ثورة فلسطين - أسبابها ونتائجها
The Palestine Revolt: Its Causes and Consequencesby Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā

Page 391

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أوائل بعثته، وقبل ظهور أمره، فنظفوه من الأقذار، وبنى أمير المؤمنين عمر بن الخطاب رضي الله عنه مسجده هنالك، ثم كان ما كان من أمر تشييد بني أمية للمسجد الكبير ولقبة الصخرة، وأنفقوا عليه خراج مصر كله بضع سنين، فكان ذانك البناءان من أعظم مفاخر الصناعة والهندسة في الأرض، وكان المسجد الأقصى أول القبلتين وثالث الحرمين، وسيبقى كذلك ما دام الإسلام والعرب في الأرض.

وكان من عدل المسلمين ورحمتهم أن رفعوا الاضطهاد عن رؤوس اليهود وعاملوهم بالعدل والرحمة، حتى إنهم صاروا يأذنون لبعضهم بالإقامة في بيت المقدس مع تحديد العدد القليل، وكذا بزيارة الجانب الغربي من سور المسجد الأقصى (البراق) بطلبهم، وكانوا لا يستحلون تجاوزه بمقتضى تقاليدهم، إلى أن يجيء المسيح الذي ينتظرونه لإعادة الهيكل كله إليهم، وإقامة الشعائر والقرابين الموسوية فيه بإعادة ملك سليمان لهم، بالرغم من أنوف جميع المسلمين والنصارى في العالم؛ وإنما كانوا يأذنون لأفراد قلائل منهم بما يتخذون لذلك من الوسائل حتى المالية، فيقفون أمام ذلك الجدار للذكرى وإحياء الشعور الملي مع البكاء والندب ... فقوي أملهم بالتكاثر والتملك في المدينة المقدسة وفي سائر بقاع فلسطين، تمهيدًا لامتلاكها، واستعدادًا لظهور المسيح مجددًا ملك اسرائيل فيها؛ ولكنهم استعجلوا الشيء قبل أوانه، فعوقبوا بحرمانه.

الصهيونية والعرب

(10) ما زال هذا الأمل يقوى ويضعف، ويطفو ويرسب، حتى طمعوا في عهد السلطان عبد الحميد بإباحة الهجرة والامتلاك بلا شرط ولا قيد، ثم طمعوا على عهد دولة جمعية الاتحاد والترقي (التي أسقطت هذا السلطان وملكت على من بعده الأمر بمساعدتهم) في شراء فلسطين من الجمعية ببضعة ملايين من الجنيهات، ولما علمنا بهذه المساعي توخيت أن ألقى معتمد الجمعية الصهيونية بمصر فأستعرف له وأعترفه الحقيقة وأُعرِّفه برأي الجمعيات العربية في الأمر، واهتديت إلى ذلك بسعي بعض معارفي من اليهود. وكان مما كاشفت به المعتمد الصهيوني أن عزم جمعيتهم على شراء فلسطين من إخوانهم في الماسونية زعماء جمعية الاتحاد والترقي قد بلغ زعماء العرب المشتغلين بالسياسة وترقية الأمة العربية، وقرروا فيما بينهم أنه إذا تحقق هذا المشروع

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the early part of his mission, before his cause became known. They cleared away the filth, and the Commander of the Faithful, Umar ibn al-Khattab, may God be pleased with him, built his mosque there. The Umayyads later built the great mosque and the Dome of the Rock, spending the whole revenue of Egypt on this construction for several years. Those two buildings were among the greatest achievements of craft and engineering on earth. Al-Masjid al-Aqsa was the first of the two directions of prayer and the third of the holy sanctuaries, and it will remain so as long as Islam and the Arabs exist on earth.

In their justice and mercy, Muslims lifted persecution from the Jews and treated them justly and mercifully. They even permitted a limited number to live in Jerusalem and, at their request, to visit the western side of the wall of al-Masjid al-Aqsa, al-Buraq. According to their traditions, the Jews did not consider it lawful to pass beyond that wall until the Messiah they await should come to restore the whole Temple to them, reinstate Mosaic rites and sacrifices there, and restore Solomon's kingdom to them despite all the Muslims and Christians in the world. The Muslims granted permission to only a few Jews, through means those Jews used for that purpose, including money. The Jews stood before the wall to remember, revive communal feeling, weep, and lament. Their hope then grew that they could increase their numbers and acquire property in the holy city and the rest of Palestine, preparing to possess it and for the Messiah to appear and restore Israel's kingdom there. But they sought the matter before its time and were punished by being denied it.

Zionism and the Arabs

(10) This hope kept rising and falling. Under Sultan Abdülhamid, they sought unrestricted immigration and property ownership. Under the government of the Committee of Union and Progress, which had deposed that sultan and, with their help, gained control over his successor, they sought to buy Palestine from the committee for several million pounds. When I learned of these efforts, I sought a meeting with the Zionist association's representative in Egypt, to learn what he knew, tell him the truth, and explain the Arab associations' position. Some Jewish acquaintances helped arrange it. I told the representative that the Arab leaders engaged in politics and the advancement of the Arab nation had heard of his association's plan to buy Palestine from their fellow Freemasons, the leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress. They had agreed among themselves that, if this project were realized

Analysis

Riḍā describes Muslim construction and authority at al-Aqsa, then presents Jewish access to the western wall as a limited permission granted under Muslim rule. He treats Jewish residence, land purchase, and hopes for a restored Temple as steps toward taking the city. These are his claims about Jewish motives and policy, not a record of the motives of every Jewish visitor or buyer. At the end he begins a first-person account of a proposed Zionist purchase and his contact with a Zionist representative; that account continues on p. 392.

The international commission appointed after the 1929 violence later held that Muslim authorities owned the Western Wall and pavement while Jews had free access for devotions at all times, subject to rules preserving the existing order. The ruling supports Muslim property rights but does not support Riḍā's picture of access as a paid favor restricted to a few individuals. It was issued in December 1930 and cannot be treated as the policy in force when he wrote.

A later Judeo-Arabic chronicle from the Cairo Geniza says ʿUmar allowed seventy Jewish families to settle in Jerusalem. Modern scholarship also recognizes Jewish residence in the early Islamic city while treating the famous conquest agreement and some details of the transition as disputed. This supports a limited Jewish return under early Muslim rule, but it is not contemporary proof of the exact number. The Umayyad building sequence is clearer: the Dome of the Rock was completed in 691 under ʿAbd al-Malik, and the Jerusalem congregational mosque is dated 709-715 under al-Walid. That confirms Umayyad construction of both monuments, but not Riḍā's claim about spending all Egyptian revenue on them for years.

Riḍā also turns Jewish restrictions on entry into a blanket rule tied to the Messiah. Maimonides holds that the Temple's sanctity remains after destruction, but his law distinguishes areas and kinds of ritual impurity. It expressly permits a person impure through contact with a corpse to enter the Temple Mount while restricting entry farther inside. This confirms an enduring legal concern about sacred space, but it does not support the claim that Jews considered every passage beyond the Western Wall unlawful until the Messiah came.

A later Jerusalem chronicle reports that ʿAbd al-Malik assigned Egypt's land revenue for seven years to construction of the Dome of the Rock. This gives Riḍā's revenue claim a traceable traditional source, but it is not contemporary evidence and concerns the Dome alone. It does not establish that all Egyptian revenue funded both the Dome and the congregational mosque.

The earliest construction claim remains less certain than the later Umayyad monuments. A study of the Marwani Musalla says that ʿUmar is reported to have made a rudimentary prayer space south of the Rock, but the relevant written accounts are later and no physical evidence of his initial structure survives. The study argues for stronger evidence of a mosque built or enlarged under Muʿāwiya. This supports an early Islamic prayer site without establishing Riḍā's precise cleaning and building sequence.