The Ᾱeliyā / Ilyā puzzle in the early years of the Islamic era Reflecting on the evolution of the city of Jerusalem in the Muslim world based on the inscriptions available in Qobbat os-Sakhre and the first coins left over from the Islamic period
Document Type : pajoohesh
Authors
10.22081/jap.2019.67947
Abstract
After the Arabs conquered Jerusalem in the year 638, the name of the city remained intact for almost a century, except for the slight change that only the Latin title Ᾱeliyā became to some extent Arabic and turned into Ilyā. The evidence of this claim – that the name has been around for a century - are the coins and stamps remained from the Umayyad era. It was from the early years of the ninth century [the late second century A.H.] that the name Ilyā was replaced by al-Quds, and this change happened because of the sacred state of Jerusalem. This research intends to find an explanation for this delay in the change of the name by relying on the oldest surviving sources of the Umayyad era, such as coins of this age, as well as the oldest surviving building, Qobbat os-Sakhre. Also, new observations and comments on this Islamic monument and its special mosaic facade have also been presented and analyzed. Finally, we put different evidence together to have a new look at the one-hundred-year survival of the name Ilyā for Jerusalem.
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