Gaza – Crossroads at the Edge

By Andreas F. Kuntz

Today the Gaza Strip is the focus of news outlets the world round due to the launching of the disengagement plan that Israel has undertaken, which stipulates removing around 8000 Israeli settlers from 21 colonies that dot the Strip. As Gaza gets ready to write a new chapter in its history, a look back at the role that Gaza city played on the world scene shows its significance to the economic, political, religious and social life of Palestine.     

A main role that Gaza has played since ancient history has been the role of “crossroads.” Seen from the Land of Palestine, Gaza is the last real city before a rather deserted area and it serves as a Gate to Egypt. Coming to it from the South, it is the Gate of Canaan, as the Land of Palestine was called prior to the emergence of the Philistines. Moreover, Gaza was the harbor of the Spice Road, or as some would prefer to call it the Incense Road, and therefore the end station of a very important link between the Arab tribes, at least in terms of trade.

During its long history, Gaza might have been deserted during times of war or economic crisis, but most probably it has never been that isolated as it is today. Traveling the shortest way from Egypt to Asia these days you have to cross the border at Rafah to Gaza. Yet, your bus would not enter Gaza. Rather, it would take a detour around the city, leaving you with the impression that the inhabitants of Gaza and its neighboring towns are living in a dead end zone. For these same inhabitants, traveling to far away Egypt is easier than traveling the short distances within the Gaza Strip to visit their relatives in the Northern part. Nowadays it even seems that Gaza and the Gaza Strip have been transformed into a big camp, surrounded by a fence, where living in it feels more like living in a prison. The dream of becoming a crossroads again, with air, sea, and land links to the world, as well as corridor to the rest of the Palestinian Lands, seems to slip further and further.  

A short look at certain phases of history tells us about the importance of a city at the edge in its function as crossroads. For Egyptians, Gaza was the first place with enough water on the road to Asia. On a relief of Pharaoh Setis I. (1293-1279 BCE) Gaza was simply called the (city of) Canaan. Still, during many periods it was an Egyptian garrison, and during certain periods traders coming from Canaan would rather think of Gaza as part of Egypt.

Yet, there was a time when domination over Gaza was coming from the other way around. The Hyksos, Greek for “the rulers from foreign lands” as they are called by the Egyptian sources, were a ruling class of Canaanite origin. They were tribes who moved into the Delta of the Nile and took over parts of Lower Egypt. Sharuhen seems to have been their major city in the Land of Palestine, controlling the coastal road by walls and a deep trench. Most probably Sharuhen can be identified with Tell Adshul, a few kilometers west of today’s Gaza. Here the material remains show features of both cultures, Syrian like the Goddess with her eight cornered star and Egyptian like the Scarabaeus. Sharuhen fell in the mid of 16^th cent. BCE, after the Egyptian rulers threw out the Hyksos and laid siege on their major city.

How dominant Egyptian culture could become in the region is apparent when one looks at the similar observation of the sarcophagi of the necropolis near Deir al-Balah. The ruling part of the locals imitated the style of the Egyptian colony and their Philistine mercenaries during the 13^th cent. BCE. For the following centuries the Hebrew Bible tells the story of Samson, whose fate signifies the ambivalent relation of the tribe of Dan towards the Philistines, where collaboration and resistance mingled.

In fact, as long as the ancient “Super-powers” were eager to control the trade routes, Gaza was interesting. It was also interesting to powers from the North like the Assyrians. The rulers of Gaza tried to keep their position by playing the power game. After defending the “Gate to Egypt” against the Assyrians they changed sides and cooperated with the Assyrians. While other chiefs and kings like Hiskiya of Judah rebelled against the Assyrian rule, Gaza stood aside and got even devastated by Hiskiya’s troops in 705 BCE. But after the rebellion was suppressed, Gaza received territories belonging to Judah.

In fact, the tribes of the highlands of Palestine never managed to control Gaza, which remained playing its specific role. As the terminal point of the Arab trade route it even might have been the starting point of statehood in South Arabia: for here in Gaza customs were collected, and tax organization “spread” to the South, where the kingdom of Saba emerged. Also later on, the Persians kept Gaza directly under royal administration, since it was too important for the incense trade for the whole Mediterranean trade system.

The arrival of Alexander the Great brought total destruction to the city, after a two month siege. People of the neighboring areas were brought into the new city, and according to Plutarch, Alexander wrote to his teacher Leonidas saying: “Now I send you Incense and Myrrh in abundance that you stop being greedy with the gods.” A sentence which reminds Leonidas that he once asked Alexander not to waste the precious incense. From then on Gaza as a city became quite independent and is described throughout the Roman period as wealthy and fortified city.

Gaza as a quite resistant city, concerning new ideologies and rulers, appears again with the East Roman Empire, which adopted Christianity as the preferred religion and ordered the closure of Pagan temples. But Bishop Porphyrios got into serious trouble when he entered Gaza as a newly appointed bishop in 395 CE. To overcome the problem of hesitant administrators the bishop went in person to the emperor in Constantinople. But here the rich and punctually paid taxes were more important, and Porphyrios had to contact the empress Eudokia for help in order to bring around the change in the political setting. In fact, military intervention was used in order to break the power of the temples.

During the Christian era, Gaza remained as a center of philosophy and sciences, and the school of Gaza was famous for its achievements in blending the Greek cultural tradition with Christian sources. Its founder, Prokopios of Gaza, who died around 538 CE, wrote extended commentaries to books of the Hebrew Bible. Several remains of the period show the variety of Gaza’s society: Byzantine churches with mosaics as well as a synagogue in the flourishing harbor city Maiumas.

Later on, in the Islamic period, Gaza kept its position, as Mu’en Sadeq describes it, despite or maybe because of its distance to the respective Islamic capitals. The tradition of religious studies continued in the city, and an important scholar, like the Imam ash-Shafi’i who is the founder of one of the four schools of Jurisprudence in Islam, the Shafi’ite school, was born in Gaza in 767 CE. Politically, Gaza gained more influence after the defeat of the Crusaders and was made a nijaba, an independent province, by the Mamluk Sultan al-Malik al-Ashraf in 1291 CE. Some places from that period are worth a visit, among them the Great Mosque, which features many architectural styles from the different periods. Interesting as well is the spiritual heritage of Gaza during the Islamic period, like the Zawiya al-Ahmadiya, which goes back to Sheikh Ahmad Ibn Ibrahim Ibn Muhammad Ibn Bakr, one of the best known Sufis, who died 1276 CE and who had a number of followers in the region. The Zawiya, which has a prayer hall and dwelling part, was built by the governor of Gaza, the Amir Tarantaj al-Jukundar in 1331 CE during the rule of the Amir Tankiz an-Nasiri.

Today, as Gaza city gets ready for the future, the hope is that its people will be able to find their way back to the rich heritage of their City and region, reopen and rework it like the mosaics of the Byzantine churches, like the place of the synagogue, like the modern Arts and Crafts village, and like the busy market places and mosques. The challenge now for Gaza city is to regain its major role as an open city and as a crossroads between the Arab world and Mediterranean, between Egypt in Africa and the Levant in Asia. This challenge can be tackled by the determination of the Gazans and with the help of the neighboring countries and world powers.