A narrative about the Defense of Muslim Sacred Space in Arab Folklore of the Modern Era

Abstract

For many centuries, the history of the Levant and Arabia have been marked by the conflicts for control of sacred spaces between representatives of various faiths, and this confrontation continues to this day. One of the most intense periods of this struggle was the era of the Crusades, the study of the memory of which in folklore sources is an important scientific task. Of significant interest in this case is the narrative about the defense of Muslim sacred space, which developed in the socalled Arabic Folk Epics. Although the threat to sacred space in this type of sources often comes not from the Franks (ifranj), but from the Byzantines (rūm), and the action itself in some monuments takes place in pre-Islamic times, the whole complex of stories about the threat to sacred space in Folk Epics can be considered an echo of the Crusades. The Franks and Byzantines in the Epics regularly threaten both Jerusalem and Mecca. It can also be assumed with a high degree of confidence that, thanks to the great popularity of Folk Epics in the Modern Era, the idea of a European threat to Muslim sacred space survived in the collective memory of the Arabs of Egypt and the Levant until the 19th century.