Historia

The Construction of an Islamic City in Palestine. The Case ofUmayyad al-Ramla*

N I M R O D LUZ At the beginning of the eighth century A.D. a new town was built in Palestine, called alRamla (Ramlah of today). It was founded by the then provincial governor, Sulayman b. 'Abd al-Malik (d. 717) in order to serve as the capital ofJund Filastln, the southern province of Palestine. The building of anew town, and especially of a capital city, constituted a significant departure in the Palestine environment, for two main reasons. First, it was the first city to be founded after a period of 350 years, i.e., for most of the Byzantine epoch. Second, though the Muslims ruled the country for 1100 years, al-Ramla remained the sole example of a new town in the whole of Palestine. The al-Ramlaenterprise raises quite a number of questions, among them: why did the Muslims bother to build a new town in this district; what were the considerations leading to the choice of this size for the provincial capital; was the enterprise planned following a model, or haphazardly; did the town present salient Muslim characteristics? Can we speak at all of Muslim urban traits in relation to al-Ramla; what wasits population, what were the inhabitants' occupations; did Sulayman make a special contribution to the al-Ramla project, if at all? In this paper, I intend to touch on these questions, not necessarily in that order, mainly to understand al-Ramla itself but also in the wider context of urbanization at the beginning of the Muslim era. Historical background Not unexpectedly, the Muslim conquestbrought about changes in the area of Palestine. One of the first acts attributed to the Caliph 'Umar b. al-Khattab (ruled 634-44) was the administrative reorganization of the overall Syrian region (al-Sham) into four provinces (anjad). The change was promulgated at al-Jabiyya on the Golan Heights, after the battle of Yarmuk, apparently in A.D. 638.' At the beginning four provinces were created: Hims,Dimashq, al-Urdunn and Filastln. Thus Palestine was divided into the two last named, the former in the north, the latter in the south. In the days of the Umayyad caliphs (660-750),
* This article is based upon sections of my M.A. Thesis submitted to the Hebrew University, under the supervision of Dr R. Rubin and Dr A. Elad, to whom I would like to express my gratitude. I also gratefullyacknowledge Ms T. Sofer's devoted assistance with the drawings following this paper and Dr R. Amitai-Preiss for his comments regarding the English version of this paper. I wish to dedicate this paper to the memory of my beloved father. 1 M.A. Shaban, Islamic History A.D. 600-750 (A.H. tp), A New Interpretation (Cambridge, 1971), p. 41. He places it at A.H. 17/A.D. 38. See also P. M. Holt et al. (eds.), TheCambridge History of Islam, i, p. 62 for a slightly different date, A.H. 636.
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Nimrod Luz

Palestine enjoyed relative prosperity, certainly compared with succeeding Muslim periods. The Umayyad dynasty, from their seat in Damascus, invested ample resources in the development of the Palestine provinces, as shown by their extensive works in Jerusalem. Atthe same time, Arabic became the language of government and Arab—Muslim administrative principles took root.2 This prosperity throughout al-Sham was terminated with the ascendancy of the 'Abbasids, who transferred the political centre eastwards, to what is now Iraq.3 Al-Ramla was built during the apogee of the Umayyad dynasty; therefore we must also examine its foundation in the general context ofregional development and administrative organization.4 A real urban innovation? Many Muslim sources describe the original foundation of al-Ramla by Sulayman b. 'Abd al-Malik.5 As against these, a number of historical sources and modern research attest to its existence even before Sulayman.5 Among others, Mujir al-Din (d. 1521) categorically States that al-Ramla served as the capital of the kings...