Popular Palestinian Practices around Holy Places and Those Who Oppose Them: An Historical Introduction

A long history of intercommunal relations around local holy places in historic Palestine

(a history which sadly seems to be coming to a close in the current day) draws attention to what

precisely is the character of the attachment felt by local residents to sacred sites. Muslim-

Christian ‘sharing’ of holy places (maqam, plural maqamat) can be seen to express a dependency

on powers perceived of as resident in a site, and the nominal affiliation of these powers to one

religion or another is o?en not a matter of great concern to those ?equenting the shrines. It is,

however, a focal concern of the officiants of the respective religions who lay claim to the sites

and who seek to expunge heterodox practices and traces of ambiguous affiliation (cf. Hayden

2002 and 2011). I here investigate records of local usages of religious sites, largely rural, in

Palestine up through the Mandate Period in order to argue that shared shrines, as opposed to

those which appear to be communally homogeneous, foreground issues of agency obscured in

those sites under the control of religious authorities.