M. Levy-Rubin (The Schechter Institute): Becoming a homeland to Muslims: The sanctification of Palestine in the first centuries of Islam: The case of Samaria

Was the Holy Land sanctified in Islam before the Muslim conquest? How did its sanctification come about? While  the sanctification of Jerusalem in the first century after the Hijra has been the subject of much research, this is less true for other parts of the land. How  and when did this sanctification  occur? In the present paper I will discuss the process of the sanctification of Samaria,  an area which is conceived as quite marginal.  I will try and demonstrate how  a region that had formerly been mainly a  Samaritan religious homeland  was dressed in Muslim garb, thus creating a Muslim religious homeland for its newly-arrived residents, and how in the process  the native resident community – the Samaritans - was pushed aside.