Laila Shawa
12th Century AD, 1994
Lithograph
39 x 59 cm
Edition of 50
© Laila Shawa.
This work is based on photographs taken of engravings on one of the five gates of the Great Omari Mosque in the centre of Gaza city. This is the oldest...
This work is based on photographs taken of engravings on one of the five gates of the Great Omari Mosque in the centre of Gaza city. This is the oldest and most important mosque in the region, with a history dating back some three thousand years. Archeologically speaking, the mosque reveals the architectural footprints of other temples, churches and mosques over time, thereby recording the complex history of the Canaanite region. The current mosque sits on the foundations of an ancient pagan temple dedicated to Marnas, the god of the Philistines, an ancient people (dating from the 12th century BC) and chiefly known for their opposition to the Biblical Israelites. The place name Palestine is cognate with the word Philistine. The Biblical story of the captive Samson “eyeless in Gaza” pulling the temple of Dagon down on himself has possible links to this site.
When the Byzantines introduced Christianity to Gaza, in the 5th century, the Empress Eudoxia built a church on the same site. With the arrival of Muslim rulers, this church became a mosque, bearing the name of the al-Umari khalifs. In the 12th century, when the great Saladin’s Ayyubid descendants ruled the area, they added their influences and marks to the mosque. It became a church, again, under the Knights Templar, before reverting to functioning as a mosque once the Crusaders left. In 1917, during the First World War, the British bombed and totally destroyed the ancient monument. My grandfather, a member of the Supreme Islamic Council of Palestine, restored it, in 1925.
The stone inscription of the photograph, in my view, dates from the Ayyubid period of the 12th century, a time known for education and the arts. The engraving shows Quranic writing, and above that can be seen a plaque in Hebrew (and English) identifying the site as a Holy Place. This juxtaposition with traces of other ephemeral paint marks, were the elements that first caught my eye. I was trying to record the writings on the wall, no matter whose writings they were. These are not graffiti, but the accumulated deposits left behind by different cultures over vast spans of history, and represent, as does the monument itself, a complex palimpsest with multiple layers of meaning.
During the “stones intifada” of 1987 onwards, the Al-Omari mosque was a focal point of resistance to the occupying Israeli forces, serving as a central point from which daily marches and demonstrations would start out.
© October Gallery, London.
When the Byzantines introduced Christianity to Gaza, in the 5th century, the Empress Eudoxia built a church on the same site. With the arrival of Muslim rulers, this church became a mosque, bearing the name of the al-Umari khalifs. In the 12th century, when the great Saladin’s Ayyubid descendants ruled the area, they added their influences and marks to the mosque. It became a church, again, under the Knights Templar, before reverting to functioning as a mosque once the Crusaders left. In 1917, during the First World War, the British bombed and totally destroyed the ancient monument. My grandfather, a member of the Supreme Islamic Council of Palestine, restored it, in 1925.
The stone inscription of the photograph, in my view, dates from the Ayyubid period of the 12th century, a time known for education and the arts. The engraving shows Quranic writing, and above that can be seen a plaque in Hebrew (and English) identifying the site as a Holy Place. This juxtaposition with traces of other ephemeral paint marks, were the elements that first caught my eye. I was trying to record the writings on the wall, no matter whose writings they were. These are not graffiti, but the accumulated deposits left behind by different cultures over vast spans of history, and represent, as does the monument itself, a complex palimpsest with multiple layers of meaning.
During the “stones intifada” of 1987 onwards, the Al-Omari mosque was a focal point of resistance to the occupying Israeli forces, serving as a central point from which daily marches and demonstrations would start out.
© October Gallery, London.