Occupied Jerusalem

- The inherited folk tale says that the people of Jerusalem honored the leader Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi after his conquest of Jerusalem, and presented him with a popular dish called “Eggplant” consisting of vegetables and eggplant. upside down to this day.

The researcher in Palestinian heritage Hamza Al-Aqrabawi reports this story, indicating to Al-Jazeera Net that there is no evidence to deny or prove it, and it is not known exactly when it first appeared, but it is established among those interested and researchers in food that it is an old dish, as evidenced by the reference of historical sources during the Umayyad and Abbasid eras to the presence of rice In Jerusalem and Levant dishes, it is the main ingredient for maqluba.

Al-Maqlooba has become the most prominent tables for those who go to Al-Aqsa in Ramadan because of its double symbols (Al-Jazeera)

In the beginning was the eggplant

Maqlouba is a popular main Palestinian dish, along with maftoul, musakhan and mansaf, and it consists of chicken, rice, cauliflower or eggplant, while its ingredients vary according to regional and individual taste. Sometimes chicken is replaced with lamb or veal, and potatoes, carrots or tomatoes are added, and at other times green beans, chickpeas and vermicelli are added. .

“In the beginning it was the eggplant, then the Palestinian added to it what he liked from the components of his garden,” Al-Aqrabawi says, indicating that before rice, the maqluba contained bulgur or freekeh. As it is, the rice bowl Barak (square) with the text.

Except for the fame of the upside down during the days of gathering and meeting of Jerusalemites, it was the most common dish on the Ramadan tables of fasting people in Al-Aqsa Mosque, where their pictures and pictures of the tables of those exiled from Al-Aqsa Mosque, which are located at its gates, prevailed.


Why upturned and how the Palestinians used it as a weapon against the occupation of Jerusalem?

Maqluba is a dish that is easy to prepare, delicious in taste, rich in ingredients, and beautiful in appearance. Its ingredients blend harmoniously in a pot (pot), and its culinary masters scramble its heart in a flat dish (Sider tray) where its components do not stick to the bottom of the pot, and one unit takes the shape of the pot with grains. Golden cedar gives it shine, and fried almonds or pine nuts add to its beauty and deliciousness.

The researcher sees the symbolism of the inverted in that it is a dish that is eaten only by a group, around which the family gathers, evoking its heritage and popular culinary habits, in addition to giving it a historical dimension and linking it to the liberation of Jerusalem and its Ayyubid conquest, and he adds that these symbols are employed by the Palestinians in the second holiest of Islamic places, through the fulcrum of the sacred in the mentality Palestinian religious popularity.

The eaters of grape leaves (varicose veins) and stuffed zucchini sit next to the inverted side of the appearance of (the heart) and its symbolism at the heart of the decisions of the occupation (Al-Jazeera)

Inverted symbolic double

Therefore, the act of cooking, eating, or flipping the maqluba, in Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, carried double symbolic meanings, and this was felt by Hanadi Al-Halawani, who was deported from Al-Quds, who was famous - along with her female companions in deportation, especially Khadija Khweis - for preparing and flipping the maqluba at the gates of Al-Aqsa after they were expelled from it. And specifically on the Mujahideen Road near Bab al-Asbat and Hatta, where the occupation continues to deport them annually during the month of Ramadan since 2015, while they continue to pray and feed the upturned for fasting people inside and outside Al-Aqsa until today.

Al-Halawani told Al-Jazeera Net that the occupation deported her for the first time in Ramadan 1436 AH (approximately in 2015 AD), so she insisted on completing her plan, bringing inverted pots and bringing them to the fasting people in Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Hundreds of upside-down casseroles were attended by Hanadi and her comrades who were deported over the course of 7 years of deportation, and Al-Halwani revealed that the upturned pot was called “the victory stew” in Jerusalem, and it is “a name after its name. ".

Palestinian women banished from Al-Aqsa Mosque cook Maqluba weekly in Ramadan to feed fasting people and remind them of their cause (Al-Jazeera)

Rabat creatively

"In the upside-down we link creatively, in Jerusalem we cannot have a weapon in the face of the occupiers, so we invented other weapons, and when I cook the upside down I put the spices of steadfastness and steadfastness, and I cook it with the intention of praising the occupier, and conveying the voice of the exiled to the whole world. The upside down is not an end but a means." She said that the upturned table gathered around it the conversations of Rabat, the adventures of entering Jerusalem, and the longings of the exiles.

The deported Khadija Khweis showed to Al-Jazeera Net the most prominent goals of "Al-Maqluba", which is to break the fast of fasting people, mobilize people in Al-Aqsa, and highlight an aesthetic image in it, especially for those outside Palestine, and restore the pioneering role of Al-Aqsa, which is not limited to prayer or the Holy Qur'an, but to social activities that It does not contradict the sanctity of the mosque.

The continents crossed and the occupier interrogated its contributors in the intelligence rooms.. How did the "upside-down" become a qualitative weapon in Jerusalem?

Khadija Khweis (right) and Hanadi Al-Halawani during the overturning of Maqluba on the doorstep of Al-Aqsa (Al-Jazeera - Archive)

Aptly named

Khweis added, "We chose the maqluba and grape leaves (varicose) dish because of the appearance of the heart, which can be easily turned over compared to other dishes, and it is to turn the table on the head of the enemy."

Paradoxically, the occupation prevented us several times from bringing the inverted stew to Al-Aqsa Mosque, considering it a form of support for Rabat and the Almoravids.

The two deportees from Al-Aqsa conclude that the Maqluba heart was not limited to the month of Ramadan, but extended it to supererogatory fasting breakfasts such as Mondays and Thursdays and some other religious occasions. One of the countries they visited.