History of Hebron

ans and Jews from entering the sanctuary, and the climate became less tolerant of Jews and Christians than it had been under the prior Ayyubid rule. The edict for the exclusion of Christians and Jews was not strictly enforced until the middle of the 14th-century and by 1490, not even Muslims were permitted to enter the underground caverns.

The mill at Artas was built in 1307 where the profits from its income were dedicated to the Hospital in Hebron. Between 1318-20, the Na'ib of Gaza and much of coastal and interior Palestine ordered the construction of Jawli Mosque to enlarge the prayer space for worshipers at the Ibrahimi Mosque.

Hebron was visited by some important rabbis over the next two centuries, among them Nachmanides (1270) and Ishtori HaParchi (1322) who noted the old Jewish cemetery there. Isaac Chelo, a Jewish pilgrim who allegedly visited in 1334 and found numerous Jews trading in dyed cotton they themselves spun, and producing glassware. He also noted an ancient synagogue being used by a community he called "devout."

Sunni imam Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya (1292-1350) was penalised by the religious authorities in Damascus for refusing to recognise Hebron as a Muslim pilgrimage site, a view also held by his teacher Ibn Taymiyyah.

The Italian traveller, Meshulam of Volterra (1481) found not more that twenty Jewish families living in Hebron. and recounted how the Jewish women of Hebron would disguise themselves with a veil in order to pass as Muslim women and enter the Cave of the Patriarchs without being recognized as Jews.

Minute descriptions of Hebron were recorded in Stephen von Gumpenberg’s Journal (1449),by Felix Fabri (1483) and by Mejr ed-Din It was in this period, also, that the Mamluk Sultan Qa'it Bay revived the old custom of the Hebron "table of Abraham," and exported it as a model for