Jerusalem:

     

Jerusalem (in Arabic, al-Quds; in Hebrew, Yerushalayim) situated on a cluster of hilltops and valleys between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea, at the intersection of the West Bank and Israel. Jerusalem is a holy city for three of the world's major religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. From 1948 until 1967, Jerusalem was a divided city. Israel controlled West, or New, Jerusalem, and Jordan controlled East Jerusalem, including the Old City. In 1967 Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 War (Six-Day War).

The city of Jerusalem, with its many magnificent historical and religious sites, is an overwhelming experience. Jerusalem presents a fascinating mixture of well-preserved historical monuments and buildings bound up with the characteristic developments of a modern urban area. The greatest concentration of religious and historical sites is in the Old City, which is contained inside a wall constructed in 1538 during the reign of the Ottoman ruler Suleiman I, the Magnificent. The area inside the Old City wall is roughly divided into quadrants, named after their traditional, dominant ethnic communities: the Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Armenian quarters. The traditional Arab market, or suq, lines the main axis of the Old City, giving it a crowded and bustling atmosphere.

 

 

Modern Jerusalem surrounds the Old City, with older neighbourhoods located to the east and south, and newer neighbourhoods, the main business areas, and Israeli governmental institutions primarily to the west and north.

The present wall was erected by the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-1566). It is the last of a whole series of walls which were built and torn down before it. Sultan Suleiman built six gates in the wall and gave them official names, but the names in used today vary according to language and religion. On the left is a picture of one of those gates.

The Old City is sacred to Jews as the historic symbol of the Jewish homeland and capital of the first Jewish kingdom; it is sacred to Christians as the site where Jesus Christ spent his last days on Earth; and it is sacred to Muslims as the site of the ascent into Heaven of the Prophet Muhammad. Notable structures include the Christian Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built over the 4th-century basilica, which in turn was erected over the traditional tomb of Christ; the Jewish Western Wall, also called the Wailing Wall, the remnant of the great Temple built by Herod the Great, King of Judaea; the Muslim mosque of Dome of the Rock, built upon the site where Muhammad is said to have ascended to Heaven; the Mosque of Al Aqsa, one of Islam's most sacred shrines; and the Citadel, a 14th-century structure on the site of Herod's fortress.

The walled  city of Jerusalem is divided into four quarters, the largest and most lively is the Moslem Quarter, covering 76 arcres. It is crowded with many buildings of Islamic style, the most important of which many buildings of Islamic stule, the most important of which is the golden-domed mosque or the Dome of the Rock.

The Christian section of the Old City, in the north-west, contains the New Gate, shares the Jaffa Gate with the Armenian section on the south-west, and the Damascus Gate with the Muslim section on the north. The Muslim section, in the north-eastern portion of the Old City, contains Herod's Gate, St Stephen's Gate, and the Golden Gate, east of which is located the Mount of Olives and the garden of Gethsemane.

The most important site here is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher 'in Arabic, Kanisat al-Qiyama' which is the most venerated shrine for Christians. It is the traditionally accepted site of Christ's crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection. In the 4th century AD, Queen Helena, mother of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine, built a church on this site commemorating the resurrection of Christ. The original church suffered destruction more than once. It was originally much bigger than today's church, which did not take its present form until 1959. The marble room of the tomb of Jesus is very small, and therefore cannot hold more than four people at a time.

The main Jewish section, occupying the south-eastern portion, contains the Zion Gate, south of which is Mount Zion and King David's Tomb. It also contains Dung Gate.

The quarter has been growing and expanding rapidly at the expense of the other quarters of the city since Israel occupied it in 1967. The most interesting part of the Jewish Quarter is the Wailing Wall, the most sacred site in the world for the Jew. Biblical archaeologists believe that the the Wailing Wall, also known as Western Wall, is all that remains of the Second Temple, which was destroyed in AD 70. The destruction of the Temple led to the formation of the rabbinic movement in Jerusalem.

The Armenian Quarter is the smallest quarter of the Old City. It occupies the south western side of the city and is dominated by the great compound of the Armenian Monastery and the Citadel with its minaret and towers. The Ar-menian compound is in fact a city within a city. It has its own schools, library, seminary, and residential quarters, all arranged around the 121 century Orthodox Cathedral of St.James, just south of the citadel.