During Ramadan, Palestinians Picnic in Aqsa Compound to Break Fast

JERUSALEM — With beneath half-hour till sunset, Anas Shalodi hurried via the Previous Metropolis’s lined souk carrying a big pot, sizzling off the range and wrapped in a inexperienced prayer rug, zipping previous others making their strategy to the mosque to interrupt their every day Ramadan quick.

On this bustling market within the coronary heart of Jerusalem, the place the scent of meals and incense mingled, he handed outlets and stalls promoting falafel, hummus and candy Ramadan juices. Folding chairs, blankets, prayer shawls and prayer beads have been additionally on supply — all the pieces wanted for iftar, the night meal that breaks the quick, at Al Aqsa Mosque.

Mr. Shalodi, 22, was toting the month of Ramadan’s most coveted meal for Palestinians: maqluba. The Center Japanese rice dish, which interprets as “the other way up,” performs a starring function within the Instagram and TikTok feeds of Palestinians capturing iftar.

The pot is ceremonially flipped onto a serving tray and lifted with aptitude to disclose the maqluba in opposition to the backdrop of the blue and gold Dome of the Rock.

The Shalodi household, residents of the Previous Metropolis, needed to stroll mere minutes to get to the mosque, however 1000’s of different Palestinian Muslims come from throughout Jerusalem, the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution and Israel to interrupt their quick picnic-style within the 35-acre Aqsa compound.

Some convey pots of steaming meals, others decide up an iftar meal as they make their means via the Previous Metropolis’s souks and others eat from the 1000’s of boxed meals distributed by charities all through the compound.

“It’s a gathering place,” Mr. Shalodi’s mom, Seham Ghait, 53, mentioned earlier within the day, as she fried cauliflower and potatoes for the maqluba. “I really feel at peace there.”

However with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan overlapping this yr with the Jewish vacation of Passover, there had been widespread fears that tensions over the contested website might disrupt that peace.

On Wednesday, Israeli police raided the compound, arresting tons of of Palestinian worshipers who had barricaded themselves contained in the Qibli Mosque, one in all two primary prayer halls within the compound, in an effort to remain there in a single day.

The raid outraged Palestinians and Muslims throughout the Center East and prompted armed teams within the Gaza Strip and Lebanon to fireside rockets at Israel. Israel launched airstrikes it mentioned focused the armed teams in southern Lebanon in addition to at Hamas army websites in Gaza.

Jews revere the compound because the Temple Mount, the placement of two historic temples, contemplating it the holiest website in Judaism. Israeli police have more and more allowed them to wish throughout visits to the compound, violating a longstanding settlement.

However when the compound shouldn’t be a flashpoint in the broader Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it’s a place of spirituality and group, one of many few public areas Palestinians say they’ve to assemble.

Mosques have lengthy been locations not solely of worship but in addition meeting. That’s very true of Al Aqsa after Israel occupied and annexed East Jerusalem, together with the Previous Metropolis, a transfer not acknowledged by a lot of the world.

“It’s the one place for the aged and younger kids and everybody to assemble,” mentioned Bassam Abu Lebda, who heads the workplace of Sheikh Azzam al-Khatib, the deputy chairman of the Islamic council that administers the mosque compound. “It’s a playground and an outlet and a non secular place to attach with God.”

Samira Magadleh, 59, grew up visiting Al Aqsa along with her father. This Ramadan she joined pals and family on a bus from their city, Baqa al Gharbiyye, bringing the trustworthy to the mosque.

As a Palestinian citizen of Israel who can journey simply to Jerusalem, she feels a way of duty to go to recurrently, particularly when she meets Palestinians coming from the occupied West Financial institution who must cross Israeli checkpoints to get right here and threat being denied entry.

“For us it’s simpler, no checkpoints or something,” she mentioned because the bus drove down a freeway alongside Israel’s separation barrier. “I really feel responsible if I don’t go there and pray.”

When she comes for iftar she eschews any elaborate meal. On today she introduced leftover kebabs, a carafe of Turkish espresso and a prayer rug. Breaking her quick in Al Aqsa shouldn’t be about consuming, she mentioned, however simply being there.

For Muslims, Al Aqsa is the third holiest website in Islam. And for Palestinians, it’s a potent image for the broader Palestinian trigger, embraced by Palestinian Muslims and Christians alike.

When her three kids have been younger, Ms. Ghait used to convey them to the Dome of the Rock to do homework and train them the Quran. Now she comes each morning by herself to learn it.

As sunset neared, she and her kids debated the place to sit down within the courtyard — and the place and when to do the dramatic reveal of the maqluba.

Because the second approached, Mr. Shalodi, rapidly flicking his wrists, flipped the pot onto the steel tray.

“Are you going to carry it,” a person got here by, asking eagerly, his telephone prolonged able to report.

A girl approached, livestreaming.

“Not but, with the adhan,” Ms. Ghait mentioned, referring to the decision to prayer that marked the top of the day’s quick.

Such scenes, shared extensively on social media, impressed the Abu Hussein household to convey their very own pot of maqluba to Al Aqsa.

“Mama, did you make it look good for the image?” Tala Abu Hussein, 17, requested her mom, referring to the hen and greens that adorn the highest of the maqluba and is a part of the reveal as soon as the pot is lifted. She added, “We have been inspired by different individuals’s movies.”

Regardless of having fasted for 14 hours, Tala was extra excited in regards to the reveal than consuming. Not so her youthful sister.

“Oh God, I’m so hungry,” mentioned Galia Abu Hussein, 12, lifting the lid barely to peek inside.

The household had pushed down from Baqa al Gharbiyye, 60 miles north of Jerusalem. That they had left the home at 4 p.m., wrapping the maqluba pot tightly in a thick blanket. Three hours later, it was nonetheless heat.

Round them individuals distributed dates, bottles of water and bread.

As the decision to prayer started, adopted a second later by a cannon firing signaling the quick’s finish, Mr. Shalodi ready to lastly carry the pot.

“Raise it towards you,” his mom instructed, “slowly, slowly.”

“I do know, Mama,” he mentioned as he knelt down, white prayer beads hung round his neck. “It’s not like that is the primary time I carry the maqluba pot.”

Round them individuals started savoring their first sip of water, chunk of a candy date or drag on a cigarette. By the point the night prayer started, lower than 10 minutes later, others had practically completed their meals.

Rows of girls prayed alongside rows of males — as everybody largely prayed wherever they have been already siting to eat — in contrast to the customary gender segregation for Muslim prayer.

Because the solar set, the lights within the mosque turned on, lighting the Dome of the Rock.

In lower than half-hour, the Shalodi household was completed with dinner — velocity consuming being a typical follow in Ramadan.

“I want I had a hookah,” Ms. Ghait joked. However that needed to wait.

Because the household walked from the compound and again via the souk, they handed greater than a dozen males engulfed in plumes of hookah smoke.

On heat nights, Ms. Ghait takes her personal hookah pipe as much as the roof of their house, the place she has a transparent view of the illuminated golden dome.