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Ibn al-Jawzi

Fadail Bayt al-Maqdis - Ibn al-Jawzi

Author died
597 AH
Editions
tahqiq Amr Abd al-Azim al-Huwayni

Fada'il Bayt al-Maqdis (The Virtues of Jerusalem) is a treatise on the religious merits, sacred sites, and history of Jerusalem written by the Baghdad-born Hanbali scholar Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 597 AH / 1201 CE) .

Title and Composition

Ibn al-Jawzi authored the work toward the end of his life in 589 AH (1193 CE), eight years before his death, in response to a request from a resident of Jerusalem who asked him to compile the virtues of the holy city .

Sources and manuscript copies record variations in the title of the work :

  • Fada'il al-Quds (The Virtues of Jerusalem): Recorded by Sibt Ibn al-Jawzi in Mir'at al-Zaman, Ibn al-Imad in Shadharat al-Dhahab, and Khayr al-Din al-Zirikli in al-A'lam, and appears on the manuscript preserved at Princeton University Library .
  • Fada'il Bayt al-Maqdis (The Virtues of the Holy House): Recorded by Nasir al-Din Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rahim ibn al-Furat in his chronicle Tarikh Ibn al-Furat, and found on the title pages of manuscripts at the Chester Beatty Library and the Egyptian National Library (Dar al-Kutub) .

Structure and Contents

The book is arranged into twenty-seven thematic chapters :

  1. The virtue of the Holy Land .
  2. The virtue and mention of the mountain upon which Jerusalem stands .
  3. The establishment of Jerusalem and its earliest origins .
  4. The wonders that existed in it .
  5. The virtue of Jerusalem .
  6. The merit of visiting it .
  7. The reward of praying in it .
  8. The multiplication of good and bad deeds therein .
  9. The merit of residing in it .
  10. Jerusalem being one of the mosques to which journeys are undertaken .
  11. The prophets' graves located there, the prayer niche of David (Mihrab Dawud), and the spring of Silwan (Ayn Silwan) .
  12. The ruin and plundering that befell Jerusalem .
  13. Moses's military campaign toward the land of Jerusalem .

In the opening chapters, Ibn al-Jawzi provides lexical and Qur'anic analyses, citing authorities such as al-Zajjaj, Ibn Qutayba, and his own teacher Abu Mansur Mawhub ibn Ahmad al-Jawaliqi on the linguistic origins and geographical scope of terms like al-ard al-muqaddasa (the Holy Land) and Iliya (Aelia) .

Sources, Reception, and Editions

Ibn al-Jawzi cites earlier compilations of the fada'il genre, drawing upon the transmission of Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Wasiti's 5th-century AH work Fada'il al-Bayt al-Maqdis through a chain running via Abu al-Mu'ammar Mubarak ibn Ahmad al-Ansari, Abu al-Husayn Muhammad ibn Muhammad Ibn al-Farra', and Abd al-Aziz ibn Ahmad al-Nasibi . Later scholars writing on the virtues of Jerusalem, including Baha' al-Din Ibn Asakir in al-Jami' al-Mustaqsa fi Fada'il al-Masjid al-Aqsa and Diya' al-Din al-Maqdisi in his Fada'il Bayt al-Maqdis, frequently shared and preserved hadiths and narrative reports through these parallel traditions .

A printed edition of the text was prepared by Jibra'il Sulayman Jabbur under the title Fada'il al-Quds, published by Dar al-Afaq al-Jadidah in Beirut in 1979 .

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