Saturday, February 11, 2017

Um, Those Ummayads Are Where?

The Umayyad Caliphate was the second of the four major Arab caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. 

This caliphate was centred on the Umayyad dynasty, hailing from Mecca...after the end of the First Muslim Civil War in AD 661/41 AH. Syria remained the Umayyads' main power base thereafter, and Damascus was their capital. The Umayyads continued the Muslim conquests, incorporating the Caucasus, Transoxiana, Sindh, the Maghreb and the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus) into the Muslim world. 

The Dome of the Rock was built by the Ummayads. 

However, the Hashimiyya movement, led by the Abbasid family, overthrew the Umayyad caliphate by 750...Their campaign was framed as one of proselytism (dawah)...Around 746, Abu Muslim assumed leadership of the Hashimiyya in Khurasan. In 747, he successfully initiated an open revolt...In January 750 the two forces met in the Battle of the Zab, and the Umayyads were defeated. Damascus fell to the Abbasids in April...

By the way, 


The victors desecrated the tombs of the Umayyads in Syria, sparing only that of Umar II, and most of the remaining members of the Umayyad family were tracked down and killed. When Abbasids declared amnesty for members of the Umayyad family, eighty gathered to receive pardons, and all were massacred.

This behavior sound familiar?

But that is just historical backdrop for tonight I read this item


and that picture just didn't look correct.  Sparse countryside.  Construction not quite what I know.

These are the correct Ummayad structures right next to the Temple Mount:



Seen this way, it is quite obvious why they should be considered part of the 'Holy Basin' concept (which originated with the British before during their Mandate period) but only during the Israel-Palestine peace talks held at Camp David in 2000 was it first introduced as an idea of a special regime for the Old City and environs. The term "Holy Basin" was first coined in the 1970s by Arthur Kutcher, a planner with the Jerusalem Municipality. Ruth Lapidot acknowledges also Uri Tzvi Greenberg for conceptualizing that vision.

In any case, that Arab media picture is way misleading.

^
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