Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Jewish Quarter (Jerusalem)" in English language version.
What wasn't corrected, though - and what, in retrospect, should have raised much more controversy than it did (it seems to have passed completely unremarked for the last 170-odd years) - was [Aldrich and Symonds's] map's labelling. Because here, newly arcing across the familiar quadrilateral of Jerusalem, are four double labels in bold capitals. At top left Haret En-Nassara and, beneath it, Christian Quarter; at bottom left Haret El-Arman and Armenian Quarter; at bottom centre Haret El-Yehud and Jews' Quarter; and at top right - the big innovation, covering perhaps half the city - Haret El-Muslimin and Mohammedan Quarter. No map had shown this before. Every map has shown it since. The idea, in 1841, of a Mohammedan (that is, Muslim) quarter of Jerusalem is bizarre. It's like a Catholic quarter of Rome. A Hindu quarter of Delhi. Nobody living there would conceive of the city in such a way. At that time, and for centuries before and decades after, Jerusalem was, if the term means anything at all, a Muslim city. Many people identified in other ways, but large numbers of Jerusalemites were Muslim and they lived all over the city. A Muslim quarter could only have been dreamt up by outsiders, searching for a handle on a place they barely understood, intent on asserting their own legitimacy among a hostile population, seeing what they wanted to see. Its only purpose could be to draw attention to what it excludes.
But it may not have been Aldrich and Symonds. Below the frame of their map, printed in italic script, a single line notes that 'The Writing' had been added by 'the Revd. G. Williams' and 'the Revd. Robert Willis'… Some sources suggest [Williams] arrived before [Michael] Alexander, in 1841. If so, did he meet Aldrich and Symonds? We don't know. But Williams became their champion, defending them when the Haram inaccuracy came up and then publishing their work. The survey the two Royal Engineers did was not intended for commercial release (Aldrich had originally been sent to Syria under 'secret service'), and it was several years before their military plan of Jerusalem came to public attention, published first in 1845 by their senior officer Alderson in plain form, without most of the detail and labelling, and then in full in 1849, in the second edition of Williams's book The Holy City. Did Aldrich and/or Symonds invent the idea of four quarters in Jerusalem? It's possible, but they were military surveyors, not scholars. It seems more likely they spent their very short stay producing a usable street-plan for their superior officers, without necessarily getting wrapped up in details of names and places. The 1845 publication, shorn of street names, quarter labels and other detail, suggests that… Compounding his anachronisms, and perhaps with an urge to reproduce Roman urban design in this new context, Williams writes how two main streets, north-south and east-west, 'divide Jerusalem into four quarters.' Then the crucial line: 'The subdivisions of the streets and quarters are numerous, but unimportant.' Historians will, I hope, be able to delve more deeply into Williams's work, but for me, this is evidence enough. For almost two hundred years, virtually the entire world has accepted the ill-informed, dismissive judgementalism of a jejune Old Etonian missionary as representing enduring fact about the social make-up of Jerusalem. It's shameful… With Britain's increased standing in Palestine after 1840, and the growth of interest in biblical archaeology that was to become an obsession a few decades later, it was vital for the Protestant missionaries to establish boundaries in Jerusalem… Williams spread his ideas around. Ernst Gustav Schultz, who came to Jerusalem in 1842 as Prussian vice-consul, writes in his 1845 book Jerusalem: Eine Vorlesung ('A Lecture'): 'It is with sincere gratitude I must mention that, on my arrival in Jerusalem, Mr Williams ... willingly alerted me to the important information that he [and] another young Anglican clergyman, Mr Rolands, had discovered about the topography of [Jerusalem].' Later come the lines: 'Let us now divide the city into quarters,' and, after mentioning Jews and Christians, 'All the rest of the city is the Mohammedan Quarter.' Included was a map, drawn by Heinrich Kiepert, that labelled the four quarters, mirroring Williams's treatment in The Holy City.
On 11 June, twenty-five dwellings opposite the Wailing Wall (the Mugrabi Quarter) were demolished in order to provide access to the Jews' most holy place of worship.
The continuous Moslem area of the city occupied its entire east half penetrating its west half at the north, near Damascus Gate. Excluding its south part and the north-west bulge, this region will be defined in the nineteenth century as the 'Moslem Quarter'. In the west part of the city lay Haret en-Nasara in the middle of the area which will be named in modern times the 'Christian Quarter'. Two minorities dwelt in the south outskirts of the city: Jews in Haret el-Yahud, in the south-west part of the future Jewish Quarter and Armenians around their monastery in the south part of the modern Armenian Quarter. The layout of ethno-religious groups in sixteenth-century Jerusalem agreed then with the guidelines of their dispersal in the city in the thirteenth century described above.
The origin of this ethno-religious partition lies in the nineteenth-century modern survey maps of Jerusalem drawn by Europeans - travellers, army officers, architects - who explored the city. The following verbal geographical definitions of the quarters will refer to this contemporarily prevailing division of the Old City. The ethno-religious partition of the Old City on the nineteenth-century maps reflected a situation rooted in history. Crusader Jerusalem of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the capital of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, was partitioned among the residential territories of people from different European countries, Oriental Christian communities and knights orders. In 1244 Jerusalem returned to Moslem hands when it became part of the Ayyubid Sultanate of Egypt. The change of government coincided with a devastation of the city by the Central Asian tribe of Khawarizm which all but annihilated the city's population. In 1250 the Mamluks rose to power in Egypt. Under their rule Jerusalem became a magnet to pilgrims from all parts of the Islamic world. People from various regions, towns and tribes settled in it. The parts of the city preferred by the Moslems were those adjoining the north and west sides of the Temple Mount (the other two sides lay outside the city) on which stood their two revered mosques, the Dome of the Rock and al-Agsa Mosque. Christians from different denominations resettled in the north-west of the city, at the vicinity of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Armenians settled in its south-west, near their Cathedral of St James which had been destroyd by the Khawarizms. Jews settled in Jerusalem, beginning with the second half of the thirteenth century, near the south wall of the city, because the territory there was not settled by any other community and separated from their venerated place, the West (Wailing) Wall, only by a small quarter of North-African Moslems. When the city changed hands again at the beginning of the sixteenth century, falling to the Ottoman Turks, no change in the city's population, and hence in its quarters occurred.
The continuous flow of Jews to Jerusalem since the 1840s (see below) caused Haret el-Yahud to extend to all the previously sparsely populated area south of Bab es-Silsila Street (except Haret el-Magharba) and the east part of the Armenian Quarter. Jews settled also north of Bab es-Silsila Street at the south part of the Moslem Quarter (see below). In fact, neither the traditional term 'Haret el-Yahud' nor its modern counterpart 'Jewish Quarter' could cope with the expansion of the area inhabited by Jews in the south of the Old City in the late nineteenth century. Northwards lay the two medieval quarters of Qattanin and 'Agabet et-Takiya which being called after subsidiary streets have been pushed along the years into the internal parts of the area west of the Temple Mount by two quarters named after main streets in that region and in the whole city, Wad and Bab es-Silsila.
Until 1967, moreover, the eastern section of the city had always been overwhelmingly Arab in both population and land ownership. This was true even in the Jewish quarter, where before 1948 Jewish-owned property constituted less than 20% of the quarter's original four or five acres.(subscription required)
The continuous Moslem area of the city occupied its entire east half penetrating its west half at the north, near Damascus Gate. Excluding its south part and the north-west bulge, this region will be defined in the nineteenth century as the 'Moslem Quarter'. In the west part of the city lay Haret en-Nasara in the middle of the area which will be named in modern times the 'Christian Quarter'. Two minorities dwelt in the south outskirts of the city: Jews in Haret el-Yahud, in the south-west part of the future Jewish Quarter and Armenians around their monastery in the south part of the modern Armenian Quarter. The layout of ethno-religious groups in sixteenth-century Jerusalem agreed then with the guidelines of their dispersal in the city in the thirteenth century described above.
The origin of this ethno-religious partition lies in the nineteenth-century modern survey maps of Jerusalem drawn by Europeans - travellers, army officers, architects - who explored the city. The following verbal geographical definitions of the quarters will refer to this contemporarily prevailing division of the Old City. The ethno-religious partition of the Old City on the nineteenth-century maps reflected a situation rooted in history. Crusader Jerusalem of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the capital of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, was partitioned among the residential territories of people from different European countries, Oriental Christian communities and knights orders. In 1244 Jerusalem returned to Moslem hands when it became part of the Ayyubid Sultanate of Egypt. The change of government coincided with a devastation of the city by the Central Asian tribe of Khawarizm which all but annihilated the city's population. In 1250 the Mamluks rose to power in Egypt. Under their rule Jerusalem became a magnet to pilgrims from all parts of the Islamic world. People from various regions, towns and tribes settled in it. The parts of the city preferred by the Moslems were those adjoining the north and west sides of the Temple Mount (the other two sides lay outside the city) on which stood their two revered mosques, the Dome of the Rock and al-Agsa Mosque. Christians from different denominations resettled in the north-west of the city, at the vicinity of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Armenians settled in its south-west, near their Cathedral of St James which had been destroyd by the Khawarizms. Jews settled in Jerusalem, beginning with the second half of the thirteenth century, near the south wall of the city, because the territory there was not settled by any other community and separated from their venerated place, the West (Wailing) Wall, only by a small quarter of North-African Moslems. When the city changed hands again at the beginning of the sixteenth century, falling to the Ottoman Turks, no change in the city's population, and hence in its quarters occurred.
The continuous flow of Jews to Jerusalem since the 1840s (see below) caused Haret el-Yahud to extend to all the previously sparsely populated area south of Bab es-Silsila Street (except Haret el-Magharba) and the east part of the Armenian Quarter. Jews settled also north of Bab es-Silsila Street at the south part of the Moslem Quarter (see below). In fact, neither the traditional term 'Haret el-Yahud' nor its modern counterpart 'Jewish Quarter' could cope with the expansion of the area inhabited by Jews in the south of the Old City in the late nineteenth century. Northwards lay the two medieval quarters of Qattanin and 'Agabet et-Takiya which being called after subsidiary streets have been pushed along the years into the internal parts of the area west of the Temple Mount by two quarters named after main streets in that region and in the whole city, Wad and Bab es-Silsila.
Until 1967, moreover, the eastern section of the city had always been overwhelmingly Arab in both population and land ownership. This was true even in the Jewish quarter, where before 1948 Jewish-owned property constituted less than 20% of the quarter's original four or five acres.(subscription required)
But it may not have been Aldrich and Symonds. Below the frame of their map, printed in italic script, a single line notes that 'The Writing' had been added by 'the Revd. G. Williams' and 'the Revd. Robert Willis'… Some sources suggest [Williams] arrived before [Michael] Alexander, in 1841. If so, did he meet Aldrich and Symonds? We don't know. But Williams became their champion, defending them when the Haram inaccuracy came up and then publishing their work. The survey the two Royal Engineers did was not intended for commercial release (Aldrich had originally been sent to Syria under 'secret service'), and it was several years before their military plan of Jerusalem came to public attention, published first in 1845 by their senior officer Alderson in plain form, without most of the detail and labelling, and then in full in 1849, in the second edition of Williams's book The Holy City. Did Aldrich and/or Symonds invent the idea of four quarters in Jerusalem? It's possible, but they were military surveyors, not scholars. It seems more likely they spent their very short stay producing a usable street-plan for their superior officers, without necessarily getting wrapped up in details of names and places. The 1845 publication, shorn of street names, quarter labels and other detail, suggests that… Compounding his anachronisms, and perhaps with an urge to reproduce Roman urban design in this new context, Williams writes how two main streets, north-south and east-west, 'divide Jerusalem into four quarters.' Then the crucial line: 'The subdivisions of the streets and quarters are numerous, but unimportant.' Historians will, I hope, be able to delve more deeply into Williams's work, but for me, this is evidence enough. For almost two hundred years, virtually the entire world has accepted the ill-informed, dismissive judgementalism of a jejune Old Etonian missionary as representing enduring fact about the social make-up of Jerusalem. It's shameful… With Britain's increased standing in Palestine after 1840, and the growth of interest in biblical archaeology that was to become an obsession a few decades later, it was vital for the Protestant missionaries to establish boundaries in Jerusalem… Williams spread his ideas around. Ernst Gustav Schultz, who came to Jerusalem in 1842 as Prussian vice-consul, writes in his 1845 book Jerusalem: Eine Vorlesung ('A Lecture'): 'It is with sincere gratitude I must mention that, on my arrival in Jerusalem, Mr Williams ... willingly alerted me to the important information that he [and] another young Anglican clergyman, Mr Rolands, had discovered about the topography of [Jerusalem].' Later come the lines: 'Let us now divide the city into quarters,' and, after mentioning Jews and Christians, 'All the rest of the city is the Mohammedan Quarter.' Included was a map, drawn by Heinrich Kiepert, that labelled the four quarters, mirroring Williams's treatment in The Holy City.
On 26–27 May, the Legionnaires took the Hurvat Israel (or "Hurva") Synagogue, the quarter's largest and most sacred building, and then, without reason, blew it up. "This affair will rankle for generations in the heart of world Jewry," predicted one Foreign Office official. [...] The Legionnaires took prisoner 290 healthy males, aged fifteen to fifty—two-thirds of them, in fact, noncombatants—and fifty-one of the wounded. The other wounded and twelve hundred inhabitants were accompanied by the Legionnaires to Zion Gate and freed. The quarter was then systematically pillaged and razed by the mob. The fall of the Jewish Quarter, an important national site, dealt a severe blow to Yishuv morale
The continuous Moslem area of the city occupied its entire east half penetrating its west half at the north, near Damascus Gate. Excluding its south part and the north-west bulge, this region will be defined in the nineteenth century as the 'Moslem Quarter'. In the west part of the city lay Haret en-Nasara in the middle of the area which will be named in modern times the 'Christian Quarter'. Two minorities dwelt in the south outskirts of the city: Jews in Haret el-Yahud, in the south-west part of the future Jewish Quarter and Armenians around their monastery in the south part of the modern Armenian Quarter. The layout of ethno-religious groups in sixteenth-century Jerusalem agreed then with the guidelines of their dispersal in the city in the thirteenth century described above.
The origin of this ethno-religious partition lies in the nineteenth-century modern survey maps of Jerusalem drawn by Europeans - travellers, army officers, architects - who explored the city. The following verbal geographical definitions of the quarters will refer to this contemporarily prevailing division of the Old City. The ethno-religious partition of the Old City on the nineteenth-century maps reflected a situation rooted in history. Crusader Jerusalem of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the capital of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, was partitioned among the residential territories of people from different European countries, Oriental Christian communities and knights orders. In 1244 Jerusalem returned to Moslem hands when it became part of the Ayyubid Sultanate of Egypt. The change of government coincided with a devastation of the city by the Central Asian tribe of Khawarizm which all but annihilated the city's population. In 1250 the Mamluks rose to power in Egypt. Under their rule Jerusalem became a magnet to pilgrims from all parts of the Islamic world. People from various regions, towns and tribes settled in it. The parts of the city preferred by the Moslems were those adjoining the north and west sides of the Temple Mount (the other two sides lay outside the city) on which stood their two revered mosques, the Dome of the Rock and al-Agsa Mosque. Christians from different denominations resettled in the north-west of the city, at the vicinity of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Armenians settled in its south-west, near their Cathedral of St James which had been destroyd by the Khawarizms. Jews settled in Jerusalem, beginning with the second half of the thirteenth century, near the south wall of the city, because the territory there was not settled by any other community and separated from their venerated place, the West (Wailing) Wall, only by a small quarter of North-African Moslems. When the city changed hands again at the beginning of the sixteenth century, falling to the Ottoman Turks, no change in the city's population, and hence in its quarters occurred.
The continuous flow of Jews to Jerusalem since the 1840s (see below) caused Haret el-Yahud to extend to all the previously sparsely populated area south of Bab es-Silsila Street (except Haret el-Magharba) and the east part of the Armenian Quarter. Jews settled also north of Bab es-Silsila Street at the south part of the Moslem Quarter (see below). In fact, neither the traditional term 'Haret el-Yahud' nor its modern counterpart 'Jewish Quarter' could cope with the expansion of the area inhabited by Jews in the south of the Old City in the late nineteenth century. Northwards lay the two medieval quarters of Qattanin and 'Agabet et-Takiya which being called after subsidiary streets have been pushed along the years into the internal parts of the area west of the Temple Mount by two quarters named after main streets in that region and in the whole city, Wad and Bab es-Silsila.
On 26–27 May, the Legionnaires took the Hurvat Israel (or "Hurva") Synagogue, the quarter's largest and most sacred building, and then, without reason, blew it up. "This affair will rankle for generations in the heart of world Jewry," predicted one Foreign Office official. [...] The Legionnaires took prisoner 290 healthy males, aged fifteen to fifty—two-thirds of them, in fact, noncombatants—and fifty-one of the wounded. The other wounded and twelve hundred inhabitants were accompanied by the Legionnaires to Zion Gate and freed. The quarter was then systematically pillaged and razed by the mob. The fall of the Jewish Quarter, an important national site, dealt a severe blow to Yishuv morale
