Ribāṭ in Palestine: life on the frontier

ABSTRACT

This article examines the meaning of ribāṭ in the Palestinian context. The term ribāṭ has been attributed meanings that vary according to period and place. It has often been studied in relation to medieval structures around the Mediterranean coastline and is generally defined as connected to the defence of Muslim lands. However, my research, conducted in Israel-Palestine, indicates that the term also has a very contemporary existence and constitutes an intrinsic part of the Palestinian repertoire of resistance. By scrutinising the Palestinian ribāṭ, in this article I seek to contribute to the wider debate around the meanings attributed to the term, both by tracing its historical continuity and by demonstrating its regional specificity, as a practice imbued with a fundamental territorial dimension.

While Palestinians include many elements of the traditional meaning in their use of ribāṭ, such as the idea of defending the land, they have also adapted it to the regional context. For the Palestinians, ribāṭ is by definition linked to three embedded holy spaces – al-Aqsa, Jerusalem and Palestine – considered sacred for both religious and political reasons. This article engages with the dual process of territorialisation and bordering implied by the concept of ribāṭ in the Palestinian context, revealing how it brings together the idea of a life on the frontier.

KEYWORDS:

• Palestine
• Israel
• ribāṭ
• Islam
• border
• frontier
• territory

‘God says about us, who live in Jerusalem, that we are ‘in ribāṭ,’ it means that we stay here whatever happens, until the Judgement Day.’¹ This is a statement often heard in Jerusalem, and also in other Palestinian communities in the West Bank or within Israel.² This use of the term ribāṭ (in Arabic رباط ) connects the Palestinian struggle to a wider historical and religious context and interweaves it within a long chain of related and sometimes conflicting understandings. The term has been attributed varying meanings according to period and place. In the academic literature, the notion of ribāṭ is usually invoked in connection with the medieval period and is mostly used to designate a type of fort built along the Mediterranean coastline – but also in central Asia – between the 8th and 10^th centuries. The term is generally defined as being connected to the defence of Muslim lands. However, my own research, conducted in Israel-Palestine over the last decade, has showed that the term also has a very contemporary existence and acceptation and constitutes an intrinsic part of the Palestinian repertoire of resistance. In this article, I seek to emphasise the spatial dimension of ribāṭ through a scrutiny of the Palestinian case, and in so doing to contribute to the wider debate around the meanings attributed to it. My findings identify an historical continuity with previous uses of the term, but also demonstrate its specificity in the region, where ribāṭ represents an everyday, mundane practice of resistance, imbued with a fundamental territorial dimension.

In recent years, the movement of the murābiṭūn and murābiṭāt in Jerusalem – individuals ‘doing ribāṭ’ in order to defend al-Aqsa from the repeated incursions of Jewish far-right religious nationalist groups who seek to modify the status quo in the compound (see for example Schmitt 2017) – has given new visibility to the centrality of the term within the Palestinian struggle. Particularly active in 2015, the murābiṭūn and murābiṭāt have attracted scholarly and media coverage, but the very reference upon which the movement is built has often been only briefly considered. I argue, however, that this movement should be analysed within a larger framework: references to ribāṭ in Palestine date back at least to the first Intifada and apply to a range of situations that go well beyond the current situation in al-Aqsa. Even though references to and practices of ribāṭ were previously more discreet, notably because it used usually to be performed individually, the idea itself already existed among certain segments of Palestinian society and was often mobilised in quotidian situations of struggle.

References to ribāṭ in the Palestinian context connect not only to a long tradition within Islam and the Arab world, but are also found within the scholarly literature, where ribāṭ has been carefully studied from historical and archaeological perspectives. However, I also endeavour to demonstrate here that, while displaying a connection to these established definitions, the Palestinian ribāṭ claims a specificity of its own: it is strictly territorial, and specifically designates a duty to defend and protect the holy spaces, most notably al-Aqsa, Jerusalem and Palestine, considered on different scales.

This article thus examines how the term ribāṭ has become in Palestine a political tool articulating the religious and nationalist idioms, affirming this dual sacredness of the land, with Jerusalem as its epicentre. The wide use of ribāṭ, sometimes beyond that of the religious parties, and the increasing references to ribāṭ and the murābiṭūn/ murābiṭāt in the Palestinian discourse over the last few years, highlight a shift in the repertoire of resistance and Palestinian political discourse towards a strengthening of the religious aspect in the Palestinian struggle. More importantly, I argue that ribāṭ concomitantly allows for a territorialisation of resistance and for a ‘territorialization of faith’ (Anderson 2006, p. 17). I will show, moreover, how this territorialisation is connected to the perception and production of borders that are opposed symbolically to the omnipresent and ever-advancing frontiers of the Israeli settler colonialism (see for example Sayegh 1965, Veracini 2019, Sabbagh-Khoury 2022). I contend that the notion of ribāṭ, like that of ṣumūd, ³ is quintessentially territorial, but that it differs from ṣumūd first because of its religious connotation; and second, and perhaps notably, in that it implies a life lived ‘on the frontier.’ Indeed, ribāṭ involves the notion of limits, or borders, which in the Palestinian case pervade every aspect of daily life, every space, from the domestic to the national. People performing or appealing to ribāṭ are indeed, as we will see, acknowledging their presence on a frontier or border that needs to be guarded, while at the same time producing that very limit (Lefebvre 1991) – which is perceptible on various scales, from the micro to the macro.

Methodology

My analysis is based on several periods of ethnographic fieldwork carried out in the West Bank (occupied Palestinian territories) and Israel between 2011 and 2019.⁴ It draws more specifically on around 35 semi-directed interviews as well as on numerous informal conversations in Arabic and English with a variety of Palestinian individuals in different places, such as Jerusalem, Hebron, the Naqab-Negev desert and Ramallah.⁵ The term ribāṭ first arose in several interviews carried out with residents and activists involved in local struggles against the Israeli occupation in Silwan (East Jerusalem) in 2011 and 2012, well before the emergence of the murābiṭūn and murābiṭāt movement. It should be noted that the references to ribāṭ were thus initially unprompted. The term also spontaneously arose in various informal conversations and daily-life situations that I documented in my fieldnotes, such as the prayer conducted in the al-Bustan tent (East Jerusalem) on February 15, 2013.

Having observed a recurring pattern in the field, which seemed to indicate the importance of the notion of ribāṭ in the Palestinian repertoire, I conducted a specific study on the topic following completion of my PhD dissertation. Complementary interviews were thus conducted between 2016 and 2019 to identify the meanings and practices of ribāṭ in Palestine, and also to locate it within the historical and religious references that abound in the literature on the subject. These interviews were conducted with scholars, with representatives of Muslim institutions (most notably the Awqaf in Jerusalem) and of neighbourhood committees, people connected to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and activists involved in local struggles, as well as with residents, men and women encountered in the course of my research, in daily-life situations or through associations, activist or not, and pious Muslims as well as secular ones. Many of those interviewees, like Archbishop Theodosios of Sebastia and Hanadi al-Halawani, one of the leading figures of the murābiṭāt, had been previously identified as spontaneously using the term in public appearances or interviews.⁶

Incorporating a broad variety of interviewees seemed particularly important in order to obtain a realistic grasp of the use of ribāṭ in Palestinian society, rather than to rely solely on informed interviewees, and also to balance the possible bias that targeted questions might have implied. This broad variety of interlocutors also ensured that I was not overestimating the importance of the term. I confirmed that it was indeed widely known but was claimed and used mostly in Muslim conservative and religious circles. While many Palestinians were familiar with the term and some of the religious quotations that accompany it, it is important to acknowledge that many of the more secular or liberal Palestinians, or those who were less politicised, were sometimes not familiar with either the term or its implications.

This article also draws upon a large spectrum of the existing scholarly literature from different disciplines (history, archaeology, political science) on the topic of ribāṭ, as well as from the archives of the Palestine Liberation Organization at the Yasser Arafat Museum (Ramallah), complemented by Palestinian newspapers and other secondary sources, such as websites of political parties, Islamic forums and YouTube videos.

Structure of the article

The first part of this article is dedicated to the debates around the meaning and use of the term ribāṭ, from an historical perspective: first, I trace the common approach that can be found in the Occidental scholarship, largely connected to a strong archaeological tradition dating back to the beginning of the twentieth century. The term was at the time connected to a particular architecture of the medieval period, located around the Mediterranean coastline, but especially studied in the area of Al-Andalus and the Maghreb. I discuss how this established definition shifted from a material definition (ribāṭ as a building) to an abstract one (ribāṭ as an idea and a type of practice), a shift apparently confirmed by the present-day references to ribāṭ. I then move on to demonstrate the continuity between the past understandings of ribāṭ and contemporary occurrences of the term, such as in certain movements connected to radical Islam, and in the Palestinian struggle.

The second part of the article focuses on the geographies of ribāṭ in Palestine, highlighting how they stem from a religious duty to protect the holy places on different scales, from the micro-level of the house and al-Aqsa to the macro-level of the region and the ‘Holy Land.’ I argue that this reveals a strong territorial dimension that simultaneously integrates the religious and nationalist narratives of the Palestinian struggle. The first section of this part engages with the discourse on ribāṭ in Palestine, examining the religious and secular references that sustain its usage, as well as the way in which it is rooted in different territorial configurations. This is followed by an examination of the borders acknowledged and produced through the Palestinian ribāṭ around al-Aqsa. It reveals the material and symbolic, horizontal and vertical processes of bordering that the idea and practice of ribāṭ encompass. Finally, the last section explores the idea of frontier and its value with regard to ribāṭ in Palestine: it reveals that the frontiers guarded in ribāṭ extend from the individual to the collective, and from the local to the regional, highlighting how Palestinians can be said to live and struggle ‘on the frontier’ – as the frontier is everywhere.

Historical and contemporary understandings of ribāṭ⁷

Defining Ribāṭ: from architecture to practice

Ribāṭ is a term with meanings that change according to the ‘region and time’ (Bonner 2006, p. 166). Numerous authors have underlined the confusion around the concept (Chabbi 1997, Franco Sánchez 2004, Bonner 2006). Its most common use in the Occidental scholarship is as a substantive connected to a type of building, namely a fort on the borders of the Muslim empire, often along a coastline. This use is largely based upon the work of various French historians who studied the ribāṭs in Morocco and Tunisia at the beginning of the twentieth century (Doutté 1900a, 1900b, Basset and Terrasse 1927, Marçais 1956, Lézine 1956a, 1956b). In 1900, Doutté, for example, asserted in his ‘Notes on Maghribin Islam’ that the ribāṭs were ‘forts built upon the borders of Muslim empires where a garrison of volunteers was defending the territory of Islam against foreigners’ attacks’ (Doutté 1900a, p. 29).⁸ This definition was already a matter of debate at the time, as shown by the more precise explanation he presented in his ‘Additional notes’ published shortly after, in which he notes a second, more spiritual acceptation – that of the ‘action of assiduously devoting one’s soul to the service of God,’ which could connect to ascetic practices (Doutté 1900b, p. 93). Numerous authors have provided definitions along the same line: ribāṭs were, for example, presented in the 1950s as ‘fortified convents’ (Basset and Terrasse 1927, p. 117, Zbiss 1954, p. 144) and ‘maritime fortresses’ (Zbiss, ibid.). This architectural perspective, which combined war and religion, continued to consider the ribāṭs as a type of ‘Muslim military monastery’ (Bonner 2006, p. 137). Navigating these two understandings, scholars generally agree on the increasing importance of religion and spirituality within the communities that settled in these forts after the twelth century (Sourdel and Sourdel 1996, p. 709). I have developed more extensively elsewhere the various definitions attributed to the term (Lecoquierre 2022) and the debates around the level and intricacies of the militaristic and spiritual activities that took place in those locations (see for example Golvin 1969, Bosworth 1992, Kennedy 2011). Various authors indeed strongly disagree among themselves regarding the importance that spirituality played in these forts: while some see them as a ‘Muslim equivalent of a [Christian] monastery’ (Kennedy 2011, p. 161), Jacqueline Chabbi, in her seminal definition of ribāṭ in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, insists that this approach is both an ‘extrapolation and misinterpretation,’ even though ‘urban residences of Ṣūfīs were subsequently known as ribāṭ’ (Chabbi 1997, p. 494).

The defensive function of these forts remains their main purpose, which interests us here as it is first and foremost a defence of the frontiers. Chabbi presents the murābiṭūn as ‘those who dwell on the frontier’ (Chabbi 1997, p. 495). This still today remains the most accepted definition of the term, featuring for example in the New Cambridge History of Islam, in which ribāṭs are described as ‘frontier forts’ (El-Hibri 2010, p. 279), ‘defensive structures’ (Bonner 2006, p. 319), ‘fortresses guarding the North African coast’ (ibid.: 341) and ‘frontier posts’ (ibid., p. 344). Ribāṭs can thus be located on various types of frontiers, internal or external: they are often studied with respect to the thughūr, the fortifications or ‘frontier district’ established between the Arab territories and the Byzantine Empire (Bonner 1987). Many were situated along the Mediterranean coastline (see for example Khalilieh 1999, 2008, Varela Gomes and Varela Gomes 2003, 2015, Picard 2011), or at the interface with Central Asia (Bosworth 1992, Rhonè 2003, Bonner 2006).

It should be noted here that there are also two types of ribāṭ-buildings found in historical Palestine: some situated along the Mediterranean coastline, dating from between the 8th and 10th centuries (Khalilieh 1999, 2008) and some in Jerusalem, erected during the Mamluk period (13th-16th centuries) around the al-Aqsa compound (Burgoyne 1987).

Despite the extensive literature and studies existing on the topic, the most common definition designating ribāṭ as a typology of building and the activity taking place there is now contested and considered as being too restrictive and static: Picard and Borrut, for example, criticise Western historiography for having ‘frozen’ the meaning of ribāṭ (Picard and Borrut 2003, p. 33). However, such historiography does indicate those elements that remain a constant – namely, a link to territorial struggles and to the Islamic faith.

Various authors, following a position already expressed by Chabbi (1997), now contend that ribāṭ is first and foremost a practice or an attitude (Rhonè 2003, Picard 2011), a ‘religious practice’ (Picard 2011, p. 121), a ‘type of action, a ‘doing-ribāṭ’’ (De la Vaissière 2008, p. 72) and that those forts on the frontier that were traditionally called ‘ribāṭ’ should be better designated as ‘places of ribāṭ’ (Picard and Borrut, ibid, p. 36). As noted by Bonner, ‘the study of ribāṭ is thus about more than the derivation or evolution of a word: it is about transformations in social practice’ (Bonner 2006, p. 137). In light of this debate, the contemporary take on ribāṭ represented by the Palestinian case is important, as it introduces a real-life example of ribāṭ as a practice, while still retaining the constant features outlined above.

Ribāṭ in contemporary times

An element that sustains this idea of constant evolution in the definition of ribāṭ as a changing but enduring practice is the use of the concept by movements connected to radical Islam (Long 2009, p. 37), notably as reported in Dabiq, the journal connected to Da’esh (Ingram 2016), but also in journals linked to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (Inspire) and to the ‘Taliban in Khurasan’ (Azan, see Ingram 2015), all published in English. They all consistently point to a similar activity as that described in the medieval texts, but without the material, architectural dimension: ribāṭ is used in these journals to designate an activity of watch duty or ‘frontier guarding.’⁹ The term also qualifies a type of space: the ‘ribāṭ checkpoints’¹⁰ and ‘ribāṭ area’¹¹ are places considered for their defensive purpose. These radical Islamic groups use ribāṭ not to designate a physical, built place, but as a practice linked to the defence of Muslim territory and presence on the border. This division of space draws on the classical doctrine of Islam that distinguishes the ‘dār al-islām’ – the ‘territories where peace and the faith of Islam reign’ (Abel 1991, p. 127) – and the ‘dār al-ḥarb,’ which encompasses the neighbouring territories where ‘the Muslim law is not in force’ (Abel 1991, p. 126), or, in a more radical interpretation, the ‘countries that are at war with the Muslims.’¹² These journals often associate ribāṭ with jihad (see also Aboul-Enein and Zuhur 2004, p. 5) , insisting that they are both a ‘farḍ al-ʿīn,’ an individual obligation for all Muslims.¹³ Associating the ideas of territory, struggle and religion, this use indicates a continuity with the medieval practice of ‘guarding the frontier’ (Golvin 1969, p. 97). The basic feature of ribāṭ appears to be that of the religious duty of defending Muslim lands, with the territory being defined in various ways; it also emphasises the continuous importance of the borders.

The Palestinian understanding of ribāṭ offers a fascinating look into other aspects of the term, and also into further evolutions. The study of ribāṭ in the Palestinian context is almost non-existent, but recent scholarship has engaged with one of its ramifications, the mobilisation of murābiṭūn and murābiṭāt in Jerusalem to defend al-Aqsa. Kenny Schmitt focused on this 2015 movement that gave increased visibility to the ‘latent, symbolic resonance of ribāṭ language’ (2020, p. 89). He defines ribāṭ as a way to ‘protect what is being aggressed upon,’ namely, the Muslim faith (2017, p. 27). While this definition does cover one aspect of these mobilisations, I contend that it overlooks one essential dimension in accounting for the Palestinian ribāṭ: its territorial character. I thus intend to expand here upon both the traditional definition and Schmitt’s definitions in order to demonstrate that the Palestinian ribāṭ adds new elements by which to apprehend its meanings and ramifications.

The murābiṭāt actions intended to defend al-Aqsa have a clear connection to the Muslim faith; it is however first and foremost the space itself that is protected. It is indeed al-Aqsa as a sacred place that is seen as being threatened by the incursions of Jewish settlers and religious zealots. Moreover, a wider perspective of the term indicates that ribāṭ is also connected to Jerusalem and Palestine as holy Islamic sites. It is also sometimes invoked at sites that need to be defended against advancing Israeli colonisation but which do not have a religious importance: in this sense, the term should be studied not only for its religious meaning but also for the way in which it sheds light on how notions derived from Islam have become central to the Palestinian nationalist struggle. Ribāṭ aims at protecting, in the same movement, both the faith and a territory, as the territory represents and even incarnates that faith. It is simultaneously spiritual and spatial, religious and political. Ribāṭ is indeed fundamentally emplaced; it has meaning only insofar as it is rooted in spaces and places whose sacredness imbues them with meaning. The evolution of the term and its integration into the Palestinian repertoire indeed means too that the term can also be employed in a secular way, in which the defence of the territory becomes entwined with the faith, with the aspect of sacredness thereby becoming partly a national one.

For Palestinians – whether in the Palestinian occupied territories or in Israel – ribāṭ is a contemporary practice, lived and constantly actualised. It is ‘a repertoire and way to frame the struggle, a practical tool for action and a set of representations directing their application’ (Lecoquierre 2022, p. 213). The basic understanding of the word is connected to its etymology. The root of the word, r-b-ṭ, indeed means ‘to tie,’ ‘to attach,’ and was first used to designate a gathering of horses,¹⁴ but later became linked to ‘the notion of staying or of attachment to a place’ (Chabbi 1997, p. 494). This notion of attachment is interpreted in various ways: an Imam from Dura (near Hebron), for example, explained that Palestine is ‘the land of ribāṭ’ because it is where the Prophet tied up (rabaṭ) his steed Buraq after his night journey.¹⁵ The most common definition is, however, that of a link between the land and the Palestinian people, as expressed by residents of Hebron: ‘ribāṭ means to tie yourself to your land,’¹⁶ ‘We are tied to the place, to the land’ (field notes, Hebron, November 13, 2016); and by an activist from Silwan (East Jerusalem): ‘Ribāṭ means to tie yourself to something. (…) We are tied to Jerusalem and to al-Aqsa.’¹⁷

Ribāṭ is thus, first and foremost, territorial. From this perspective it can be compared to ṣumūd, usually translated as ‘steadfastness’ or perseverance (see for example Shalhoub-Kevorkian 2005, Halper 2006). Both ribāṭ and ṣumūd rely on a presence rooted in place and can be understood as territorial or ‘habitational’ (Collins 2011, p. 124) as they depend largely on people ‘inhabiting’ the land, which is incarnated in the home as well as in the national territory (Lecoquierre 2022, p. 74). The Palestinians I interviewed often connected and compared both terms, with different takes on the matter. As will become clear throughout this article, ribāṭ is based primarily on religious references, and many devout Muslims emphasised its religious character and connection to Islam. However, the term seems to have acquired a wider appeal in Palestinian society and is sometimes used by Palestinians affiliated with non-religious parties or, in one instance, even by a Christian cleric.

The term emerges in various public speeches made by Yasser Arafat, although its inclusion in Palestinian popular discourse is probably older. Several Palestinians have noted that it has been a central term since 1948 but that it gained traction with the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank after 1967 and the threats to al-Aqsa. During the 1974 Arab Summit in Rabat, when the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) demanded its recognition by the Arab League as the sole representative of the Palestinian people, Yasser Arafat declared that Palestinians are ‘murābiṭīn in Jerusalem.’¹⁸ The term seems to have become more central with the emergence of Hamas during the first Intifada: the word is absent in the leaflets of the Palestinian United National Command referenced by Mishal and Aharoni (1994), but the first leaflet of the Islamic resistance movement starts with ‘o murābiṭūn on the soil of immaculate and beloved Palestine!’ (p. 201), the second with ‘our people the murābiṭ’ (p. 214) and the seventh with ‘o Muslims on the soil of the ribāṭ’ (p. 214).

An in-depth analysis of the terms and discourses discussed here should be undertaken in the future in order to better highlight the evolution of the meanings and uses of the term during the first Intifada. However, it apparently became more infused with nationalism and was always more particularly applied to Palestine in the following years. Indeed, its mobilisation during the Intifada might have been the trigger to include it as a central category in the Palestinian repertoire. In the 1990s the use of ribāṭ became common in both the political and public spheres. Yasser Arafat, for example, again used the term in July 1998, in a speech given in Rabat in front of the Jerusalem Committee, declaring that the Palestinian people in Jerusalem and Palestine are ‘murābiṭ[in] in the land of ribāṭ.’¹⁹ Many of the Palestinians interviewed automatically associate ribāṭ with the speeches of the late Palestinian leader, insisting that he often made use of the term. Mahmoud Abbas, successor to Arafat as the head of the Palestinian National Authority, also frequently employs the term in his addresses to the Palestinians.²⁰

The increasing importance of the term in Palestinian discourse and practices corresponds to a shift in the framing of the Palestinian struggle, from ‘muqāwama waṭaniyya’ (nationalist resistance) to ‘muqāwama islāmiyya’ (Islamic resistance).²¹ This shift followed the rise in power of Islamic groups such as Hamas, the reinforcement of mobilisation on religious grounds – a process that has been termed the ‘Islamisation’ of Palestinian identity and land – and also the integration of nationalist motives within Islamic claims (see for example Litvak 1996, 1998, Alhaj et al. 2014).

The meaning and practice of ribāṭ are thus intrinsically linked to the territory: like ṣumūd, it represents an occurrence of the territorialisation of resistance. Territorialisation is considered here as the process both of vesting the territory with meaning and of making territory a fundamental element in the way in which the individuals involved define or decline their representations and actions. It implies a double movement, whereby the territory is a basis and argument of the resistance; it incarnates its claims, and the resistance practices in turn produce the territory through deeply emplaced practices and representations (Lecoquierre 2022). Bringing together the territory and its meanings, both national and religious, makes ribāṭ a concept tailor-made for religious nationalism.

The sacred geographies of ribāṭ

The Palestinian ribāṭ has various configurations and magnitudes, which depend on two main variables: contention and sanctity, which weave together religion and nationalism, the precepts of Islam and the struggle for Palestinian self-determination. These variables set apart al-Aqsa, Jerusalem and Palestine as spaces that are important for two reasons: as being critical for the definition of the Palestinian ribāṭ, and also as places that crystallise its practice. These spaces correspond to three interdependent geographical scales imbued with deep religious sanctity. They also have a central importance from a nationalist point of view. As a member of the Afro-Palestinian community of Jerusalem, Eid Qous, asserted: ribāṭ is ‘linked to the land, to al-Aqsa, to Jerusalem and to the country.’²² In the next three sections, I explore these various geographies of ribāṭ, while considering what they imply in terms of the suggested scales, territorial configurations and conception of the frontiers.

Spaces of contention and sanctity in Palestine

The embedded geographies of ribāṭ are encapsulated in the familiar quotation calling upon Palestinians to be ‘in ribāṭ until Judgement Day, in Jerusalem and around Jerusalem’ (Fī ribāṭ ḥattā yawm al-Qiyāma, fī Bayt al-Maqdis wa-aknāf Bayt al-Maqdis). This reference was often mentioned, by interviewees and by other Palestinians in informal conversations, as being central to the Palestinian ribāṭ. A resident of Wadi Hilwe, in Silwan (East Jerusalem), for example, while speaking about the practices of resistance performed in the neighbourhood, spontaneously stated: ‘God says about us in Jerusalem ‘ribāṭ,’ it means we are staying here whatever happens, until the Judgement Day.’²³ Another Silwan resident similarly explained: ‘The word comes from the hadiths. The Prophet said: ‘they are in a status of ribāṭ until Judgement Day.’’²⁴ A similar explanation was also advanced in Hebron: ‘It comes from religious culture, all the people of Palestine and the surroundings of Palestine are ‘in ribāṭ until the Judgement Day.’’²⁵

This well-known quotation, which informs much of the Palestinian discourse on ribāṭ, is rooted in several hadiths as well as in the speeches of Yasser Arafat, who, according to numerous interlocutors, often quoted this very sentence, which contains slight variations with respect to the original hadiths (Long 2009, p. 40, Lecoquierre 2022, pp. 213–215). The mention of ‘Jerusalem and its surroundings’ refers precisely to the holy trinity of the Palestinian struggle, represented by al-Aqsa, Jerusalem and Palestine, with each being a reflection and an incarnation of the others. Eid Qous insisted on the symbolic interrelations between these spaces: ‘When we say Jerusalem it means al-Aqsa, when we say al-Aqsa, it means Palestine.’²⁶

The highest level of sanctity and contention is concentrated in al-Aqsa, whose holiness and political significance radiate onto the surrounding territories. Al-Aqsa indeed represents the central sacred place for Palestinian Muslims, and a national symbol for Palestinians in general. As such, it is the epicentre of the land and of ribāṭ. The defence of al-Aqsa is seen as a central duty for Palestinians: ‘For them [the Jewish Israelis] we are occupying it, they want to demolish it and build their temple.’²⁷ The holiness of Jerusalem and Palestine are byproducts of this pre-eminence of al-Aqsa, and the implication is that they are to be defended as well, as they too are Muslim holy lands. According to Najeh Bkerat, director of the Islamic waqf in Al-Aqsa: ‘All Palestine is the land for ribāṭ because al-Aqsa is at the centre of Palestine; Palestine is called ‘ārḍ al-ribāṭ’ [the land of ribāṭ], ‘al-ārḍ al-Israʾ [the land of Isra], ‘al – ārḍ al-Miʿrāj,’ from where the Prophet went to heaven, ‘al – ārḍ al-muqaddasa,’ [the holy land], and ‘al- ārḍ al-mubāraka’ [the blessed land].’²⁸ Abu A., who has worked in the al-Aqsa compound for the last 27 years, also stated that ‘We are all murābiṭūn here, in all Palestine.’²⁹

Beyond Jerusalem, where ribāṭ is now well-known as a means of resistance, ribāṭ has been mobilised throughout historical Palestine for some years. The Haram al-Ibrahimi, in Hebron, whose sanctity too is acknowledged, albeit less important than that of al-Aqsa,³⁰ is sometimes also considered as a place from which ribāṭ can emanate, or which should be protected through ribāṭ. A resident of Hebron’s old city, for example, pointed out: ‘Here in Hebron ‘ribāṭ’ is linked with the Haram. But in general, we forget about the Haram and we think about Jerusalem.’³¹ This illustrates how the practice of ribāṭ is tied up with the definition and perception of territories and their meaning. It can be read as an occurrence of the ‘territorialization of faith’ mentioned by Anderson (2006, p. 17), a process integral to the production of religious nationalist discourses, as the presence on the land is vested with a double value. Devout Muslims often insist on the religious nature of the word, of its being rooted in religious culture and reference, explaining that ṣumūd is the term used from a strictly secular nationalist perspective.³²

This religious dimension is nevertheless interwoven with a national one – the national struggle for self-determination. All three of the scales considered here are central to Palestinian aspirations for nationhood: in addition to its reference to the defence of the Holy Land and holy places, ribāṭ has become part of the repertoire of the Palestinian people’s contention in the face of Israeli hegemony. Indeed, ribāṭ as an explicit repertoire appears to be particularly connected to hotspots of contention, to places that are especially contested. It is, for example, activated as a central category in the discourses and practices in Silwan, al-Araqib and Hebron – all places with high levels of resistance and repression, and which have become minor epicentres of ribāṭ (Lecoquierre 2022).

This is made clear in the way in which some Palestinians claim the term when accounting for the national struggle against Israeli settler colonialism and occupation, downplaying its religious aspects. K., an employee of the Awqaf in Jerusalem, for example, contends that ribāṭ is an Arabic word that predates Islam, and as such cannot be said to be specifically religious: for him ‘all people use it, all parties.’³³ Another interviewee from Jerusalem used the same argument, highlighting the etymology and the attachment to the land to which it refers: ‘ribāṭ is religious, social, nationalist. It comes from the Arabic language, not the Qurʾān.’³⁴ Jawad Siyam, a secular activist from Silwan, has argued along the same lines to justify a secular use of ribāṭ, contending that it simply means to ‘tie yourself to something.’³⁵ Yusuf Natsheh, responsible for tourism and archaeology for the Awqaf administration in Jerusalem, also affirms that it refers to both a secular and a religious duty.³⁶

Palestinian Christians do not in general seem to refer to ribāṭ, but it is worth mentioning that Archbishop Theodosios,³⁷ the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia, known for his position against the occupation and his defence of the Palestinian cause and identity, claims the term ribāṭ also for Christians: ‘Ribāṭ is performed in the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Holy Sepulchre. Ribāṭ is in our holy places (al-muqaddasāt), endowments, institutions, Jerusalem, etc. (…) Ribāṭ is performed in Jerusalem first, because it is more threatened than anywhere else in Palestine. Then it is performed in the rest of the Palestinian territories.’³⁸ Defining himself as a staunch nationalist, he argues that ribāṭ belongs to the repertoire of the Palestinian people, existing beyond religion and political affiliations, and connected only to the defence of the nation (waṭan).

The practice of ribāṭ in Palestine appears to be concomitantly diffuse and place-specific: it can be mobilised everywhere, considering the dual status of the territory, sacred for both religious and nationalist reasons. As such, all Palestinian Muslims are, potentially, in ribāṭ, as expressed by one resident of Al-Araqib, an unrecognised Bedouin village in the Naqab-Negev desert: ‘Of course we are in ribāṭ, all the Muslims in Palestine are murābiṭūn!’.³⁹ S., a resident of Silwan, also claimed: ‘Every Palestinian who lives in this land despite the suffering is a murābiṭ. Everyone is a murābiṭ because we protect our right to be here. It would be easier to go to Jordan, to the United States, it would be more secure. But we choose to live here, to suffer.’⁴⁰ As ṣumūd, this invokes a fully-fledged repertoire of resistance, and also a way of life. Ribāṭ however differs from ṣumūd in the importance given to the ideas of border and frontier.

Ribāṭ and the multiple borderings of al-Aqsa

As shown above, the defensive nature of ribāṭ has historically been translated into a physical presence on the borders, marches or frontiers defining a territory. How is this aspect of ribāṭ related to the Palestinian case? Even though this aspect is seldom mentioned explicitly as central to the way that Palestinians define ribāṭ, I would argue that the mobilisation of the term is still connected both to borders – material or symbolic – and to the idea of frontier as a dynamic interface, a liminal border area. The Israeli settler colonial project indeed favours ambiguous delimitations, resorting to an ‘unbounded territoriality’ that keeps the limits of its sovereignty vague (Salazar Hughes 2020). Ribāṭ is precisely connected to these pervasive and moving frontiers, dynamic in-between areas where various relations of power are played out.

The main borders considered in the Palestinian ribāṭ are those that enclose al-Aqsa. The entire enclosure that is to be defended is indeed clearly delimited; al-Aqsa is in a way fortified, being surrounded by solid walls and buildings on all sides. The enclosure represents a border for religious reasons too: it represents a threshold to holy ground, the demarcation between the city and its religious core. It is useful to recall here that the Mamluk ribāṭs built in Jerusalem, meant to accommodate pilgrims and the poor (Van Berchem 1922), were all located strictly around, and sometimes inside, al-Aqsa, in the streets leading to the mosque esplanade, and often near its access gates. Their location reveals that this was a liminal area, which represented an important interface between mundane and holy ground.⁴¹

The strengthening connection between ribāṭ and al-Aqsa in Palestinian discourse and practice can be connected to two interrelated trends: first, the rise in power of political Islam in Israel and Palestine, with Hamas gaining momentum after 2005, and the Islamic movement in Israel gaining visibility at the end of the 1990s, notably through the leader of its northern branch, Raed Salah, the al-Aqsa association and the campaign ‘al-Aqsa in danger’ (Larkin and Dumper 2012); and secondly, the rapidly increasing number of incursions of Jewish extremists into the al-Aqsa compound, which led in 2015 to the most visible and studied occurrence of ribāṭ in the Palestinian struggle – the murābiṭūn and murābiṭāt movement. This movement refers to the mobilisation of Palestinian men and women – with the latter rapidly becoming the main participants as men were quickly prevented from entering al-Aqsa. They gathered there every morning to display their attachment and commitment to the place and oppose their presence to the groups of Jewish extremists visiting the compound. The practice gained momentum around 2013 and reached a peak in 2015. The main practices of the murābiṭāt were to study the Qurʾān in the open and oppose the intrusions by shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ at the Jewish visitors (see for example Tzidkiyahu 2015, Schmitt 2020): ‘Morning is the settler time, they break into al-Aqsa. Don’t forget their aim is to occupy al-Aqsa, to damage it. This is the reason why murābiṭūn call ‘Allahu Akbar:’ God is over all of us, it is not violent.’⁴² The participants were mostly Palestinian women from Jerusalem, but some also came from the north of Israel (notably Umm al-Fahm and Taybeh) and sometimes the Naqab,⁴³ brought by buses organised by the two branches of the Islamic movement, northern and southern.⁴⁴

The director of the southern branch of the Islamic movement in Israel, Ghazi Issa, has explained that since ribāṭ has become politically charged and now represents a dangerous buzzword for the Israeli authorities, the organisation prefers to avoid its use altogether, presenting the trips to al-Aqsa as part of ‘shadd al-riḥāl,’ a pilgrimage trip, even though the goals have remained the same.⁴⁵ This choice of word is in keeping with the strategy of the southern branch to avoid confrontational practices and focus instead on community work. Ghazi Issa has indeed insisted that the position of the southern faction stems from the necessity to find ‘a new way of jihad for the Arab Israelis (…) Because we have a different life, we don’t live in Gaza or Hebron, we live in Israel, we have an Israeli passport, we live under the Israeli government. The jihad we have to wage is to create associations, serve the people, give them services.’⁴⁶

The limits delineating al-Aqsa also represent borders in a political sense, in representing a shift in sovereignty: al-Aqsa is indeed administered by the Jordanian Ministry of Waqf and represents a ‘semiautonomous enclave within areas of Israeli military control’ (Dumper 2014, p. 118), as the rest of the Old City is administered by Israel. All accesses to the Haram al-Sharif are controlled by the Israeli police and army, who impose changing rules upon the Palestinians and handle security matters. Hanadi al-Halawani, one of the leading figures of the murābiṭāt, has, for example, been regularly banned from entering the compound.⁴⁷

The murābiṭūn and murābiṭāt movement was outlawed by the Israeli government in September 2015. It was declared an ‘illegal organisation,’ under the contention that it was an extension of the northern branch of the Islamic movement in Israel, which was itself outlawed two months later. S., a resident of Silwan, who used to participate in the murābiṭāt gatherings, and whom I interviewed in October 2016, insisted on remaining anonymous for fear of being put on an Israeli blacklist. After the movement was outlawed, she still went twice a week to al-Aqsa for morning study sessions in reading the Qurʾān, which now took place in the library of the compound, beneath the al-Aqsa mosque. She explained how access to al-Aqsa was still strictly monitored, and any Muslim visitor had to leave their ID card at the police control point in exchange for a yellow entrance ticket, thus ensuring leverage against potential unrest.

These measures demonstrate how the enclosure of the Haram represents a real internal border within Jerusalem, deriving from political considerations. The idea of ribāṭ in general, and the mobilisation of the murābiṭūn and murābiṭāt specifically, represent a bordering process that reinforces the meaning of the al-Aqsa enclosure as a symbolic religious border. The murābiṭūn/ murābiṭāt defend the land by defining its limits and the threshold that materialises a transgression, in a performative practice. The buildings and walls enclosing al-Aqsa represent a limit of sanctity and a religious and political border, but also an interface towards the Old City when considered from a Palestinian and Muslim perspective. Al-Aqsa also represents the continuity of the surrounding spaces and neighbourhoods, a site where people can pray and also study and gather, and where children can play – in other words, a public holy place. Hanadi al-Halawani designates it as ‘her home’ (baytī),⁴⁸ a common way for the murābiṭāt to qualify the holy enclosure (Schmitt 2020, p. 295). The severe restrictions imposed by the Israelis, however, transform the character of the place and solidify the border for Palestinians, further removing al-Aqsa from their lived space.

If ribāṭ can designate the borders that physically delimit Muslim land – typically the borders of the Muslim Empires in the Middle Ages – it can also be applied to a ‘mystical’ or ‘internal’ border (Picard 2011, p. 134). This dimension is clear in the Palestinian case, as the Palestinian ribāṭ is tied to al-Aqsa and Jerusalem also from a spiritual perspective, for their direct connection to a superior, divine dimension. The main authors of the hadiths – al-Bukhari, Muslim, Imam Ahmad ibn-Hanbal, al-Tabarani – all refer to ribāṭ as a duty to God, and a practice not necessarily performed in Jerusalem or Palestine but in mosques, where the believers gather, or ‘are stationed,’ and enter into direct contact with God.

This understanding is also applied in al-Aqsa; and here too it takes on an exclusive meaning connected to Jerusalem, indicating another type of border, this time vertical: that between the believers and God. In this case too, the border is an interface, with al-Aqsa being a point where relations with a superior dimension are possible, as shown by the Prophet’s Night Journey and the traditional belief that Judgement Day will be held in Jerusalem.

Shaykh Muhammad Abu Sway, for example, who teaches Islamic studies at al-Quds University, noted first and foremost that an ‘act of ribāṭ’ can constitute waiting in the mosque between one prayer and the next: this is indeed one of the practices of the believers who pray in al-Aqsa.⁴⁹ Similarly, a professor in the Sharīʿa Department at Hebron University explained: ‘You are tying yourself to the mosque for a period of time, it is linked to iʿtikāf’⁵⁰, a term designating a pious retreat that implies remaining in prayer in the mosque for a period of time.

The fact of remaining in prayer in al-Aqsa implies a presence that concomitantly represents a way to defend al-Aqsa through both physical presence and the possible intervention of God. Ensuring a permanent and massive Muslim presence in al-Aqsa is indeed a strategy directly connected to ribāṭ: as such, the study circles of the murābiṭāt, the ifṭār (fast-breaking dinner) organised during Ramadan⁵¹ or the practice of iʿtikāf, often carried out in al-Aqsa during the last ten days of Ramadan, as well as that of shadd al-riḥāl, are all practices that are connected to ribāṭ. They are aimed at guarding and preserving both types of borders – material and spiritual.

The embedded frontiers of ribāṭ in Palestine

The bordering of al-Aqsa also implies a bordering of Jerusalem, as a holy city. Ribāṭ suggests the drawing of a symbolic limit around the city, which defines the sacred land that is to be defended. In this bordering process, East Jerusalem is of particular concern, being the Palestinian part of the Holy City, threatened by new Israeli settlements but slated to become the capital of the future Palestinian State should the opportunity arise. Many Palestinians in Jerusalem indeed feel that they have a special duty, and a special design, in opposing the occupation and in defending the city. For Hanadi al-Halawani ‘Everyone who lives in Jerusalem, in the city of Jerusalem in general, is called a murābiṭ.’⁵² Residents of Silwan feel particularly involved in ribāṭ, as they consider their village as being connected to al-Aqsa, which towers above the valley where Silwan lies. They often present their village as ‘the southern defence’ of Jerusalem (al-hāmiyya al-janūbiyya), or ‘the fort of Jerusalem’ (qalʿa al-Quds).⁵³

One resident explained that: ‘It is like a tree: there are the roots … Silwan is the roots of the old city. Without Silwan there is no old city.’⁵⁴ S., a resident of Silwan and a murābiṭa in al-Aqsa, claimed: ‘Silwan is a special village, the nearest village to al-Aqsa. Look at the settlements here, Israeli institutions pay millions to buy houses here because of its importance, it is at the heart of Jerusalem!’⁵⁵ In al-Bustan, one of the neighbourhoods constituting Silwan, which is threatened with demolition by the Municipality of Jerusalem to make space for a park, ribāṭ also represents a resource for the daily struggle. A Friday sermon, pronounced on February 15, 2013, inside the neighbourhood’s protest tent, started with ‘Welcome to all, in Palestine, in ārḍ al-ribāṭ!’. The speaker then praised the residents of Silwan and the Palestinians in general for their perseverance:

A first message to the population of Silwan: they are the people of jihad, of ribāṭ. (…) To the family of arrested people, everything you sacrifice will be for something. Allah will reward you, and history will not forget you because you are the murābiṭīn and ṣābrīn [patient ones, those who endure suffering] (…) The Palestinian people and especially the people from Jerusalem will defend Palestine. (…) To the Muslim people around the world, why are we defending Palestine and Jerusalem? (…) we do that to protect al-Aqsa and we are suffering from the Israelis laws, everything is against the Jerusalem people.⁵⁶

The above quotation indicates that Palestinians living in Jerusalem are seen as having a special duty to defend the city and al-Aqsa, and also that many consider themselves as being its last line of defence. It highlights too the interrelation between this core space of Jerusalem and the defence of the entire territory, Palestine.

Contrary to the traditional understanding of ribāṭ, the defence of Palestine paradoxically implies not a defence of outer borders, but of internal, ubiquitous lines of demarcation. The continuous process of colonisation since the beginning of the Zionist enterprise in Palestine at the end of the nineteenth century, punctuated notably by the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Six-Day War in 1967, the Oslo Accords (1993-1995) and the subsequent creation of areas A, B and C, the withdrawal from Gaza and the construction of the Israeli separation wall in 2005, have brought about an ever-increasing fragmentation of Palestinian territory and society.

As a consequence, the borders that need to be defended are omnipresent, corresponding to advances in the Israeli colonisation process and to micro-spaces: Palestinians houses, shops and very bodies become so many outposts of resistance, on frontiers that are pervasive and threatening. T., a resident of Wadi Hilwe and a member of the Wadi Hilwe Committee, insists:

It is enough to be here, and to stay here. This is ribāṭ for me, just to stay in, because in fact, you cannot do anything else. In fact, you will do a favour for the occupation if you do, because they will put you in jail, or they will kill you, maybe they will transfer you. (…) If I can remain and stay in my house, that means I can stay by the [Silwan] pool. If I manage to stay in my house, that means I will stay in al-Aqsa mosque.⁵⁷

M., of the Sharīʿa department at Hebron University, asserts: ‘Muslims have to remain in this land. To fight back against their enemies’ assault. Remain in our land. Perform ribāṭ. Don’t leave our land and house.’⁵⁸ The frontier also deploys within Israel: discriminated communities confronted with continuing internal colonisation, such as the Bedouin of the Naqab-Negev (Yiftachel 1996, 1997), similarly refer to their being in ribāṭ, thus turning their presence into a front of resistance.

However, if for many Palestinians the Holy Land corresponds to historical Palestine, others argue that some hadiths encompass a wider perimeter. This geography of ribāṭ was discussed by Raed Salah in a sermon given on May 1, 2015, in which he refers to two of the most quoted hadiths on the subject.⁵⁹ The hadith most commonly invoked to support Palestinian ribāṭ was reported by Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, who quoted the Prophet as saying:

A group from my community (Umma’) are still knowledgeable about the truth, they are vanquishing their enemy, and those who disagree with them cannot harm them until Almighty God's command comes to them. (…) ‘O Messenger of God,’ he was asked, ‘where are they?’ ‘In and around Jerusalem,’ the Prophet replied (El-Awaisi 1998, p. 54).

Salah also discusses another hadith, from Mu'adh Ibn Jabal, a companion of the Prophet:

Oh Mu’adh, Allah the Almighty will allow you to conquer al-Sham after my death, from al-Arish to the Euphrates. Their men and women will be in ribāṭ until the Day of Resurrection (yawm al-Qiyāma). Whoever from amongst you chooses to stay on the shores of al-Sham or Bayt al-Maqdis is in jihad until the Day of Resurrection.⁶⁰

Drawing on those hadiths, Salah argues that the ‘surroundings of Jerusalem,’ which defines the Holy Land and must be protected by the practice of ribāṭ, correspond to Bilād al-Shām, and include Jordan, Lebanon and Syria as its marches, its external frontiers. This view is often referred to and discussed among Palestinians who mention ribāṭ: if Jerusalem and Palestine are important, their ‘surroundings’ are as well, albeit encompassing a somewhat vague area.

This sermon from the then leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel was intended as a plea against colonialism, which is presented as a continuation from the British Mandate to the establishment of the State of Israel. Salah draws on a rhetoric typical of radical Islam, for example presenting the partition of the Ottoman Empire as reflecting a new occurrence of the Crusades (see e.g. Madden 2014, pp. 203–204). He also opposes the geography created by the Sykes-Picot agreements and by the Zionist project to the ‘Islamic geography,’ which designates a space united by ‘one identity,’ i.e. a unified Muslim territory:

This is the geography we need to preserve. This is the Islamic geography. And the enemies of Islam, the enemies of Muslims, the enemies of our holy land, they wanted something else for us. They wanted to divide us. (…) because then it would be easy for them to occupy us.⁶¹

Drawing on those two hadiths, Raed Salah defines the borders to be defended as being interchangeably those of Bilād al-Shām, or those defined by al-Arish (north-east of Egypt) and the Euphrates (Iraq).⁶² On this land, Salah asserts a common duty for all Muslims: ‘Our role is to be in ribāṭ.’ He explains:

To preserve our land is ribāṭ; to preserve our houses is ribāṭ. To protect our holy landmarks (al-muqaddasāt) is ribāṭ. To protect our identity with all its dimensions, Islamic, Arabic, Palestinian, is ribāṭ. To preserve our Arabic language is ribāṭ, to preserve our resistance and protection of Jerusalem (al-Quds) is ribāṭ.

This sermon suggests a strictly religious approach to ribāṭ: the Palestinian nation disappears behind the Muslim Umma. The individual duty of performing ribāṭ in Palestine is considered within a wider framework, that of a larger territorial entity covering – and uniting – the Arab-Muslim States.

Conclusion

In this article, I set out to uncover the meaning of ribāṭ that has developed in Palestine, and its importance within the Palestinian repertoire of resistance. In so doing, I have shown how this contemporary practice is merely the most recent occurrence of an evolving pattern of border defence, and how it can shed new light on the recurring scholarly debates on the topic.

I have striven here to go beyond the recent mobilisation of the term, connected to al-Aqsa, in order to show that it has a wider application, as well as an importance in Palestinian representations, practices and discourses that has been understated and understudied. I also highlight the quintessentially territorial nature of ribāṭ, which is tightly connected to numerous bordering processes. The territories contemplated here span different scales, from the micro-level (the house) to the meso (Jerusalem and al-Aqsa) and the macro (Palestine and al-Sham). They are all interrelated, reflected and incarnated in each other in an endless mirror effect, and are also connected to the nationalist and religious stakes that locate them at the core of the Palestinian struggle.

The approach presented here shows how ribāṭ connects to the perception of overlapping borders and the conception of lives lived on the frontier. This, in turn, responds to the duality of the Palestinian situation, located politically on the frontier of Israeli colonisation and occupation, which threaten Palestinian self-determination and national recognition; and religiously on the frontiers of the Holy Land, Holy City (Jerusalem) and Holy Place (al-Aqsa). Ribāṭ is seen not only as a way to guard the Holy Land, but also to oppose the advancing frontier of Israeli colonisation and the slowly progressing invisibilisation and dissolution of Palestine. The situation in Israel-Palestine has been – and still is – characterised by the multiplication of micro-fronts, played out on the local level (see for example Rotbard 2003, Shalhoub-Kevorkian 2005). The frontier, shattered and ubiquitous, is ever-present in Palestinian life and spaces. As such, each Palestinian house is considered an outpost against the progress of the colonisation frontier, and contributes to explaining the importance of the concepts of ṣumūd and ribāṭ, both based on a permanent presence in space. Analysing these concepts from a territorial point of view is not only a way to flesh them out or to enrich the frame of analysis through which one can envision the Palestinian struggle and representations, but also a way by which to shed light on the continuous ‘frontierisation’ of Palestine.

Acknowledgements

I wish to warmly thank all the individuals whom I interviewed for this article, for their availability and readiness to share parts of their lives, thoughts and knowledge. I especially thank Mohammad Halayka, director of the Yasser Arafat Museum, for his support during the research. My gratitude too to the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on a previous version of this text.

This research was made possible thanks to funding from several institutions: the French Research Centre in Jerusalem (CRFJ), the Bettencourt-Schueller Foundation, the French Institute for the Near-East (IFPO), the French Institute for the Near-East (IFPO), the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (FMSH). Most of this article was written during my postdoctoral position at the University of Helsinki. I wish to thank all the above institutions for their support and for enabling the implementation and publication of this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marion Lecoquierre

Marion Lecoquierre is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki (Finland). She holds a PhD in Political and Social Science from the European University Institute (Florence, Italy). Her research interests are in political and social geography, and she specialises in Israel-Palestine. Her past work has focused chiefly on practices and representations of resistance, the production of space in a settler colonial setting, and religious territorialities. She published in 2022 Emplaced Resistance in Palestine and Israel, The Cases of Hebron, Silwan and al-Araqib (Routledge). She serves in the editorial board of the French journal Carnets de géographes.

Notes

1 Interview with a resident of Silwan, East Jerusalem, on October 31, 2012 [in English].

2 Fieldwork research in Gaza has not been possible due to the political and security situation there.

3 Ṣumūd designates a steadfast presence on the land, it is often translated as determination or stubbornness. See for example (Rijke and van Teefelen 2014, Lecoquierre 2022), pp. 91-94.

4 The fieldwork was initially carried out in the framework of a PhD dissertation (2010-2016), performed at the European University Institute (Florence, Italy), and titled Spatialities of resistance in Israel and Palestine, the cases of Hebron, Silwan and al-Araqib. Further research on the topic was carried out during my postdoctoral fieldwork in 2016-2019, with the generous support of the French Research Center in Jerusalem (CRFJ), the Bettencourt-Schueller Foundation, the French Institute for the Near-East (IFPO), the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (FMSH).

5 Interviewees who have not given their express consent or do not wish to be identified are designated by a letter differing from the first letter of either their first name or surname.

6 Both Archbishop Theodosios of Sebastia (often referred to as Atallah Hanna) and Hanadi al-Halawani are public figures often interviewed in the media for their political and religious positions in defence of Palestine and al-Aqsa. See for example ‘Al-muṭarān ḥanā : al-ribāṭu fy al-qudsi wa-l-difāʿ ʿanhā wa-ājbun wa-ṭanyun wa-ʾākhlāqiy,’ Dunīā al-watan, September 21, 2020 [in Arabic]; ‘Al-muṭarān ʿaṭā allah ḥanā : sāsat al-ʿalim ʾāshbaʿūnā khiṭābāt al-salām wa-ʿalā al-ʾārḍi tastamiru muhājamat al-filasṭyniyyn wa-tatawāṣalu ʾīzdiwājiyat al-maʿāiyyr,’ Al-Quds, January 30, 2023 [in Arabic].

7 This section introduces elements presented earlier in a chapter published in Lecoquierre 2022, pp. 206-225.

8 Unless otherwise specified, the translations are made by the authors.

9 Dabiq n.3, 2014, p.11; Dabiq n.15, 2016, p. 71; see also Inspire n.13, 2014, p.49; Azan n.4, 2013, p.30.

10 Dabiq n. 12, 2016, p. 57.

11 Dabiq n. 7, 2015, p. 48.

12 Inspire n.8, 2011.

13 Inspire n. 13, 2014, see also (Ingram 2015, 2016, Long 2009, Mcgregor 2003).

14 See for example the mention in the Qu’ran, of ‘steeds of war’, or ‘ribāṭ al-khayl’, Sura VIII, 60.

15 Interview carried out in Dura, July 22, 2018 [in Arabic]. The Buraq is a mythical winged creature that bore the Prophet on his night-time journey from Mecca to Jerusalem.

16 Interview held on February 22, 2013 [in English].

17 Interview held on October 10, 2016 [in Arabic].

18 Yasser Arafat’s speech to the 7th Arab Summit in Rabat, October 26, 1974. Archives of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Palestine National Authority, from the Yasser Arafat Museum library, Ramallah, consulted between July 6 and 10, 2018.

19 Yasser Arafat’s speech to the Jerusalem Committee, Casablanca, July 29-30, 1998. Reproduction of a communication fax dated July 22, 1998, Archives of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Palestine National Authority, Yasser Arafat Museum library, Ramallah, consulted between July 6 and 10, 2018.

20 See for example Al-Hayat al-Jadida, May 13, 2021; June 22, 2021.

21 Interview with Jawad Siyam, Director of the Wadi Hilwe Information Center, Silwan, on October 15, 2016 [in English].

22 Interview held on July 12, 2016 [in English].

23 Interview held in Silwan on October 31, 2012 [in English].

24 Interview held on February 2, 2013 [in Arabic].

25 Interview held with Zliha Muhtaseb, old city of Hebron, on March 15, 2013 [in English].

26 Interview held on July 12, 2016 ­[in English].

27 Interview with S., October 19, 2016.

28 Interview held with Najeh Bkerat, director of the Islamic waqf in Al-Aqsa, on October 18, 2016 [in Arabic].

29 Field notes, November 28, 2016.

30 The Haram al-Ibrahimi is presented by some Palestinians as the fourth holiest place in Islam. This is however contested by others, as the Qurʾān only mentions three holy places, Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem.

31 Interview held on March 15, 2013 [in English].

32 Interviews held with T., resident of Wadi Hilwe, member of the Wadi Hilwe Committee, February 18, 2013; M., Sharīʿa Department at the Hebron University, November 27, 2016 [in Arabic].

33 Interview held on October 20, 2016 [in Arabic].

34 Interview held with F. on July 29, 2016 [in French].

35 Interview held on November 27, 2012 [in English].

36 Interview with Yusuf Natsheh, held on June 18, 2016 [in English].

37 Often called Atallah Hanna in the media and amongst the Palestinian public.

38 Interview held on July 23, 2018 [in Arabic].

39 Field notes, October 12, 2013.

40 Interview held on October 19, 2016 [in English].

41 Two of the remaining ribāṭs, ribāṭ al-Mansouri and ribāṭ ‘ala al-Din, are now home to the Afro-Palestinian community of the Old City. If the structures themselves do not have a defensive purpose, their inhabitants retain an attachment to the mosque and a sense of duty regarding its protection, as Palestinians, Muslims, and also because members of the community had functioned as security guards for al-Aqsa for many decades after their arrival in 1915-1920. The two buildings were granted in usufruct to the Afro-Palestinian community after one of its members protected the Mufti Hajj Amin al-Husseini from an attack. Interviews with members of the Afro-Palestinian community, Eid Qous, July 12, 2016; Ali Jiddah, July 28, 2016; Mousa Qous, November 11, 2016 [in English].

42 Interview held with S., October 10, 2016 [in English].

43 Interview held with S., murābiṭa from Silwan, October 10, 2016 [in English]; with Hanadi al-Halawani, murābiṭa from the old city of Jerusalem, November 27, 2018 [in Arabic].

44 Originally united within a single movement, founded by Shaykh ʿAbdullah Nimr Darwish in 1972 with the aim of waging jihad against Israel, the Islamic Movement in Israel separated into two factions in 1996. The rift crystallised around participation in the Israeli elections, with the members of what became the southern branch arguing in favour of participating in political life. See Aburaiya 2004.

45 Interview held on December 13, 2018 [in Arabic].

46 Interview with Ghazi Issa, held on December 13, 2018 [in Arabic].

47 Interview held on November 27, 2018 [in Arabic].

48 Interview held on July 20, 2016 [in Arabic].

49 Interview held on July 2, 2016 [in Arabic].

50 Interview with M. on November 27, 2016 [in Arabic].

51 See for example Ikrima Sabri, preacher at al-Aqsa and head of the Islamic Council, in ‘Iftar in al-Aqsa mosque, another kind of ribāṭ,’ Al-Aqsa Society, June 21, 2017, https://tinyurl.com/5nurh7b6 [in Arabic].

52 Interview with Hanadi al-Halawani, November 27, 2018.

53 Interview with Jawad Siyam, resident of Wadi-Hilwe and director of the Wadi Hilwe Information Centre, on November 27, 2012 [in English]; and Sahar al-Abassi, resident of Wadi Hilwe, employed at the Maada community centre, February 11, 2013 [in English]. See also Lecoquierre 2022, p. 216.

54 Interview with T., resident of Wadi Hilwe, Silwan, February 18, 2013 [in Arabic].

55 Interview with S., October 10, 2016 [in English].

56 Recorded speech and field notes, al-Bustan tent, February 15, 2013 [in Arabic].

57 Interview held on February 18, 2013 [in Arabic].

58 Interview with M., November 27, 2016 [in Arabic].

59 Friday sermon by Sheikh Raed Salah, entitled ‘The Virtue of Ribat,’ May 1, 2015, Q Press, available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5Kpn2Bk6D8&t=613s [in Arabic].

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid.

62 It should be noted that the land ‘from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates’ is also mentioned in the Bible as the limits of the land given to the descendants of Abraham (Genesis 15:18), and as such is sometimes invoked to define the limits of Eretz Israel. The ‘river of Egypt’ is interpreted as designating Wadi al-Arish or the Nile.