Mamilla cemetery

Mamilla Cemetery is a historic Muslim cemetery located just to the west of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, Israel. The cemetery, at the center of which lies the Mamilla Pool, contains the remains of figures from the early Islamic period, several Sufi shrines and Mamluk-era tombs. The cemetery grounds also contain the bodies of thousands of Christians killed in the pre-Islamic era, as well as several tombs from the time of the Crusades.

Its identity as an Islamic cemetery is noted by Arab and Persian writers as early as the 11th century. It was used as a burial site up until 1927 when the Supreme Muslim Council decided to preserve it as a historic site.

Following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the cemetery and other waqf properties in West Jerusalem fell under the control of Israeli governmental bodies. A number of buildings, a road and other public facilities, such as a park, a parking lot and public lavatories have since been constructed on the cemetery grounds, destroying grave markers and tombs. A plan to build a Museum of Tolerance on part of the cemetery grounds, announced in 2004, aroused much controversy and faced several stop work orders before being given final approval in July 2011.

The name Mamilla is used to refer to the cemetery and the Mamilla Pool located at its center. It was also the name of a church dedicated to St Mamilla located at the same site in the early Byzantine and Islamic periods.

Mamilla is mentioned as an Islamic cemetery as early as the 11th century in Concerning the (religious) status of Jerusalem, a treatise penned by Abu Bakr b. Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Wasiti, the preacher of Al Aqsa Mosque in 1019-1020 (AH 410). He gives its name as zaytun al-milla, Arabic for "the olive trees of the religion", which Moshe Gil says was "a commonly used distortion of the name Māmillā," along with bab al-milla (meaning, "the door of the religion").

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