1 thought on “Arculf and Jerusalem: A Snapshot of the Arab Empire Before Islam”
pre-Boomer Marine brat
VERY interesting. Hadn’t known of Arculf. Did his travels take him through Ramallah? I’ve read that Umar and Company established headquarters there, rather than Jerusalem — that until Salah ad-Din, Jerusalem was never a capital in the Arabian southern Levant.
Consider two points, which don’t relate to Arculf.
(1) I’ve read that al-Malik’s building of the Dome was solely about the politics of the Second Fitna. He “rewrote” the Night Journey to make it read “Jerusalem”, undercutting his opponent Zubayr down in the Hejaz. Prior to Malik’s claim, there’d been no mention of Jerusalem in the debates about the Night Journey. Also, no one believed him at the time, nor his son who invented al-Aqsa.
(2) re: the beginning of the closing paragraph … If the Tradition was codified in the Abbasid era, then what of the official Quran having been published by Uthman, having been composed by his scribes, reordered by Sura length not chronology, with verses moved back and forth between Mecca and Medina chapters, and (by order of Umar and Uthman) with absolutely no content possessed Ali having been included? It’s said that once the Official Quran was officially published, all other Qurans were supposed to be either burned, or the parchment erased by boiling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanaa_manuscript — The erased text indicates that parchment was originally part of what Uthman judged to be an illegal and heathen screed. There were thousands of parchments in that attic, and more than just that one had erased writing. We may never know what those “screeds” said, but 30 years ago there were rumors of an “Ali’s Quran”. If an actual earth-penetrating radar is ever developed, I’d want the Sana’a Great Mosque and the ground beneath it to be utterly examined.
Kyle Orton's Blog 
VERY interesting. Hadn’t known of Arculf. Did his travels take him through Ramallah? I’ve read that Umar and Company established headquarters there, rather than Jerusalem — that until Salah ad-Din, Jerusalem was never a capital in the Arabian southern Levant.
Consider two points, which don’t relate to Arculf.
(1) I’ve read that al-Malik’s building of the Dome was solely about the politics of the Second Fitna. He “rewrote” the Night Journey to make it read “Jerusalem”, undercutting his opponent Zubayr down in the Hejaz. Prior to Malik’s claim, there’d been no mention of Jerusalem in the debates about the Night Journey. Also, no one believed him at the time, nor his son who invented al-Aqsa.
(2) re: the beginning of the closing paragraph … If the Tradition was codified in the Abbasid era, then what of the official Quran having been published by Uthman, having been composed by his scribes, reordered by Sura length not chronology, with verses moved back and forth between Mecca and Medina chapters, and (by order of Umar and Uthman) with absolutely no content possessed Ali having been included? It’s said that once the Official Quran was officially published, all other Qurans were supposed to be either burned, or the parchment erased by boiling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanaa_manuscript — The erased text indicates that parchment was originally part of what Uthman judged to be an illegal and heathen screed. There were thousands of parchments in that attic, and more than just that one had erased writing. We may never know what those “screeds” said, but 30 years ago there were rumors of an “Ali’s Quran”. If an actual earth-penetrating radar is ever developed, I’d want the Sana’a Great Mosque and the ground beneath it to be utterly examined.
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