Islam's distinctive characteristic is not its exclusive affirmation of the Message of Muhammad; it is rather its affirmation of the Message of all the Prophets of God as that Message, in its essentials, was the same.

Ever since Jerusalem's first conquest by Muslims the city has mostly been administered by the adherents of Islam, who gave due recognition to the human dignity of Jews, Christians and other minorities and treated them with magnanimity and benevolence. The result was peace, harmony and concord.

However, the late 19th century Zionist design to secure a homeland for Jews in Palestine and the establishment of Israel in 1948 with support of imperialist nations saw the forcible dispossession of Palestinians and there being driven out of there ancestral homes to make room for the Jews coming from all across the world to live in their national homeland. Since then Jerusalem and the rest of Palestine have been on fire, quite literally.

Against this gloomy background this book presents work on Jerusalem maintaining that piety, justice, compassion and concern for all humanity rather than injustice, persecution, oppression and brutalisation should prevail in the Holy Land.

433 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Salma Khadra Jayyusi (born 1926 or 1927) is a Jordanian-Palestinian poet, writer, translator and anthologist. She is the founder and director of the Project of Translation from Arabic (PROTA), which aims to provide translation of Arabic literature into English.

In 1960, she published her first poetry collection, Return from the Dreamy Fountain. In 1970, she received her PhD on Arabic literature from the University of London. She taught at the University of Khartoum from 1970 to 1973 and at the universities of Algiers and Constantine from 1973 to 1975. In 1973, she was invited by The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) invited her for a lecture tour of Canada and the US, on a Ford Foundation Fellowship, in 1973. In 1975, the University of Utah invited her to return as a visiting professor of Arabic literature, and since then she has been based at various universities in the United States.