The Holy Land - Day 3

Unlike the previous day, this night I was able to get almost a full night’s sleep. I woke up briefly around 11:30pm but was able to get back to sleep with the help of some medication and slept through the whole night until my alarm clock went off at 6:30am.

On day three we went to the Muslim quarter of the Old City. We met up with our guide at the Damascus Gate. We went through another entrance into the old city, and just stood there while he talked for a long time about how the Muslim quarter is not only made up of Muslims; a good number of Christians and Jews live there as well. The Via Dolorosa (which we had walked along the other day and which we passed by again briefly today) is located in the Muslim section. Unlike other cities which separate themselves into ethnic areas, the Muslim quarter is sort of a misnomer. One thing that he pointed out is that the section of the city is overcrowded; about 30,000 people live in the Muslim section even though it should only hold about 18,000 or so. Consequently, there is a high poverty rate, and a high rate of all of the social issues which come with that (domestic abuse, drug use, etc). 

As we walked through the narrow, cobblestone streets, we saw a good deal of what I would call graffiti. In many places, it looked like the walls had been white-washed, and there was Arabic writing, flowers, green mosques, pictures of the dome of the Rock, and images of Mecca and other things. He explained to us that hundreds of years ago the Muslims would often wait until they were older to make the Hajj – to make their pilgrimage to Mecca, and because the journey was arduous, many never returned (died along the way or on the way home). Consequently, when people would return, there would be great celebrations, and people would decorate the outside walls of their homes, celebrating their return. Hence, the tradition continues today. This was a really helpful thing because looking at the graffiti one feels a little uneasy. Knowing that there are tensions between Jews and Muslims (Israel and the Arab states) – one can mistakenly regard this as political propaganda or political graffiti. It is not.

He then explained that at various points in history different sites have been controlled by Jews, Christians or Muslims. He made an interesting comment that people are willing to give up their God more easily then they are willing to give up their religious sites. For example, Churches were often built on the site of pagan temples – and if these churches were taken over by Muslims – they became mosques. The people’s religion in the region changed, but they worshipped at the same ancient sites.

We were then welcomed by a local Muslim businessman to go up on the roof of his office – which took us up to a very high point in the city, giving us a stunning view of the surrounding area and the Dome of the Rock in particular.

After that we went to a small Palestinian run university right near the Temple Mount where we continued our lecture – our guide spoke about the connection of Islam to the Abrahamic tradition, and how Jerusalem has come to be regarded as a holy site in Islam. He talked about how frequently people make a stop in Jerusalem before going to Mecca or stop there on their way back. The Hajj isn’t complete unless one visits the Haram al Sharif. Anyway, we had lunch there – hummus, pita, cucumbers, tomatoes, falafel , labana, and some other pita covered in thyme and spices. I also had some Arabic coffee – with cardamom.

We walked around the Muslim quarter a little bit more – saw some places in the buildings – saw another small part of the Wailing Wall (which I put my petitions in along with some others put there by other pilgrims)

We finally got to go up onto the Temple Mount – Haram al Sharif- which was a quick visit. It was neat just to get pictures from up there.