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Premiers temps de l'islam
Période des califes bien guidés (Rashidun)
Conquête arabo-musulmane
Il y avait déjà des arabes convertis à l'islam parmi la population chrétienne de langue grecque de la ville avant la capitulation de Gaza face aux musulmans. Vers la fin de l’ère byzantine, Gaza était devenue le foyer d’un groupe de commerçants arabes de La Mecque de plus en plus influents, dont Omar ibn al-Khattab, qui devint plus tard le deuxième dirigeant du califat islamique. Mahomet aurait visité la ville à plusieurs reprises avant d'accomplir sa mission prophétique[1].
En 634, Gaza fut assiégée par l'armée des Rashiduns dirigée par le général Amr ibn al-'As, avec l'aide de Khalid ibn al-Walid, à la suite de la bataille d'Ajnadayn entre l'Empire byzantin et le califat de Rashidun en Palestine centrale[2]. La victoire des musulmans à Ajnadayn leur a donné le contrôle d'une grande partie de la campagne palestinienne, mais pas des grandes villes dotées de garnisons comme Gaza. Avec la succession d'Omar à Abu Bakr comme calife, les forces Rashidun commencèrent à intensifier leurs efforts pour conquérir le territoire byzantin[3]. Durant les trois années de siège de Gaza, la communauté juive de la ville combattit aux côtés de la garnison byzantine[4]. À l'été 637, les forces d'Amr brisèrent le siège et capturèrent Gaza, tuant sa garnison byzantine, mais n'attaquant pas ses habitants[5]. La victoire d'Amr est attribuée à une combinaison de stratégie arabe, de faiblesse byzantine et à l'influence des résidents arabes de Gaza[1]. Considéré comme le lieu où l'arrière-grand-père de Mahomet, Hashim ibn Abd Manaf - qui vivait également comme marchand à Gaza-, aurait été enterré, la ville n'a pas été détruite par l'armée arabe victorieuse[6].
Islamisation
The arrival of the Muslim Arabs brought drastic changes to Gaza; its churches were transformed into mosques, including the Cathedral of John the Baptist (previously the Temple of Marnas), which became the Great Mosque of Gaza.[6] Gaza's population adopted Islam as their religion relatively quick in contrast with the city's countryside.[5] Eventually,[6][7] Arabic became the official language.[6] The Christian population was reduced to an insignificant minority and the Samaritan residents deposited their property with their high priest and fled the city east upon the Muslim conquest.[8]
Administrative district
Gaza was placed under the administration of Jund Filastin ("District of Palestine") of Bilad al-Sham province during Rashidun rule, and continued to be part of the district under the successive caliphates of the Umayyads and Abbasids.[9]
Umayyad period
Under the Umayyads Gaza served as a minor administrative center.[7] In 672 an earthquake struck the city but there are few details of its effects. Under the caliph-appointed governors, Christians and Jews were taxed, though their worship and trade continued, as noted in the writings of bishop Willibald, who visited the city in 723.[10] Nevertheless, exports of wine and olives declined and the overall prosperity of Palestine and Gaza went down.[11]
Abbasid period
The year 750 saw the end of Umayyad rule in Palestine and the arrival of the Abbasids, with Gaza becoming a center for the writing of Islamic law.[12] In 767, Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi'i was born in Gaza and lived his early childhood there; al-Shafi'i founded one of the prominent fiqhs (schools of law) of Sunni Islam, named Shafi'i after him.[13]
In 796 the city was laid waste during a civil war by the Arab tribes of the area.[14] Gaza apparently recovered by the 9th century according to Persian geographer Istakhri who wrote that merchants grew rich there "for this place was a great market for the people of the Hejaz."[15] A Christian writer, writing in 867, described it as "rich in all things".[16] Gaza's port, however, occasionally succumbed to neglect under Arab rule and an overall decline in commerce followed because of infighting among Palestine's rulers and Bedouin bandits who disrupted overland trade routes towards the city.[6]
Tulunids and Fatimids
From 868 to 905 the Tulunids ruled Gaza,[17] and around 909, the influence of the Fatimids from Egypt started to grow, leading to a slow decline of the city. The orange was introduced to the area, arriving from India in 943.[12] In 977, the Fatimids established an agreement with the Seljuk Turks, whereby the Fatimids would control Gaza and the land south of it, including Egypt.[18] By the 985 CE, while under Fatimid rule, the Arab geographer al-Muqaddasi described Gaza as "a large town lying on the highroad to Egypt on the border of the desert. There is here a beautiful mosque, also to be seen is the monument for the Khalif Umar."[19] The Arabic-language poet Sulayman al-Ghazzi, who later also became bishop of the city, wrote many poems that thematise the hardships Palestinian Christians suffered during the reign of caliph al-Hakim.[20] Another poet, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim al-Ghazzi, was born in the city in 1049.[21]
Crusader/Ayyubid period
The Crusaders wrested control of Gaza from the Fatimids in 1100. According to the chronicler William of Tyre, the Crusaders found it uninhabited and in ruins. Unable to totally refortify the hilltop on which Gaza was built, due to a lack of resources, King Baldwin III built a small castle there in 1149. The possession of Gaza completed the military encirclement of the Fatimid-held city of Ascalon to the north. After the castle's construction, Baldwin granted it and the surrounding region to the Knights Templar.[22] He also had the Great Mosque converted into the Cathedral of Saint John.[12][22]
In 1154, the Arab traveler al-Idrisi wrote Gaza "is today very populous and in the hands of the Crusaders."[23] William of Tyre confirms that in 1170, a civilian population was persuaded to occupy the area outside the castle and establish feeble fortifications and gates surrounding the community.[22] That same year, King Amalric I of Jerusalem withdrew Gaza's Templars to assist him against an Egypt-based Ayyubid force led by Saladin at nearby Darum. However, Saladin evaded the Crusader force and assaulted Gaza instead, destroying the town built outside the castle's walls and killing its inhabitants after they were refused refuge in the castle, managed by Miles of Plancy at the time. Seven years later, the Templars prepared for another defense of Gaza against Saladin, but this time his forces fell on Ascalon. In 1187, following Ascalon's capitulation, the Templars surrendered Gaza in return for the release of their master Gerard of Ridefort. Saladin then ordered the destruction of the city's fortifications in 1191. A year later, after recapturing it, Richard the Lionheart apparently refortified the city, but the walls were dismantled as a result of the Treaty of Ramla agreed upon months later in 1193.[22]
According to geographer Abu al-Fida, Gaza was a medium-sized city, possessing gardens and a seashore in the early 13th century.[24] The Ayyubids constructed the Shuja'iyya neighborhood—the first extension of Gaza beyond the Old City.[25]
Mamluk period
Ayyubid rule virtually ended in 1260, after the Mongols under Hulagu Khan completely destroyed Gaza—Hulagu's southernmost point of conquest. Hulagu left his army in Gaza after being recalled due to the death of the Mongol emperor, and Mamluk general az-Zahir Baybars subsequently drove the Mongols out of the city and again defeated them at Ain Jalut in the Harod Valley near Baysan in 1260. He was proclaimed sultan of Egypt on his way back from the battlefield after the assassination of Sultan Qutuz. Baibars passed through Gaza six times during his expeditions against the remnants of the Crusader states and the Mongols between 1263 and 1269.[26]
Mamluk domination started in 1277,[6] with Gaza initially being a small village in the territory of Ramla. In 1279, Sultan al-Mansur Qalawun encamped in Gaza for fifty days while on a march against the Mongols.[26]
Gaza Governorate (est. 1293)
In 1293, Qalawun's son an-Nasir Muhammad instituted Gaza as the capital of the province that bore its name, Mamlakat Ghazzah, lit. the Governorate of Gaza.[26] This province covered the coastal plain from Rafah in the south to just north of Caesarea, extending in the east to the western slopes of Samaria and the Hebron Hills; its major towns were Qaqun, Ludd, and Ramla.[27]
In 1294, an earthquake devastated Gaza, and five years later the Mongols again destroyed all that was restored by the Mamluks.[6] That same year, Gaza was the center of a conspiracy against Sultan al-Adil Kitbugha, but the plot was detected and crushed before being carried out.[26]
The Syrian geographer al-Dimashqi accounted to Gaza the cities and towns of Ascalon, Jaffa, Caesarea and Arsuf to the north; Deir al-Balah and al-Arish (in north-central the Sinai) to the south; Bayt Jibrin, Karatiyya, Hebron and Jerusalem to the east—all of which had their own sub-governors.[28] He further described Gaza in 1300 as "so rich in trees it looks like a cloth of brocade spread out upon the land".[1]
Emir Baibars al-Ala'i ruled Mamlakat Ghazzah between 1307 and 1310, during the second reign of an-Nasir Muhammad until the latter was briefly overthrown by Baybars al-Jashnakir.[29] Gaza was one of the places that returned to the allegiance of the exiled sultan; in 1310, an-Nasir Muhammad defeated Sultan Baybars in Gaza, forcing the latter to surrender his throne to him. Baybars was imprisoned in the city.[28]
Emir Sanjar al-Jawli acquired the governorship of Gaza and central Palestine in 1311. He highly favored Gaza and transformed it into a flourishing city, having built in it a horse-race course, a madrasa (college), a mosque, a khan (caravansary), a maristan (hospital), and a castle.[30] In late 1332, coinciding with the appointment of Emir Taynal al-Ashrafi as governor, some of the provincial privileges of Gaza, such as the governor's direct subordination to the sultan in Cairo, were removed by an-Nasir Muhammad's decree. From then, and until 1341, when Sanjar al-Jawli served a second term as governor, Gaza became subordinate to the na'ib as-saltana (viceroy) of Syria, Emir Tankiz al-Husami.[31]
In 1348 the bubonic plague spread to the city, killing the majority of its inhabitants, and in 1352, Gaza suffered a destructive flood—which was rare in that arid part of Palestine.[32] However, by 1355, the Berber traveller Ibn Battuta visited the city and noted that it was "large and populous, and has many mosques. But there were no walls round it. There was here of old a fine Jami' Mosque (the Great Mosque), but the one present[ly] used was built by Amir Jawli [Sanjar al-Jawli]."[33]
In the early 1380s, the governor of Gaza, Akbugha as-Safawi, plotted to commit treason against Sultan az-Zahir Barquq. The plot was detected, Safawi was exiled to al-Karak, and replaced by Husam al-Din ibn Bakish. Soon after, the city fell into the hands of Emir Yalbugha an-Nasiri who revolted against Barquq. Gaza was retaken without violence, and Ibn Bakish met Yalbugha at its gates with gifts and proposals of peace. The unseated Barquq regained his throne in 1389, and retook Gaza the next year.[34] In 1401 a swarm of locusts destroyed Gaza's crops.[32] A battle between the rival Mamluk emirs Akbirdi and Qansuwa Khamsiyah occurred in Gaza; Khamsiyah had failed in usurping the Mamluk throne and fled to Gaza where he made his unsuccessful last stand.[35] Between 1428 and 1433, Gaza was governed by Emir Sayf ad-Din Inal, who would later become sultan in 1453.[36] During his sultanate, in 1455, Inal's dawadar (executive secretary) had the Madrasa of Birdibak built in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood.[37]
Ottoman period
Early Ottoman rule and the Ridwan dynasty
In 1516, Gaza—by now a small town with an inactive port, ruined buildings and reduced trade—was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire.[32] The Ottoman army quickly and efficiently crushed a small-scale uprising,[38] and the local population generally welcomed them as fellow Sunni Muslims.[32]
Shortly after Palestine's quick submission to the Ottomans, it was divided into six districts, including the Gaza Sanjak (District of Gaza), which stretched from Jaffa in the north to Bayt Jibrin in the east and Rafah in the south. The sanjak was a part of the larger Damascus Eyalet or the "Province of Damascus".[39] In that time, the majority of the Christian population of Shoubak migrated to Gaza, making it the largest Christian center of Palestine and an important source of support for the monastery of St. Catherine on the Sinai.[40]
An early governor of Gaza Sanjak was Kara Shahin Mustafa, a former jannissary (member of a military corps) who rose to become an elite military officer and state minister and eventually a vizier and trusted aide of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.[41] He received the governorship of Gaza apparently as an interim appointment before he was appointed Governor of Egypt, although he was deposed three years later by Sultan Selim II. Mustafa died a short while later and his son Ridwan Pasha, who was the treasurer of Yemen, became governor shortly before Mustafa's death. The Ridwan dynasty, which would rule Gaza for over a century, derives its name from Ridwan Pasha. He was later appointed Governor of Yemen, but was deposed two years later and returned to the governorship of Gaza. After becoming governor of Ethiopia, Basra, and Diyarbakır in that order, he successfully led an Ottoman contingent against Safavid Persia in 1579. The sultan then awarded him the province of Anatolia, where he died in 1585.[42]
Although no explanation is provided in the biographies of the Ridwan family, it is evident they chose Gaza as their home and built there their residence, known as Qasr al-Basha, 'the Pasha's castle'. Ridwan Pasha's son Ahmad Pasha succeeded him and governed Gaza for thirty years, sometimes incorporating the sanjaks of Nablus and Jerusalem. He became Governor of Damascus Eyalet in 1601 after bribing several viziers and bureaucrats in Istanbul. He died in 1607. Next in line was Hasan Pasha ibn Ahmad who became known 'Arab Hasan ("Hasan the Bedouin") because by then, the Ridwans were identified with being well-versed with the Bedouin and controlling them.[42] He successfully led his pro-Ottoman Bedouin troops against the army of the rebel Druze emir, Fakhr ad-Din, in a series of battles. He was later appointed Governor of Tripoli in today's Lebanon, but he was deposed in 1644. 'Arab Hasan had many wives and concubines, who bore him 85 children. He led the Ridwans successfully militarily, however, he burdened the dynasty with heavy debt.[43]
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'Arab Hasan's son Husayn Pasha was governor of Nablus and Jerusalem, and inherited the impoverished governorship of Gaza when his father died. He borrowed a large sum from the French in order to meet the heavy taxes imposed on the city by Hassan Aga, governor Sidon Eyalet—the province that Gaza briefly belonged to.[44] Husayn's period in office was peaceful and prosperous for the city, and he gained a good reputation for considerably reducing the strife between the nearby Bedouin and the settled population. He appointed his son Ibrahim to be governor of the Gaza and Jerusalem sanjaks, but when Ibrahim was killed during an expedition against the Druze in Mount Lebanon in 1660, Husayn resumed control of Gaza.[43] That year, Gaza was designated the capital of Palestine,[pas clair] indicating the city's rapid recovery. The Great Mosque was restored, and six other mosques constructed, while Turkish baths and market stalls proliferated.[32] Anonymous petitions from Damascus sent to Istanbul complaining about Husayn's failure to protect the hajj caravan and his alleged pro-Christian tendencies,[44] however, served as an excuse for the Ottoman government to depose him. He was soon imprisoned in Damascus and his assets confiscated by provincial authorities. He was later sent to Istanbul and died in prison there in 1663.[43]
Husayn's brother Musa Pasha then governed Gaza into the early 1670s, implementing an anti-French and anti-Christian regime to appease the Ottoman government.[44] Soon after his reign ended, Ottomans officials were appointed to govern. The Ridwan period is considered Gaza's last golden age during Ottoman rule and the city gradually dwindled after they were removed from office.[43]
Decay after the Ridwans
In 1723, the Ottomans appointed Salih Pasha Tuqan of the Nablus-based Tuqan family to govern Gaza and two other sanjaks until his death in 1742.[45] In the 1750s, local Bedouin tribes disposed of the plunder from a Meccan caravan, consisting of 13,000 camel-loads of goods, into Gaza's markets, boosting the city's wealth. The attack on the caravan was a reprisal to the Ottomans who had recently replaced the governor of Damascus. In 1763, there was a revolt in Gaza against the Ottomans.[46] Then, in November 1770, Ali Bey al-Kabir, the rebellious Mamluk sultan of Egypt, sent troops to Gaza to aid Zahir al-Umar in the Galilee, helping him check the power of the Ottomans in the Levant.[47] Gaza was briefly occupied by the French Army under Napoleon Bonaparte, who referred to it as "the outpost of Africa, the door to Asia", in 1799.[48] Most of its inhabitants fled as a result. His forces easily razed the remains of the city walls (which had not been rebuilt since their destruction by Saladin), but abandoned the city after their failed siege of Acre that same year. The duration of French influence in Gaza was too short to have a palpable effect.[32]
Egyptian rule and Ottoman revival
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Gaza was culturally dominated by neighboring Egypt from the early 19th century; Muhammad Ali of Egypt conquered it and most of Palestine in 1832.[12] Strangely, in 1833, Muhammad Ali instructed his son Ibrahim Pasha not to purchase Gaza's cotton harvest (cotton production was Ali's main source of wealth and Egypt's production was low that year), instead allowing its residents to dispose of it how they wished.[49]
American scholar Edward Robinson visited Gaza in 1838, describing it as a "thickly populated" town larger than Jerusalem, with its Old City lying upon a hilltop, while its suburbs laid on the nearby plain.[50] He further stated that its soil was rich and supported groves of "delicious and abundant" apricots and mulberries. Although Gaza's port was by then inactive, it benefited from trade and commerce because of its position on the caravan route between Egypt and Syria, as well as from the production of soap and cotton for trade with the Bedouin.[51] The governor of Gaza at the time was Sheikh Sa'id.[50] Robinson noted that virtually all of Gaza's vestiges of ancient history and antiquity had disappeared due to constant conflict and occupation.[52]
The bubonic plague struck again in 1839 and the city stagnated, as it lacked political and economic stability. In 1840, Egyptian and Ottoman troops battled outside of Gaza, with the Ottomans emerging victorious, effectively ending Egyptian rule over Palestine. The battles brought about more death and destruction, just barely after the city began to recover from the plague.[32] The Church of Saint Porphyrius was renovated in 1856,[53] and in 1874, French orientalist Charles Clermont-Ganneau visited Gaza, gathering and cataloging a sizable collection of Byzantine inscriptions and describing the city's Great Mosque in detail.[32] Sultan Abdul Hamid II had the wells of Gaza restored in 1893.[53]
Although the first municipal council of Gaza was formed in 1893 under the chairmanship of Ali Khalil Shawa, modern mayorship began in 1906 with his son Said al-Shawa, who was appointed mayor by Ottoman authorities.[54] Like other regions and cities in Palestine at the time, Gaza was economically and politically dominated by a number of powerful clans, particularly the Shawa, Husseini, and Sourani families.[55] Two destructive earthquakes occurred in 1903 and 1914.[32]
When World War I erupted in 1917, British forces were defeated by the Ottomans in the first and second Battle of Gaza. General Edmund Allenby, leading the Allied Forces, finally conquered Gaza in a third battle.[32]
British Mandate
After the First World War, the League of Nations granted quasi-colonial authority over former Ottoman territories to Great Britain and France, with Gaza becoming part of the British Mandate of Palestine.[56]
During the 1929 Palestine riots, the Jewish Quarter of Gaza was destroyed and most of Gaza's fifty Jewish families fled the city. In the 1930s and 1940s, Gaza underwent major expansion, with new neighborhoods, such as Rimal and Zeitoun being built along the coast, and the southern and eastern plains. Areas damaged in the riots underwent reconstruction. Most of the funding for these developments came from international organizations and missionary groups.[53]
Gaza War Cemetery, one of the world’s many Commonwealth war cemeteries, contains the graves of soldiers from the British Empire and Commonwealth dating back as far as World War One.[57] The majority of the graves (3082 of 3691) are British, but there are also the graves of 263 Australians, 50 Indians, 23 New Zealanders, 23 Canadians, 36 Poles, and 184 Ottoman-era Turkish graves, plus small numbers of South African, Greek, Egyptian, German, French and Yugoslav soldiers.[57]
2023 Flash floods in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria occurred on September 5, and resulted from a huge storm (called Daniel) centered mainly above greek territory and Aegean Sea. Brutal rainfalls produced record-breaking precipitations, notably near Mt Pelion and nearby Volos, Greece; in Istanbul and the northwestern region of Turkey on the border with the EU; and around the southern town of Tsarevo, on the Black Sea coast, Bulgaria, where the authorities declared a state of emergency. As of Sept. 7, there were at least 17 registered deaths (at least five people were killed in Greece, eight in Turkey, and three in Bulgaria).
Flash floods from torrential rainstorms in the three neighboring countries turned rivers into torrents, swept away bridges and inundated streets, private and public buildings. In eastern Greece, one man died in the coastal town of Volos when a wall collapsed on him, and in the nearby Pelion area the body of an old lady was discovered on Sept. 6, where a further four people have been reported missing. At least six villages in and around the Pelion mountain range suffered huge damage.[58] In Turkey, six campers were carried away by a torrent in the north-western Kırklareli province, on the European side of Turkey. Two bodies were recovered on Tuesday night -Sept. 5- and three more on Wednesday.[59] Two people were killed in Istanbul. The victims were a 32-year-old Guinean citizen who was trapped inside his basement apartment in the western Kucukcekmece district, the other was a 57-year-old woman who died after being swept away by the floods in another neighborhood[60]. In Bulgaria, a storm caused floods in the country’s southern resort town of Tsarevo, on the Black Sea coast, where authorities declared a state of emergency. The bodies of two missing people were recovered from the sea on Wednesday, raising the overall death toll to four. Turkey's largest city received rainfall roughly equivalent to what it would expect in the entirety of September in the space of six hours, the governor's office said in a statement. According to The Guardian: Greece’s climate crisis and civil protection minister, Vassilis Kikilias, said after an emergency cabinet meeting: “This is the most extreme phenomenon in terms of the maximum amount of rain in a 24-hour period since records began in the country.”[61]
Rescue operations
Turkish Habertürk TV reported footage showing rescuers carrying a young girl and an adult to safety from waters that reached waist-high in some areas. The rains also damaged and forced the closure of a main road. Aljazeera reported that Turkey’s AFAD disaster management agency predicted further rainstorms for the west and southwest of the country and warned of the dangers from flash floods, lightning strikes and high winds.[62]
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