Towards an Exit Plan from Micro- to Macro-History: the Documents of the Jerusalem Waqf as a Historical Source

Abstract

This research tries to identify the different types of Islamic Waqf documents as a historical source and their significance in dating the cities in the cities as well as the local communities. This research will take Jerusalem as a case study. The academics whether historians or others used these documents to write about the Waqf and its provisions in the Islamic law and its applications in the cities as well as the local communities, especially the Islamic ones. Rarely have the academics employed these documents, despite their importance as a source in dating cities and local communities, away from issues related to the Islamic Waqf itself. The genealogy of the Waqf concepts and the ontological interpretations explain the ancient roots of this type of concept ( Waqf ) in the jurisprudential and ideological heritage as well as the metaphysical transformations and developments they went through, which reveals their importance for the historian as a historical source that bears the same importance as the others sources. These sources include the following: Islamic court records ( Sijill ), traveler literature, foreign archives, biographies, memoirs and dairies, oral history, journalism, books, historical manuscripts as well as classical historical sources. This study also deals with the advantages and problems of these documents for the historian as a historical source compared with other sources. This leads us to reflect on the need to use this type of resources in writing history with all its stages and its problems) Macrohistory) and not to only use, these Waqf issues (Microhistory).