In the House of Understanding:

Histories in Memory of
Kamal S. Salibi

Edited by
Abdul Rahim Abu Husayn
Tarif Khalidi
Suleiman A. Mourad
American University of Beirut Press
©2017 American University of Beirut
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 The Bible Came from Lebanon:
Sacred Land and Worldly Delights in a Seventeenth-
Century Journey to the Valley of the Prophets

Steve Tamari*

P
lease don’t take this title too seriously. It is inspired by the spirit of
Kamal Salibi and is in no way an attempt to repeat, or even less,
to challenge his meticulous research on the toponyms of the Holy
Land. Rather, this study is inspired by the two hallmarks of Salibi’s work:
1) attention to empirical evidence from the past, and 2) engagement
– sometimes to the extent of provocation – with the realities of the
present. Very few historians are able to juggle both strands, empiricism
and engagement, without falling into the pitfalls of, on the one hand,
antiquarianism or, on the other, political activism. Salibi’s essential study
of medieval Maronite historians is exemplary as a source-based study of
the evolution of history writing among a circumscribed, if influential, body
of medieval historians.1 Written in the midst of civil war, two of his books
– Crossroads to Civil War and his masterpiece, A House of Many Mansions –
reflect profound commitment as a citizen-historian to the ideal (if not the
reality) of the integrity and unity of Lebanon.2 House of Many Mansions is
at once a study grounded in the primary sources reflecting the history of
each of Lebanon’s many religious communities as well as a direct appeal
to his fellow citizens to face the ghosts and demons obscured or imbedded

∗ Southern Illinois University

1. Kamal Salibi, Maronite Historians of Medieval Lebanon (Beirut: American
University of Beirut, 1959).
2. Kamal Salibi, Crossroads to Civil War, 1958–1976 (Delmar, NY: Caravan Books,
1976) and A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered (London: I. B.
Tauris, 1988).
406 The Bible Came from Lebanon

in their distorted “tribal” (his term for the religious communities that
divide the country) versions of history. His provocative excursions into
biblical geography demonstrate courage to challenge almost universally
held assumptions, again, grounded in the minutiae of Semitic linguistics
and geographical toponyms.3
This essay is based on a close reading of a seventeenth-century
travelogue with an eye to making some suggestions about the place
of Lebanon, and of the Biqaʿ Valley in particular, within the broader
expanse of geographical Syria. The specific text is the record of a trip the
Damascene scholar and traveler ʿAbd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi (d. 1731 CE)
took to this region in 1689 CE. Along the way, we discover that al-Nabulsi’s
observations illuminate more than the land itself. Though conceived of as
a pilgrimage to sacred sites, the travelogue reveals much more. For one,
it demonstrates a surprising degree of engagement between, on the one
hand, the bookish knowledge that was his way of life and, on the other, the
insights and experience of his commoner interlocutors. For one whose
impetus was spiritual, al-Nabulsi’s meticulous attention to describing the
ruins at Baalbek suggests a habit of mind that was as empirically inclined
as it was oriented to more “hidden” forms of understanding. Finally, the
explicitly sensual delight he takes in the natural beauty of the Lebanese
landscape further enriches (and complicates) the profile of a man who
exercised as many of his human faculties as one can imagine.
Al-Nabulsi traveled to Lebanon at an auspicious time. The late
seventeenth century was a time of considerable upheaval in the Ottoman
Empire as a whole. The age of military expansion in the sixteenth
century was followed by a period of consolidation and the creation of a
bureaucratic state. However, the latter part of the century saw significant
military defeats, particularly in southeastern Europe, notably the defeat
of Ottoman forces outside Vienna in 1683. By 1699, the Ottomans had
to cede control of most of Hungary and neighboring territories to their
Habsburg rivals. Military losses were coupled with challenges to the
state from the center by disgruntled janissaries and in the provinces by
local potentates eager to consolidate their power. During the eighteenth

3. Kamal Salibi, The Bible Came from Arabia (London: Jonathan Cape, 1985) and
Secrets of the Bible People (London: Saqi Books, 1988).
 Steve Tamari 407

century, the authorities in Istanbul and the regional powers reached

a modus vivendi which led to the increasing prominence of local tribal
and urban dynasts, such as the series of governors of the province of
Damascus from the ʿAzm family. Just as al-Nabulsi was entering the Biqaʿ
Valley, significant political transformations were underway in this corner
of the Empire as well. The seventeenth century saw the creation of a
powerful Druze emirate under Fakhr al-Din Maʿn (r. 1570–1633) that was
maintained by his heirs for most of the century. Some historians see the
emirate of Mount Lebanon as constituted by the Maʿns as setting the stage
for the creation of modern Lebanon.4 But if we zero in on the Biqaʿ itself,
the Shiite Harfush family had effective control over this region nestled
between the eastern slopes of Mount Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon into
the last decade of the seventeenth century.5
The decades surrounding al-Nabulsi’s travels to the Biqaʿ and Mount
Lebanon were pivotal for the history of the Ottoman Empire at large, for
the province of Damascus, for Lebanon, and for the Biqaʿ itself. They are
the decades of major territorial losses in Europe, of the rise of a new class
of local dynasts, and of the end of effective Shiite self-rule in this narrow
strip of land when al-Nabulsi embarks on the first of three trips that will
take him through Lebanon.
Al-Nabulsi’s account of this trip is remarkable for the complete
absence of comment on these political transformations. If there was
any indication of the significance of these transformations, they didn’t
concern our traveler. Historians have made ample use of al-Nabulsi’s
travelogues to reconstruct the political narrative of the time. The Maʿn
emirate and the Harfush, for example, merit mention in the travelogue
under discussion here. But, political matters were not of much interest to
al-Nabulsi. Rather, he was inspired by the region’s religious significance,
by the camaraderie he shared with members of his party and with people
he met en route, and with the delights of architectural marvels (such as
the ruins at Baalbek) and the bounties of nature in this lush corner of
Bilad al-Sham. To understand what moved al-Nabulsi and his ilk is to take

4. Fawwaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon (London: Pluto Books, 2007), 3.

5. Stefan Winter, The Shiites of Lebanon under Ottoman Rule, 1516–1788 (Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University, 2010), 146–151.
408 The Bible Came from Lebanon

their priorities seriously.

ʿAbd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi was a prominent (if not the prominent)
intellectual of his age writing in Arabic. Not only was he a scholar in many
fields (though most widely recognized as a defender and elaborator of the
ideas of the Sufi mystic Ibn ʿArabi), he was immensely popular among elites
as well as non-elites, among both al-khass wa-al-ʿamm. He was elevated
to the post of chief mufti of Damascus by popular acclaim (even though
he lost the post quickly due to power politics), and whether at home in
Damascus or on the road, he drew crowds to his public lectures and was
celebrated by those who knew him or knew of him. One measure of his
popularity among even the middling classes is that at least one chronicler
of Damascus, Muhammad b. Kannan, would mention al-Nabulsi’s inaugural
and final lectures each year along with other events that affected the whole
populace, like the departure and arrival of the hajj caravan.6
During the latter part of the seventeenth century, al-Nabulsi was
caught up in a kind of “culture war” which pitted an austere brand of Sunni
orthodoxy against the Sufism and popular religious and secular activities
of the populace at large. The Kadizadeli movement, as the reform-minded
reaction to Sufism become known, originated among mid-level imams
in Istanbul and quickly spread around the Empire and into centers of
education like Damascus.7 Al-Nabulsi spent much of the 1670s fending
off these critics of Sufism and of the ideas of Ibn ʿArabi with a series of
treatises in defense of practices like tomb visitation, listening to music,
drinking coffee, and smoking tobacco. At the same time he composed
more introspective work on the hidden sources of truth which served
to challenge those who claimed to have a monopoly on morality and
proper Muslim behavior. Due to exhaustion over attacks on his person,
he retreated in 1680 to his home near the Umayyad Mosque to begin a
seven-year period of voluntary isolation. He was not, however, idle and

6. Ibn Kannan, Yawmiyat shamiyya, ed. Akram Hasan al-ʿUlabi (Damascus: Dar al-

Tibaʿ, 1994).
7. Madeline C. Zilfi, “The Kadizadelis: Discordant Revivalism in Seventeenth-Century
Istanbul,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 45, no. 4 (Oct. 1986), 251–269. For the influence
of the Kadizadelis on Damascus and on al-Nabulsi in particular, see Elizabeth Sirriyeh, Sufi
Visionary of Damascus: ʿAbd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi, 1641–1731 (London: RoutledgeCurzon,
2005), 15, 48, 82, 128.
 Steve Tamari 409

he continued his prodigious literary output. By the time he came back

out into the world, the fervor of the Kadizadelis had died down and, as
demonstrated below, he was consumed by a hunger to see, touch, feel,
smell, and taste the world around him, and inspired to pursue the spiritual
benefits of pilgrimage to sacred sites and holy lands.
For one very busy decade, between 1689 and 1700, al-Nabulsi
embarked on four journeys beyond his native Damascus. The only other
such journey he took was a trip twenty-five years earlier to Istanbul in
which he unsuccessfully sought a position within the Ottoman religio-
legal establishment. The first of his late seventeenth-century journeys
took him to the Biqaʿ and Baalbek (the focus of this essay); his second,
within a year, took him to Jerusalem and other parts of Palestine; his
third was his hajj, which lasted more than a year between 1693–1694
and which he began, curiously, by avoiding the Damascus caravan (the
most important of its kind) and travelling north to Hama and then west to
the Syrian coast before passing through Tripoli, Beirut, Sidon, and points
south along the Palestinian coast before joining the Cairo caravan to the
Hijaz; and, finally, a trip to Tripoli in 1700. The paths to Jerusalem, Cairo,
Medina, and Mecca had, obviously, been well worn by Muslim pilgrims
and travelers throughout most of Islamic history. Like its counterparts in
Palestine, Egypt, and the Hijaz, al-Nabulsi’s own hometown of Damascus
had been a destination for many pilgrims and scholars for centuries.
What’s remarkable about al-Nabulsi’s itineraries is that he kept
returning to Lebanon. Only his trip to Jerusalem did not take him through
this region. He made two trips exclusively to Lebanon, and on his hajj
returned to Beirut, Sidon, and the Lebanese coast and visited Tripoli, to
which he would return within the decade. On that trip, he revisited the
Biqaʿ and Baalbek and other places he had first encountered a decade
earlier. The main reason given by al-Nabulsi himself is that Lebanese
regions, especially the Biqaʿ and the foothills of Mount Lebanon, are
chock-full – more so than most places – with the remains and eternal
spiritual significance of scores of prophets from the times of the Jewish
prophets through those associated with Christianity, and of even more
shrines dedicated to Sufi saints, scholars, and figures of local renown
from the Islamic period.
In composing his accounts of his travels, al-Nabulsi drew upon a rich
410 The Bible Came from Lebanon

body of Muslim travel writing which came in a variety of genres, including

kutub rihlat, kutub ziyarat, and kutub fada ʾil (travelogues, pilgrimage
itineraries, and praise books devoted to religiously significant cities). For
travelers to Damascus, Jerusalem, Egypt, and the Hijaz, there were volumes
upon volumes to consult. There were fewer dependable sources when it
came to travelling to Lebanon. He drew upon one Ottoman-era travelogue –
Hassan al-Burini’s (d. 1615) al-Manazil al-ansiyya fi-al-rihla al-tarabulsiyya
– although there were at least two others who preceded him in traveling to
Tripoli. These were the Damascenes Yahya b. Abi al-Safa ʾ al-Mahasini (d.
1643; travelled 1638–1639), author of al-Manazil al-mahasiniyya fi al-rihla
al-tarabulsiyya, and Ramadan b. Musa al-ʿUtayfi (d. 1684; travelled 1634),
author of Rihla min dimashq al-sham ila tarablus al-sham. Al-Nabulsi did
not reveal any familiarity with these two works in his own. Instead, he
drew upon some of the standard biographies, those of Ibn Khallikan and
al-Subki for instance; histories such as Ibn Athir’s al-Kamil fi al-tarikh;
and geographical manuals such as Yaqut al-Hamawi’s Muʿjam al-buldan.
Probably the most useful single written source for him was ʿAli b. Abi Bakr
al-Harawi’s Kitab al-ishara ila maʿrifat al-ziyara.
In mid-October 1689, al-Nabulsi set off with a retinue of fellow
scholars and students to visit the Biqaʿ, the town of Baalbek, and Mount
Lebanon in order to see the tombs of the prophets and shrines of “friends
of God,” as well as to meet friends and colleagues who lived in these areas.
Why the Biqaʿ?
In the introduction to his account of the journey, al-Nabulsi sketches
out a sacred geography of Bilad al-Sham in comparison with the other
most holy of Muslim lands, the Hijaz.

Bilad al-Sham is the most blessed country . . . This is where the righteous
prophets
Are – every one of them – buried . . . But for the ultimate Messenger
al-Sham unites what stretches from ʿArish . . . To the bountiful land of
the Euphrates
From Jisr al-Masih . . . It extends lengthwise to Tarsus
And from Jaffa likewise to Maʿan . . . Thus, does al-Sham encompass all
this land.8

8. ʿAbd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab al-abriz fi-rihla baʿlabak wa-al-biqaʿ al-
 Steve Tamari 411

Bilad al-Sham is a sacred land and one defined by discrete natural and
inhabited boundaries. The remains of the all the prophets of God lie
within this country with the important exception of Medina, where
Muhammad is buried. It stretches from the border with Egypt (ʿArish) in
the south to the edge of Anatolia (Tarsus) in the north and east-west from
the Euphrates and Jordan (Maʿn) to the Mediterranean (Jaffa).
Within Bilad al-Sham, the Biqaʿ occupies a singular position that
distinguishes it even from Jerusalem – Bayt al-Maqdis, home of the sacred
– and from Damascus, the final destination for many of the companions of
Muhammad and other weighty figures in Islamic history.

Praise be to God who honored the standing of the Biqaʿ by placing

within it the people of elevated stature and refinement . . . Whomever
descends into its loftiness and enters into it will find a fortified refuge.
[The valley] ennobles Bilad al-Sham by making it peerless among lands
as the resting place for the noble prophets . . .9

This travelogue is titled Hullat al-dhahab al-abriz fi-rihla baʿlabak

wa-al-biqaʿ al-ʿaziz [Robes of Pure Gold and the Journey to Baalbek and
the Biqaʿ], but al-Nabulsi’s primary intention was to visit the Biqaʿ for, as
he says above, this is the resting place, first and foremost, of the prophets
of God. These are a few of the indications of the primacy of the Biqaʿ in
the narrative. After leaving Nabi Shith and the tomb of the prophet Seth,
al-Nabulsi and his party were headed directly into the Biqaʿ Valley when
they were invited by the governor of Baalbek to pay a visit to his town.
They changed course immediately and were temporarily diverted from
their original objective.10 In addition, the part of Mount Lebanon that al-
Nabulsi visited functions more as a defining element of the valley – the
“fortification of this refuge” – than as a destination. For all the prophetic
importance of Jerusalem and Palestine, and for all of Damascus’s prestige
as a center of Islamic learning and a touchstone for early Islamic history,
the Biqaʿ emerges in this rihla as virtually on a par with these two more

ʿaziz in ʿAbd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi and Ramadan b. Musa al-ʿUtayfi Rihlatan ila lubnan, eds.
Salah al-Din al-Munajjid and Stefan Wild, 55 (Beirut: Orient-Institut, 1979).
9. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 55.
10. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 72.
412 The Bible Came from Lebanon

renowned parts of Bilad al-Sham. It is, for all intents and purposes, “the
valley of the prophets.”
Al-Nabulsi and his party set out on Tuesday, 30 August 1689 for a
15-day journey that took them, first, to Baalbek, skirting the Biqaʿ, and
then into the valley itself before scaling the heights of the eastern flank
of Mount Lebanon and returning via Zabadani to Damascus. They spent
their first night in Zabadani, the second in the village of Sirghaya, the
third in Nabi Shith, two nights in Baalbek, and a night each in Karak Nuh,
Mazbura, Qabb Ilyas, Zawq al-Basaliyya, al-Jazira, Jib Jannin, Hammara,
and in the vicinity of the spring of ʿAyn al-Fijah before returning home
to Damascus. These are just the names of places where the party spent
the night. In between, they were primarily interested in visiting the
tombs and shrines dedicated to prophets, the righteous, and the saints
(al-salihun and al-awliya ʾ). Though pilgrimage may have been the
inspiration for the trip, al-Nabulsi and his partners soon got caught up
in the delights of the natural surroundings, which they celebrated again
and again in verse; in amazement at the ancient structures at Baalbek,
which al-Nabulsi described in minute detail; in encounters with and
stories and information relayed by men and women of both the privileged
classes, al-khass, and the lower classes, al-ʿamm; and in the raw joy of the
companionship he enjoyed with members of his party and in breaking
bread with new acquaintances.
According to al-Nabulsi, the Biqaʿ is “peerless among lands as the
resting place for the noble prophets.”11 There are, however, resting places
of prophets on the road from Damascus to the Biqaʿ itself. He begins his
trip with a visit to the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and the shrine of the
prophet Yahya b. Zakariyya (John the Baptist in the Christian tradition)
whose head is said to have been buried beneath the mosque.12 Before
reaching the Biqaʿ he also stops on Mount Qasyun, overlooking Damascus,
at the spot where Cain and Abel, sons of Adam, are reputed to be buried.13
On the third day of the trip, he stops at the cave where Yahya’s body is

11. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 55.

12. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 57.
13. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 59.
 Steve Tamari 413

said to lie.14 Visits to prophets in the Biqaʿ and the vicinity traditionally
begin with a stop at the “long tomb” of the prophet Shith (Seth), the third
son of Adam. Al-Nabulsi describes it as measuring about 60 feet in length
and 12 wide.15 After a two-day detour to Baalbek, the group visits the
tombs of ʿIzz al-Din and al-Rashadi, each of whom is called a “prophet of
God” (nabi Allah) by locals. Though al-Nabulsi disputes these claims, it
does not prevent him from stopping and reciting the fatiha over each.16
He also prays at a shrine (mazar) to a prophet Ayla, who is said to have
been the brother of the prophet Yusif b. Yaʿqub (Joseph son of Jacob).17 On
the same day, they come to the tomb of Nuh (Noah), which is as large as
that of Seth.18 From Karak Nuh, they travel past the village of Saʿdana ʾil,
which he marks as being the first village of the Biqaʿ proper. They stop
soon afterwards at Qabb Ilyas, where they visit the tomb of the prophet
Ilyas (Elijah).19 On the tenth day of the trip, they begin visiting sites on
Mount Lebanon at the edge of the Biqaʿ Valley, including the tomb of
Dawud (David), which he describes as long, though he doesn’t provide
measurements as done for the tombs of Seth and Noah.20 The next day
they visit the tomb of ʿUzayr (Ezra) and the tomb of a prophet Zurayq, who
is said by locals to be a prophet of Israel, though al-Nabulsi is doubtful
and says the truth lies with God.21 Nearby is a shrine (maqam) to Khidr,
who appears in the Qurʾan as a guide to Moses and has a long history of
popularity in Bilad al-Sham among Christians and Jews as well as among
Muslims. In the village of Kifraya, al-Nabulsi learns that the name derives

14. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 63.

15. Al-Nabulsi, 67. These measurements are based on a dhira ʾ being equal to an 18-
inch cubit and a ba ʾ being equal to a fathom or six feet. Brannon Wheeler examines the
phenomenon on “long tombs” which, he concludes, reflects the idea that prophets lived
as giants before the time of the flood and function as “physical reminders of the fall from
Eden and the progress of civilization toward the prophet [sic] Muhammad and Islam.”
Mecca and Eden: Ritual, Relics, and Territory in Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2006), 100.
16. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 90.
17. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 90–91.
18. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 92.
19. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 97.
20. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 103–104.
21. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 106–107.
414 The Bible Came from Lebanon

from the prophet Rayya, also a prophet of Israel, and is considered the
“heart” (qalb) of Mount Lebanon.22 On the same day, they come to the
tomb of Maryam b. ʿImran, the mother of Jesus. What follows is a lengthy
account, based largely on al-Harawi, explaining how Mary might have
ended up here.23 Just before he returns to Damascus, al-Nabulsi visits the
village of ʿAyn al-Fijah where he stops at a final site related to prophets, a
tomb said to contain the remains of the daughters of Numays, son of the
prophet Seth.
This itinerary of prophets’ tombs brings to the fore two key points
that bear on our understanding of the meaning of sacred space in this
time and place for al-Nabulsi and, doubtless, many of his contemporaries.
For one, it affirms the integrity of Bilad al-Sham as a discrete and holy land
and, within it, of the Biqaʿ as occupying a space of singular importance.
Secondly, the fact that al-Nabulsi entertains popular knowledge about
sacred sites demonstrates a remarkable degree of convergence between
the sensibilities of a learned man of the city and those of his rural
compatriots. Together these insights indicate a degree of connectivity
between one part of Bilad al-Sham and another, and between a city and
the countryside, that may not be fully appreciated by modern scholarship.
The sheer number of sites devoted to ancient prophets within
the limited geographical space that is the Biqaʿ – the distance from
Baalbek, the farthest north he reached on this trip, to Kifraya, roughly
the southernmost point on this trip, is a distance of a little over 40 miles,
and the width of the valley averages about 10 miles – is remarkable. Seth,
Noah, Elijah, David, Ezra, and Mary – just to name the most recognizable
of them – rest within a few miles of one another. Only Jerusalem and its
environs can boast a higher concentration of sacred sites related to the
Abrahamic tradition. Regardless of whether these are, in fact, the sites
that al-Nabulsi and his interlocutors think them to be, the belief that
they are enhances the status of this small corner of the wide expanse of
geographical Syria. Given what is related in this rihla, the Biqaʿ and, by
extension, Mount Lebanon as a whole, emerges as a spiritual center of
gravity within the larger whole.

22. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 108.

23. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 110–112.
 Steve Tamari 415

In addition to the placement of tombs of the prophets in the Biqaʿ,

al-Nabulsi also ties sites in the valley and its vicinity to particular places
in Syria and beyond, thus magnifying the connectivity between this part
of the land and others. Near Baalbek is the village of al-Labwa, which
is nourished by the spring of Ras al-ʿAyn much as, notes al-Nabulsi, al-
Rabwa near Damascus is nourished by the waters of the Barada River.
The association not only ties al-Labwa and al-Rabwa together, but also
Baalbek and Damascus.24 Not long after the visit to Baalbek, al-Nabulsi
and his party came to the village of Timnin, where the cold fresh water
reminded him of the village of Manin in the vicinity of Damascus.25 In
both cases, al-Nabulsi was moved to compose poetry on the parallels
between the places. That the names rhyme facilitated these associations.
Clearly, poetry, especially when recited, can work to establish and
accentuate ties that may not have previously existed. In another example
of projecting the impression of one place upon another, al-Nabulsi’s
stop in Mount Lebanon brings to mind comparisons with Mount Sinai
and Mount Qasyun.26 Even more comprehensively, al-Nabulsi opens
the travelogue with a reference to prophets in Bilad al-Sham and in the
Hijaz as “creating a kind of symmetry and balance” between one land of
prophesy and another.27
The special status of the Biqaʿ within geographical Syria rests on
the presence of these sacred sites. Yet one has to wonder, as al-Nabulsi
himself did, about the veracity of the claims that these were, in fact, the
places they were said to be. Al-Nabulsi approaches this question in two
ways, which reveal both his worldly knowledge and command of the
written record, on the one hand, and his holistic approach to sources of
knowledge, which values the insights and experiences of the people, al-
ʿamm, on the ground.
Al-Nabulsi composed his travelogue after returning home, when
he had at his disposal a library of works in a variety of genres to help
him flesh out the biographical and historical backgrounds of the places

24. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 78–79.

25. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 90.
26. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 103.
27. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 55.
416 The Bible Came from Lebanon

he had visited. As for Noah’s tomb, for example, Badawi’s tafsir on the
surah of Hud suggests that Noah may have built his ark and landed in
India, given the kind of wood he is said to have used.28 He refers to
Fayruzabadi’s Qamus to determine whether there are sources to confirm
the burial place of Elijah. That the tombs of David and Mary are located
in the Biqaʿ is doubtful. It is well known, writes al-Nabulsi, that David is
buried in Jerusalem, although al-Harawi indicates some think that he may
be buried with Solomon in Bethlehem.29 Al-Harawi is adamant that Mary
is buried in Gehenna outside Jerusalem. There is also a claim that Mary’s
tomb is in the Sadat neighborhood inside Damascus. Finally, he recounts
at length the story of how Mary ended up in Mount Lebanon according to
a text by Yahya b. al-Hasan al-Azduwayli.30 In the end, he declines to take
sides, concluding, “Perhaps the truth rests somewhere in the middle . . .”31
For all his concern with the work of catalogers, biographers, and
other mainstays of the written record, al-Nabulsi’s views of what is
real were not constrained by scholarly tradition. The question of the
permissibility of tomb visitation is one that rocked the world of Islam
during the period of the Kadizadeli reaction. He wrote two treatises
defending the practice – a general work titled Kashf al-nur ʿan ashab al-
qubur [Bringing Light to Friends of Tomb Visitation] and one focused
on the tomb of his spiritual and intellectual inspiration, Muhyi al-Din b.
ʿArabi.32 Early on in the travelogue under discussion here, he addresses
the question of tomb visitation head on. He notes that some say visitation
to tombs is forbidden and that there is doubt as to the veracity of the
location of particular tombs. But to al-Nabulsi this is all beside the point:
“Indeed there is no certainty as to the designation of any prophet’s tomb
excepting that of Muhammad. He is buried in Medina about which there

28. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 93.

29. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 103–104.
30. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 111.
31. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 112.
32. ʿAbd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, Kashf al-nur ʿan ashab al-qubur, Muhammad ʿAbd al-
Hakim Sharaf Qadiri (Lahore: al-Maktabah al-Nuriyah al-Radwiyah, 1977) and ʿAbd al-
Ghani al-Nabulusi, “The hidden secret concerning the shrine of Ibn ʿArabi: a treatise by
ʿAbd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi” trans. P. B. Fenton, Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society
24 (1988): 21–50.
 Steve Tamari 417

is no doubt. He who visits the tomb of a prophet receives a blessing to

the extent of the purity of his intentions. Only God knows of the reality
of the situation.”33
The conviction that insists that only God is in a position to judge the
intentions of men reveals itself throughout the text. It is especially striking
given the intellectual stature of someone like al-Nabulsi, particularly
because he repeatedly demonstrates his acceptance of the beliefs and
practices of common people, al-ʿamm. This is not to say he has no interest in
correcting what he considers a conspicuous error. For example, he is quick
to school his less educated provinical hosts in the correct pronunciation
of Baalbek by pointing out that the colloquialism “Baʿalbak” is simply
incorrect; the correct pronunciation, he says, is “Baʿlabak.”34 On another
occasion, he insists that the name of the village Qabb Ilyas is a sign of
“corruption [of the language] among the masses (al-ʿawam)” (he says it
should be called Qabr Ilyas).35 These elitist proclivities aside, al-Nabulsi
spends much of his time learning from the common people in towns and
villages, and he expresses appreciation of their knowledge and happiness
in their company. Just as he is about to enter Baalbek, he expresses thanks
to “all those who were with us from among the elites (al-khass) and the
ʿamm” for the good fortune of being able to find their destinations and
to fulfill their goals. 36 He credits the reports of natives of Baalbek “who
had entered the ancient monuments from childhood through adulthood”
with helping him with his meticulous study of the ruins.37 His heart is
warmed by the greetings of the villagers of Qabb Ilyas, and he delights
in the generosity of a group of Bedouin (ʿarab) and in the hospitality of
a group of Turkmen with whom the party enjoyed an evening of food
and drumming.38 Al-Nabulsi’s open-mindedness and nonjudgmental
character when it comes to the insights of commoners and to their
beliefs and practices (some of which he doesn’t share) complicates the
widely held image of the ʿalim as restricted to an urban environment

33. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 68–69.

34. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 79.
35. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 97.
36. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 81.
37. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 85.
38. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 97, 105.
418 The Bible Came from Lebanon

and the formal trappings of textual learning and established lines for the
transmission of knowledge.
This down-to-earth attitude toward learning and experience reveals
itself in two other dimensions of al-Nabulsi’s account of his travels
to the Biqaʿ. One is the enormous interest he takes in the very secular
phenomenon of the ancient ruins of Baalbek, and the second is the deeply
sensory character of his delight in nature.
By far the longest single description of any structure or site that al-
Nabulsi visits on this journey is that of the ruins at Baalbek. It occupies
a full five pages in the edited version of the book, many times more
attention than given to any of the more than forty sites that he visits in
the course of the journey.39 For anyone who has visited Baalbek, this is
unremarkable. The craftsmanship, the artistry, the engineering, and,
above all else, the scale of the complex is bound to move even the most
jaded modern tourist. Historians have, however, characterized Muslim
travelers – and al-Nabulsi, in particular – as being motivated first and
foremost by religious and spiritual concerns and as having little interest
in life beyond or before the advent of Islam or the Abrahamic monotheistic
tradition.40 Al-Nabulsi’s painstakingly meticulous descriptions of the site
involving research in the sources and on-the-scene measurements and
interviews with locals challenges the notion that non-Muslim sites and
empirical observation were of no interest to him or those of his ilk.
To begin, al-Nabulsi is at a loss to explain who could have built the
structures before him at Baalbek. He follows the lead of Harawi, who
reports that Solomon was aided by jinn in the construction of Jerusalem
and the fortress (qalaʿ) of Baalbek. He does not labor the issue of origins.
He is more interested in observing what is before him. His descriptions are
empirical and precise. He provides measurements for the height of pillars

39. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 81–86.

40. Elizabeth Surriyeh emphasizes the mystical components of al-Nabulsi’s travel
writing as she argues that he develops a new genre of mystical travel literature, Sufi
Visionary, 108–128. On the question of interest in pre-Islamic history among Muslim
scholars, a compelling intervention is Okasha El-Daly, Egyptology: The Missing Millennium,
Ancient Egypt in Medieval Arabic Writings (London: University College of London, 2008) in
which the author demonstrates the depth of interest in pre-Islamic history – to the extent
of deciphering hieroglyphs – among medieval Egyptian Muslim scholars.
 Steve Tamari 419

and towers, the length of arcades, the number of stairs, and the width
– down to the shabran (the length of a hand) – of columns. To confirm
these dimensions and to put together as detailed a picture as possible,
he crawled up a narrow, dark tower and through a maze of hidden rooms
with the aid of candles. He describes decorations of snakes, scorpions,
turtles, and statues of men. He observes the destruction that had taken
place over the years, some of it attributed to Fakhr al-Din Maʿn’s siege
of the city in his wars against the Harfush and some of it as a result of
earthquakes. Al-Nabulsi is quite impressed by what he has witnessed. The
monument is “awesome” (ha ʾil), “great” (ʿazim), and “without compare”
(ma laha mathil). He concludes his description with two lines of poetry
to the effect: “There is in Baalbek something peerless, one of a kind; a
monument which all who have witnessed say, ‘this building was not built
by man.’”41
Al-Nabulsi’s amazement at the monuments at Baalbek is matched
only by the delight he takes in communing with nature. The travelogue
is full of poems inspired by the lush environment of the Biqaʿ and its
surroundings. Just as the group is about to settle down in Zabadani for
their first night on the road, al-Nabulsi remarks, “The sun danced in the
sky disappearing and reappearing as it sunk into the west. It was as if the
movement of the sun captivated us as a group.”42 The countless springs,
gardens, groves, hills and meadows, and mountain passes likewise dazzle
him from this point on. Al-Nabulsi’s description of the spring at Ras al-
ʿAyn outside Baalbek reveals the soul of a man who genuinely delights in
camaraderie and the sensual experiences offered by nature:

Then the huge tent with decorations was brought out for the sake of a
more intimate and relaxing ambiance. The tent was set up in a green
meadow with a garden full of flowers near a place called Ras al-ʿAyn.
We became relaxed and delighted. The waters of the creek glistened,
and I felt at one with it . . . I wrote the following lines: God watered the
valley of Baalbek with Ras al-ʿAyn . . . Baalbek of the fresh air cleared
our hearts . . . O, Baalbek! Is there a more flourishing spot in the land? 43

41. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 86.

42. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 61.
43. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 77.
420 The Bible Came from Lebanon

About the Biqaʿ, he writes: “We travelled in the land of the Biqaʿ,
contemplating the hills and the lowlands; the vision pleasing to the eyes
and the breezes to the ears” and “the Biqaʿ is the paradise; how wonderful!
In these gardens our hearts were lost.”44 For al-Nabulsi, Mount Lebanon
evokes peculiar charms: “We looked upon Mount Lebanon and saw it to
be great in size and significance. It encompasses flowing waters, trees of
all colors at high elevations, all manner of fruits, flowers – common and
wild – grape arbors, and a host of other curiosities.”45
Al-Nabulsi’s revelry in the natural beauty of this land complements
both his meticulous description of the pre-Islamic ruins at Baalbek and
the flexibility of his approach to sacred sites to offer us the profile of a man
who exercised the full spectrum of human temperaments and faculties,
from the spiritual to the intellectual and the social to the sensory. That the
man was not constrained by his place of origin or his scholarly proclivities
is a testament to the broad range of sources of knowledge and varieties of
experience available to those willing and able to take advantage of them
at this time and in this place, as was al-Nabulsi.
To conclude with al-Nabulsi and the land itself, here are his final
reflections on the insights and experiences gained on this journey:

My wishes were fulfilled in Lebanon . . . achieved without a blood sacrifice

I saw it in the flesh, its spirits thriving . . . by virtue of the beauty of the
proximity of its sweetness
I was present there, the heart as a result intoxicated . . . I saw there two
hills with two springs
One spring named ʿAyn al-ʿAbid . . . from which the water flowed as over
a pearl
As though we were in its shade in a palace . . . surrounded by fine stone
And the other, ʿAyn al-Salihin . . . a blessed spring that has flowed for
ages
At its top is a tomb to Elijah radiating . . . its glow extending and
intensifying
Mystery made plain and dignified sets upon it . . . to guide hearts along
the clear path
Also the tomb of David the prophet . . . lies in these majestic heights

44. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 95, 96.

45. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 104.
 Steve Tamari 421

How many are those who have laid their heads to rest here . . . between
the stones arranged like shrouds
Mariam the virgin has a tomb here . . . which we visited and honored
with respect and dignity
And ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Ramathani, who pleases . . . these sides
Musafir, father of ʿAdi, who . . . specializes in mystery and proofs
The generosity of God showers from his clouds. . . with kindness,
forgiveness, and pardons
To walk upon these scented gardens . . . is to follow foothills moistened
by pools of water.46

46. Al-Nabulsi, Hullat al-dhahab, 114.