Abrahamic term for Israel and Palestine
The
Holy Land
[a]
is an area roughly located between the
Mediterranean Sea
and the eastern bank of the
Jordan River
, traditionally synonymous both with the biblical
Land of Israel
and with the
region of Palestine
. Today, the term "Holy Land" usually refers to a territory roughly corresponding to the modern states of
Israel
and
Palestine
.
Jews
,
Christians
,
Muslims
, and
Baha'is
regard it as
holy
.
[3]
Part of the significance of the land stems from the
religious significance of Jerusalem
(the holiest city to
Judaism
, and the location of the
First
and
Second Temples
), as well as its historical significance as the setting for most of the
Bible
, the historical locale of
Jesus' ministry
, the location of the first
Qibla
before Kaaba in Mecca and the site of the
Isra and Mi'raj
event in
Islam
, and the site of the most revered pilgrimage sites in the
Baha'i
faith.
The holiness of the land as a destination of
Christian pilgrimage
contributed to launching the
Crusades
, as
European Christians
sought to win back the Holy Land from Muslims, who had
conquered it
from the Christian
Eastern Roman Empire
in AD 630. In the 19th century, the Holy Land became the subject of diplomatic wrangling as the
holy places
played a role in the
Eastern Question
which led to the
Crimean War
in the 1850s.
Many sites in the Holy Land have long been
pilgrimage
destinations for adherents of the
Abrahamic religions
, including Jews, Christians, Muslims, and
Baha'is
.
Pilgrims
visit the Holy Land to touch and see physical manifestations of their
faith
, to confirm their
beliefs
in the holy context with collective excitation,
[4]
and to connect personally to the Holy Land.
[5]
Judaism
Researchers consider that the concept of a land made holy by being the "earthly dwelling of the
God of Israel
" was present in Judaism at the latest by the time of
Zechariah
(6th century BCE).
[10]
Jews commonly refer to the
Land of Israel
as "The Holy Land" (
Hebrew
:
????? ?????????
Eretz HaKodesh
).
[11]
The
Tanakh
explicitly refers to it as "holy land" in Zechariah 2:16.
[12]
[
citation needed
]
The term "holy land" is further used twice in the
deuterocanonical books
(Wisdom 12:3,
[13]
2 Maccabees 1:7).
[14]
[
citation needed
]
The holiness of the Land of Israel is generally implied by the Tanakh's claim that the Land was given to the
Israelites
by God, that is, it is the "
promised land
", an integral part of
God's covenant
.
[
citation needed
]
In the
Torah
, many
mitzvot
commanded to the Israelites can only be performed in the Land of Israel,
[15]
which serves to differentiate it from other lands. For example, in the Land of Israel, "no land shall be sold permanently" (Leviticus 25:23).
[16]
Shmita
is only observed with respect to the Land of Israel, and the observance of many
holy
days is different, as an extra day is observed in the
Jewish diaspora
.
[
citation needed
]
According to
Eliezer Schweid
:
The uniqueness of the Land of Israel is...'geo-theological' and not merely climatic. This is the land which faces the entrance of the spiritual world, that sphere of existence that lies beyond the physical world known to us through our senses. This is the key to the land's unique status with regard to prophecy and prayer, and also with regard to the commandments.
[17]
From the perspective of the 1906
Jewish Encyclopedia
, the holiness of Israel had been concentrated since the sixteenth century, especially for burial, in the "
Four Holy Cities
":
Jerusalem
,
Hebron
,
Safed
and
Tiberias
? as
Judaism
's holiest cities. Jerusalem, as the site of the
Temple
, is considered especially significant.
[18]
Sacred burials are still undertaken for diaspora Jews who wish to lie buried in the holy soil of Israel.
[19]
According to Jewish tradition, Jerusalem is Mount
Moriah
, the location of the
binding of Isaac
. The
Hebrew Bible
mentions the name "
Jerusalem
" 669 times, often because many mitzvot can only be performed within its environs. The name "
Zion
", which usually refers to Jerusalem, but sometimes the Land of Israel, appears in the Hebrew Bible 154 times.
The
Talmud
mentions the religious duty of populating Israel.
[20]
So significant in Judaism is the act of purchasing land in Israel, the Talmud allows for the lifting of certain religious restrictions of
Sabbath
observance to further its acquisition and settlement.
[21]
Rabbi Johanan said that "Whoever walks four
cubits
in Eretz Yisrael [the Land of Israel] is guaranteed entrance to the
World to Come
".
[22]
[19]
A story says that when R. Eleazar b. Shammua' and R.
Johanan HaSandlar
left Israel to study from R.
Judah ben Bathyra
, they only managed to reach
Sidon
when "the thought of the sanctity of Palestine overcame their resolution, and they shed tears, rent their garments, and turned back".
[19]
Due to the Jewish population being concentrated in Israel, emigration was generally prevented, which resulted in a limiting of the amount of space available for Jewish learning. However, after suffering persecutions in Israel for centuries after the destruction of the Temple, Rabbis who had found it very difficult to retain their position moved to
Babylon
, which offered them better protection. Many Jews wanted Israel to be the place where they died, in order to be buried there. The sage Rabbi Anan said "To be buried in Israel is like being buried under the altar."
[7]
[8]
[9]
The saying "His land will absolve His people" implies that burial in Israel will cause one to be absolved of all one's sins.
[19]
[23]
Christianity
For
Christians
, the Holy Land is considered holy because of its association with the
birth
, ministry,
crucifixion
and
resurrection
of
Jesus
, whom Christians regard as the
incarnation of God
and the
Messiah
.
Christian books, including many editions of the Bible, often have maps of the Holy Land (considered to be Galilee, Samaria, and Judea). For instance, the
Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae
(
lit.
'
Travel book through Holy Scripture
'
) of Heinrich Bunting (1545?1606), a German Protestant pastor, featured such a map.
[24]
His book was very popular, and it provided "the most complete available summary of biblical geography and described the geography of the Holy Land by tracing the travels of major figures from the Old and New testaments."
[24]
As a geographic term, the description "Holy Land" loosely encompasses modern-day
Israel
, the
Palestinian territories
,
Lebanon
, western
Jordan
and south-western
Syria
.
Islam
In the
Quran
, the term
Al-Ard Al-Muqaddasah
(
Arabic
:
????? ???????
, English:
'Holy Land'
) is used in a passage about
Musa
(
Moses
) proclaiming to the
Children of Israel
: "O my people! Enter the Holy Land which
Allah
has destined for you ?to enter?. And do not turn back or else you will become losers."
[Quran
5:21
]
The Quran also refers to the land as being 'Blessed'.
[25]
[26]
[27]
Jerusalem
(referred to as
Al-Quds
,
Arabic
:
????????
, 'The Holy') has particular significance in Islam. The Quran refers to
Muhammad
's experiencing the
Isra and Mi'raj
as "Glory be to the One Who took His servant ?Mu?ammad? by night from the
Sacred Mosque
to the Farthest Mosque whose surroundings We have blessed, so that We may show him some of Our signs".
[Quran
17:1
]
Ahadith
infer that the "Farthest Masjid" is in Al-Quds; for example, as narrated by
Abu Hurairah
: "On the night journey of the Apostle of Allah, two cups, one containing wine and the other containing milk, were presented to him at Al-Quds (Jerusalem). He looked at them and took the cup of milk. Angel Gabriel said, 'Praise be to Allah, who guided you to Al-Fitrah (the right path); if you had taken (the cup of) wine, your
Ummah
would have gone astray'."
Jerusalem
was Islam's first
Qiblah
(direction of prayer) in Muhammad's lifetime, however, this was later changed to the
Kaaba
in the
Hijazi
city of
Mecca
, following a revelation to Muhammad by the Archangel
Jibril
.
[28]
The current construction of the
Al-Aqsa mosque
, which lies on the
Temple Mount
in Jerusalem, is dated to the early Umayyad period of rule in
Palestine
. Architectural historian
K. A. C. Creswell
, referring to a testimony by
Arculf
, a
Gallic
monk, during his pilgrimage to Palestine in 679?82, notes the possibility that the second
caliph
of the
Rashidun Caliphate
,
Umar ibn al-Khattab
, erected a primitive quadrangular building for a capacity of 3,000 worshipers somewhere on the Haram ash-Sharif. However, Arculf visited Palestine during the reign of
Mu'awiyah I
, and it is possible that Mu'awiyah ordered the construction, not Umar. This latter claim is explicitly supported by the early Muslim scholar al-Muthahhar bin Tahir.
[29]
According to the Quran and Islamic traditions, Al-Aqsa Mosque is the place from which Muhammad went on a
night journey
(
al-isra
) during which he rode on
Buraq
, who took him from Mecca to al-Aqsa.
[30]
Muhammad tethered Buraq to the
Western Wall
and prayed at al-Aqsa Mosque and after he finished his prayers, the angel
Jibril
(
Gabriel
) traveled with him to heaven, where he met several other
prophets
and led them in prayer.
[31]
The historical significance of the al-Aqsa Mosque in Islam is further emphasized by the fact that Muslims turned towards al-Aqsa when they prayed for a period of 16 or 17 months after
migration
to
Medina
in 624; it thus became the
qibla
('direction') that Muslims faced for prayer.
[32]
The exact region referred to as being 'blessed' in the Quran, in verses like
17:1
,
21:71
and
34:18
,
[25]
[26]
[27]
has been interpreted differently by various scholars.
Abdullah Yusuf Ali
likens it to a wide land-range including
Syria
and
Lebanon
, especially the cities of
Tyre
and
Sidon
; Az-Zujaj describes it as "
Damascus
, Palestine, and a bit of
Jordan
";
Muadh ibn Jabal
as "the area between
al-Arish
and the
Euphrates
"; and
Ibn Abbas
as "the land of
Jericho
".
[33]
This overall region is referred to as "
Ash-Sh?m
" (
Arabic
:
?????????
).
[34]
[35]
Baha'i Faith
The holiest places for
Baha'i pilgrimage
are the
Shrine of Baha'u'llah
and the
Shrine of the Bab
, which are
UNESCO
World Heritage Sites
in the coastal cities of
Acre
and
Haifa
, respectively.
[36]
The
Baha'i Faith
's founder,
Baha'u'llah
, was exiled to
Acre Prison
from 1868 and spent his life in its surroundings until his death in 1892. In
his writings
he set the slope of
Mount Carmel
to host the
Shrine of the Bab
which his appointed successor
'Abdu'l-Baha
erected in 1909 as a beginning of the
terraced gardens
there. The Head of the religion after him,
Shoghi Effendi
, began building other structures and the
Universal House of Justice
continued the work until the
Baha'i World Centre
was brought to its current state as the spiritual and administrative centre of the religion.
[37]
[38]
Its gardens are highly popular places to visit
[39]
and
Mohsen Makhmalbaf
's 2012 film
The Gardener
featured them.
[40]
See also
Notes
- ^
Hebrew
:
????? ??????????
Ere? haqQ?de?
,
Latin
:
Terra Sancta
;
Arabic
:
????? ???????
Al-Ar? Al-Muqaddasah
or
?????? ???????
Ad-Diyar Al-Muqaddasah
References
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Nordenskiold, Adolf Erik
(1889).
Facsimile-atlas to the Early History of Cartography: With Reproductions of the Most Important Maps Printed in the XV and XVI Centuries
. Kraus. pp. 51, 64.
- ^
"Baha'i Holy Places in Haifa and the Western Galilee"
.
- ^
"Palestine | History, People, & Religion | Britannica"
.
www.britannica.com
. Retrieved
23 October
2022
.
- ^
Harris, David (2005). "Functionalism".
Key Concepts in Leisure Studies
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ISBN
978-0-7619-7057-6
. Retrieved
9 March
2019
.
Tourism frequently deploys metaphors such [as]
pilgrimage
[...] Religious ceremonies reinforce social bonds between believers in the form of rituals, and in their ecstatic early forms, they produced a worship of the social, using social processes ('collective excitation').
- ^
Metti, Michael Sebastian (1 June 2011).
"Jerusalem - the most powerful brand in history"
(PDF)
.
Stockholm University School of Business
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 26 January 2020
. Retrieved
1 July
2011
.
- ^
Angus, Julie (5 May 2014).
Olive Odyssey: Searching for the Secrets of the Fruit That Seduced the World
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ISBN
978-1-77100-006-2
. Retrieved
8 October
2020
.
The Olive Tree flourishes throughout Judaism, Islam and Christianity as a symbol of peace and prosperity, its oils cherished and its growers respected.
- ^
a
b
Ketubot (tractate)
111, quoted in
Ein Yaakov
- ^
a
b
Rodkinson, Michael L. (translator) (2010).
The Babylonian Talmud: all 20 volumes (Mobi Classics)
. MobileReference. p. 2234.
ISBN
978-1-60778-618-4
.
- ^
a
b
Gil, Moshe (1997).
A history of Palestine, 634?1099
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ISBN
978-0-521-59984-9
.
- ^
Magness, Jodi
(2017).
"Purity Observance among Diaspora Jews in the Roman World"
(PDF)
.
Archaeology and Text
.
1
.
Ariel University
and
Lehigh University
: 39?65.
doi
:
10.21461/AT012017.39-66
.
ISSN
2521-8034
. Retrieved
16 July
2021
.
- ^
Troen, Ilan; Troen, Carol (2019).
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(2). Israel Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2: 17.
doi
:
10.2979/israelstudies.24.2.02
.
JSTOR
10.2979/israelstudies.24.2.02
.
S2CID
262013035
. Retrieved
24 September
2023
.
For Jews, Christians, and Muslims, the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean is not just a place. It is the Holy Land or Eretz HaKodesh, Terra Sancta, and Al-Ard. Al-Muqaddasah.
- ^
Zechariah 2:16
- ^
Wisdom 12:3
- ^
2 Maccabees 1:7
- ^
Ziegler, Aharon (2007).
Halakhic positions of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik
. Vol. 4. New York:
KTAV Publishing House
. p. 173.
ISBN
978-0-88125-937-7
. Retrieved
21 April
2011
.
- ^
Leviticus 25:23
- ^
Schweid, Eliezer (1985).
The Land of Israel: National Home Or Land of Destiny
. Translated by Deborah Greniman. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press,
ISBN
978-0-8386-3234-5
, p. 56.
- ^
Feintuch, Yossi (1987).
U.S. Policy on Jerusalem
, Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 1.
ISBN
978-0-313-25700-1
. Quote: "For the Jews the city has been the pre-eminent focus of their spiritual, cultural, and national life throughout three millennia [i.e. since the 10th century BCE.]."
- ^
a
b
c
d
Jacobs, Joseph;
Eisenstein, Judah David
(1906).
"Palestine, holiness of"
.
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30 July
2021
– via JewishEncyclopedia.com.
- ^
Herzog, Isaac (1967).
The Main Institutions of Jewish Law: The law of obligations
. Soncino Press. p. 51.
- ^
Zahavi, Yosef (1962).
Eretz Israel in rabbinic lore (Midreshei Eretz Israel): an anthology
. Tehilla Institute. p. 28.
If one buys a house from a non-Jew in Israel, the title deed may be written for him even on the Sabbath. On the Sabbath!? Is that possible? But as Rava explained, he may order a non-Jew to write it, even though instructing a non-Jew to do a work prohibited to Jews on the Sabbath is forbidden by rabbinic ordination, the rabbis waived their decree on account of the settlement of Palestine.
- ^
Rabbi Nathan Shapira (1655).
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. Venice
. Retrieved
30 October
2018
– via chabad.org.
- ^
"Why Do Jews Fly Their Dead to Israel for Burial?"
.
www.chabad.org
. Retrieved
30 October
2018
.
- ^
a
b
Bunting, Heinrich (1585).
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.
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(in German).
- ^
a
b
Quran
17:1-16
- ^
a
b
Quran
21:51-82
- ^
a
b
Quran
34:10-18
- ^
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2:142-177
- ^
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978-90-04-10010-7
.
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30399668
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.
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52178942
.
{{
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978-0-203-48747-1
.
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61428375
.
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978-0-511-06159-2
.
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252506070
.
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- ^
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- ^
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. Retrieved
8 July
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.
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.
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External links
Wikivoyage has a travel guide for
Holy Land
.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Holy Land
.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain
:
Singer, Isidore
; et al., eds. (1901?1906).
"Palestine, Holiness of"
.
The Jewish Encyclopedia
. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
People and things in the
Quran
|
---|
|
---|
| |
---|
Mentioned
| Ulul-?Azm
('Those of the
Perseverance
and Strong Will')
| |
---|
Debatable ones
| |
---|
|
---|
Implied
| |
---|
|
| People of Prophets
|
---|
Good ones
|
- Adam's immediate relatives
- Believer of Ya-Sin
- Family of Noah
- Luqman's son
- People of Abraham
- People of Jesus
- People of Solomon
- Zayd
(Muhammad's adopted son)
People of
Joseph
| |
---|
People of
Aaron and Moses
| |
---|
|
---|
Evil ones
| |
---|
Implied or
not specified
| |
---|
|
| Groups
|
---|
Mentioned
| Tribes,
ethnicities
or families
| |
---|
|
---|
Implicitly
mentioned
| |
---|
Religious
groups
| |
---|
|
|
|
Locations
|
---|
Mentioned
|
|
---|
Implied
| |
---|
|
Events, incidents, occasions or times
|
---|
| Battles or
military expeditions
| |
---|
Days
|
- Al-
Jumu?ah
(The Friday)
- As-
Sabt
(The Sabbath or Saturday)
- Days of battles
- Days of Hajj
- Doomsday
|
---|
Months of the
Islamic calendar
|
- 12 months: Four holy months
|
---|
Pilgrimages
|
- Al-
?ajj
(literally 'The Pilgrimage', the Greater Pilgrimage)
- Al-?
Umrah
(The Lesser Pilgrimage)
|
---|
Times for prayer
or remembrance
| Times for
Du???
('
Invocation
'),
?al?h
and
Dhikr
('Remembrance', including
Ta?m?d
('Praising'),
Takb?r
and
Tasb??
):
- Al-?Ashiyy
(The Afternoon or the Night)
- Al-Ghuduww
('The Mornings')
- Al-Bukrah
('The Morning')
- A?-?ab??
('The Morning')
- Al-Layl
('The Night')
- A?-
?uhr
('The Noon')
- Dul?k ash-Shams
('Decline of the Sun')
- Al-
Mas??
('The Evening')
- Qabl al-
Ghur?b
('Before the Setting (of the Sun)')
- Al-A??l
('The Afternoon')
- Al-
?A?r
('The Afternoon')
- Qabl ?ul?? ash-Shams
('Before the rising of the Sun')
|
---|
Implied
| |
---|
|
|
Other
|
---|
Holy books
| |
---|
Objects
of people
or beings
| Mentioned idols
(cult images)
| Of Israelites
| |
---|
Of Noah's people
| |
---|
Of Quraysh
| |
---|
|
---|
|
---|
Celestial
bodies
| Ma??b??
(literally 'lamps'):
- Al-Qamar
(The Moon)
- Kaw?kib
(Planets)
- Nuj?m
(Stars)
|
---|
Plant matter
|
Ba?al
(Onion)
F?m
(Garlic or wheat)
Sha??
(Shoot)
S?q
(Plant stem)
Zar?
(Seed)
Fruits
| |
---|
Bushes, trees
or plants
| |
---|
|
---|
Liquids
|
- M??
(Water or fluid)
- Nahr
(River)
- Yamm
(River or sea)
- Shar?b
(Drink)
|
---|
|
Note:
Names are sorted alphabetically. Standard form: Islamic name / Biblical name (title or relationship)
|