Not long ago, the Israeli Antiquities Authority published the news of the discovery of a mosque in the Arab city of Rahat in the Negev in the Palestinian interior, considering it one of the oldest mosques in Palestine.
It also published a few days ago the news of the discovery of a large luxurious farm that included houses, water wells and rooms, some of them paved with marble, which indicates that the talk about a rich and prestigious family lived in the place.
The site was known, according to sites that reported the news, as a palace dating back 1200 years (information about the site is still preliminary).
These two discoveries are in addition to the discovery by the Israel Antiquities Authority of another mosque around the aforementioned city about a year ago, dating back to a similar period.
According to the excavators in the Antiquities Authority, the discovery of the mosque is an important event through which we can learn about many aspects, and tell us about the entry of Islam into the region, the Islamization of the population, the relationship of Muslims with the local population, and the nature of life in that period.
According to the news sites - quoting the supervisors of the excavations - the talk is about a village mosque dating back to the seventh or eighth century AD, which makes it one of the rare mosques in the Middle East and the world, according to their claim, especially in the area north of Beersheba, where no discovery was made. a building similar to it before;
They added that during this period there were large mosques in Jerusalem and Mecca, but what was discovered is evidence of an ancient site of worship that the peasants in the area likely used for prayer.
In fact, this discovery is very important, and it is thus added to the many mosques that have been documented and discovered in the Palestinian Negev, which have rarely been given attention or received attention.
This mosque, according to my knowledge and the studies I conducted, and despite its very high historical and archaeological value, is not a rare mosque as they claim. 1917), including the "discovery and verification" of 3 mosques that I did myself.
Shedding light on these mosques, and the historical, cultural and social value they hold, requires many articles and studies from us.
It is truly a topic that requires us to pause and pause through which we can reconsider and understand the spread of Islam in the south of the land of Palestine and even in the entire region, a topic that has become of great interest in the field of archaeological research and even among Israeli researchers, some of whom have devoted full studies to it.
In this article, I thought to highlight the "discoveries" that dominated the news media in the previous period, and the behavior of the Israel Antiquities Authority and how it was reported as the greatest event and the most important discovery.
Perhaps in these words I try to complete the picture and convey the hidden truth that was not conveyed to us with the news, and perhaps I want it to remain hidden.
There is a lot of absurdity in the history of the region and the Islamic periods, especially the early Islamic period.
This history is depicted according to the vision drawn up by orientalists, which is the prevailing view that depicts Arabs and Muslims as strangers from the land who came to occupy the land of our fathers and grandfathers, and even caused destruction and devastation and ended the prosperity that was in the previous golden periods, i.e. Roman and Byzantine.
Was the discovery of the mosque and the farm a coincidence?
At the outset, we must point out that the discovery of the mosque and the farm came within the “rescue excavations,” which come with the aim of liberating the sites and permitting them for development and construction after traces were discovered in them during the construction work.
In other words, they are not excavations planned and carried out on purpose for the purpose of scientific research. Rather, they are binding excavations according to Israeli law, following the discovery of antiquities in them. After that, the report will either liberate the place for construction and development work or seize it if something “important” is found in it, according to his opinion. concerned authorities.
The fact that these mosques were discovered within the “rescue” excavations means that the discovery was a coincidence and not the result of a planned excavation, bearing in mind that the majority of the organized excavations for the purpose of research are carried out inside the Palestinian territories at the hands of Israeli institutions or their partners from research institutes that often deal with pre-Islamic periods, and rarely We find specialized excavations from academic or official bodies concerned with researching and excavating Islamic antiquities in a directed manner, unless these antiquities are within an older site that contained some Islamic layers inside, which are often removed in order to reach the “important”.
Through my extensive study of these sites, I found that most mosques from the early Islamic period inside the Palestinian territories, especially those in the Negev and often uncovered during salvage excavations, do not have extensive information about them.
These sites were often bulldozed and removed after their discovery so that a street could pass over them or a building would be built over them.
It also did not receive proper attention, and so far, most of the reports and adequate information have not been published, leaving these sites almost absent.
There is a lot of tampering with the history of the region and the Islamic periods, especially the early Islamic period.
This history is depicted according to the prevailing vision drawn up by orientalists and the perception of Arabs and Muslims as strangers from the land and who came to occupy the land of our fathers and grandfathers, and even caused destruction and devastation in this country and ended the prosperity that was in the previous golden periods “that is, the Roman and Byzantine period” considering these researchers and Orientalists Heirs of the burgeoning Western civilization.
Is promoting the discovery of the effects of the mosque arbitrary?
Israel - in addition to being obsessed with controlling the place and imposing its sovereignty over all the land of Palestine - it is living an additional obsession that is summed up in the process of Judaizing the country and imposing its authority through the "legalization" of this control and giving legitimacy and objectivity to its actions.
Israeli law is only a tool for the implementation of certain goals, and it is not a moral norm that reflects social values and norms. It is thus merely a tool that is changed when it does not fit the higher goals.
The Israeli institution harnesses all frameworks and institutions to serve the goal, which is the Judaization of the land and history of Palestine, which must also be linked to the Antiquities Authority, as it is a vital body that cannot be separated from the Israeli institution, but rather is in line with the interests of the higher Israeli institution;
This same institution that participated and is still participating day and night in the obliteration and destruction of Arab antiquities and even bulldozing countless sanctities and exhuming and violating many cemeteries, which we documented in the book “Jewish Symbols and Islamic Sanctities between Sanctification and Desecration” and as is the case with the Islamic cemetery of Ma’man Allah The ancient city of Jerusalem, which was exhumed for the purpose of establishing the "Museum of Tolerance", the Ramle cemetery, Kafr Saba, Al-Zarnuqa, and many other cemeteries, and the list goes on.
This same institution that claims to preserve antiquities is desecrating and violating ancient archaeological mosques and preventing their restoration, not the case of the White Mosque in Ramle - which is considered one of the oldest and greatest mosques in Islam - in the best condition, which has been repeatedly attacked and prevented from being restored despite its great historical value.
As well as the Tiberias Mosque, which was portrayed for many years as a Roman market, only to be found recently to be the mosque and to keep the place abandoned and not receiving attention, which makes us wonder: What is the purpose of the Antiquities Authority revealing such recent discoveries and promoting them in the media!
Part of the ruins of the White Mosque in Ramle, the capital of Palestine, which summarizes the state of Islamic antiquities and the destruction and violation they encounter (Al-Jazeera)
When discussing the topic, we must distinguish between two things:
The Antiquities Authority is an authoritarian body in every sense of the word, aiming to achieve the authoritarian goals of the Israeli establishment and to serve its public interests, while there are some few researchers influenced by the “postmodern” school or the followers of the “realist” school who seek liberation from “Zionist ideology and its astronomy.” Doing “objective” research, free of political dimensions, and even putting politics aside, which may conflict with the higher interest of the institution, so these researchers are often met with exclusion and ostracism.
The world today has become a slave to the media culture that directs its thought and behavior through its use of the element of suspense and excitement for the purpose of capturing “humans” within its dictates and the limits that limit it, and thus it is possible to look at the contradiction between the disclosure of these sites and the work of the Israeli institution and its efforts to Judaize the place, and even exhumed Cemeteries and their destruction, as they occupy public opinion from time to time with discoveries here or there, all of which are confined to the framework of the "Arab era of the history of the Land of Israel" and all the lights are shed on it so that this discovery becomes the "shining event" absent from the scene the reality of the obliteration and bulldozing of Arab antiquities over the years Through this intellectual mobilization through deliberate repetition and the highlighting of “discovery”To establish in the minds the objectivity of the actions carried out by the institution and to become an integral part of the subconscious mind of the human being that is saturated again and again, while the institution itself does not hesitate to achieve its plans.
In light of the fierce campaign carried out by this institution against everything that is Arab and Islamic in the country in an attempt to eradicate it from existence;
In light of the continuous violations of Islamic cemeteries and sanctities;
The Israeli institution has lost its credibility and objectivity after monitoring, following up and revealing these violations by Palestinian media organizations and activists and exposing them globally, especially in light of the repercussions of the era of globalization and the development of means of communication that made the whole world a single entity exposed to all, which led the Israeli institution to search for “Events” or “disclosure” through which it tries to promote itself as an “objective” body, while the institution itself has excelled - through the policy of procrastination and continuous work according to studied schemes for decades - in imposing a de facto policy (historical forgery).
Here, I see that the controversy raised by the Israeli establishment by revealing these "discoveries" - which were only traces that were accidentally revealed through the rescue excavations - is a propaganda through which the institution lends its credibility to its work on the one hand, and in return it continues the historical process of Judaization. And the silent archaeological in the land of Palestine.
The exhumation and violation of the grave of the great companion Tamim bin Aws al-Dari in Beit Jibrin in 2021 (Al-Jazeera)
Is the increase and detection of Islamic monuments is normal?
As we have said, the Israeli establishment, over the years since the establishment of the State of Israel, has worked to remove and bulldoze Arab and Islamic landmarks from the country.
It also bulldozed the "unimportant" layers - that is, the Islamic archaeological layers - in order to reach the "important", that is, what is less than Islamic, specifically the antiquities that follow the bronze and iron periods that they call the "biblical periods", in an attempt to limit the history of the land of Palestine to the history of the Jewish people To come in recent years and the same institution "discovers" Islamic antiquities and encourages carrying out archaeological, aesthetic and artistic research, and that is only to limit the history of Palestine - throughout the Islamic periods - to the few crumbs kept by bulldozers, and thus impose a different image of reality by dwarfing Islamic civilization And Arabic in the land of Palestine and its presentation through the remnants of the remnants that reflect only a small part of the truth, and to present the incomplete vision as “all.”
The Israeli establishment, after losing its credibility globally - at the level of peoples - following the fierce attack to uproot everything that is Arab and Islamic in the land of Palestine, destroying sanctities and aggressors on cemeteries, and in an attempt to Judaize the land, people and the memory of the place, searched for what saves its face from During the discovery of some antiquities in an attempt to gain some lost credibility, while continuing its violations of Islamic sanctities and antiquities in order to obliterate the identity of the land of Palestine, especially Al-Quds Al-Sharif and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.