The name Palestine is the most commonly used from the Late Bronze Age (from 1300 BC) onwards. The name is evident in countless histories, ‘Abbasid inscriptions from the province of Jund Filastin (Elad 1992), Islamic numismatic evidence maps (including ‘world maps’ beginning with Classical Antiquity) and Philistine coins from the Iron Age and Antiquity, vast quantities of Umayyad and Abbasid Palestine coins bearing the mint name of Filastin. As we shall see below, the manuscripts of medieval al‑Fustat (old Cairo) Genizah also referred to the Arab Muslim province of Filastin (Gil 1996: 28‒29). From the Late Bronze Age onwards, the names used for the region, such as Djahi, Retenu and Cana’an, all gave way to the name Palestine. Throughout Classical and Late Antiquity – a term used by historians to describe a period between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD, a transitional period from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages in the Mediterranean world, Europe and the Near East – the name Palestine remained the most common. Furthermore, in the course of the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic periods the conception and political geography of Palestine acquired official administrative status.
Today the idea of a country is often conflated with the modern concept of ‘nation‑state’, but this was not always the case and countries existed long before nationalism or the creation of metanarratives for the nation‑state. The conception of Palestine as a geo‑political unit and a country (Arabic: bilad or qutr), with evolving boundaries, has developed historically and continues to do so. The identity and cultures of Palestine are living organisms: they change, evolve and develop.
The British occupied Jerusalem in December 1917 and historians often argue that Palestine did not exist as an official administrative unit until the creation of Mandatory Palestine by the British in 1918. Palestine existed as a distinct administrative unit and a formal province for over a millennium. This was first as the joint Roman province of ‘Syria Palaestina’ (135‒390 AD) and subsequently, as a province separate from Syria, in the form of the three administrative provinces of Byzantine Palestine: Palaestina Prima (Палестина Прима), or Palaestina I, Palaestina Secunda (Палестина Секунда) and Palaestina Salutaris or Palaestina Tertia (Палестина Терция). Moreover, these three provinces were effectively governed politically, militarily and religiously from Palaestina Prima as a ‘three‑in‑one’ polity from the 4th century until the early 7th century. And once again Palestine existed as a separate administrative entity in the form of the administrative Arab Muslim province of Jund Filastin. This administrative province of Jund Filastin (Soldiers of Palestine) existed for nearly four and half centuries from the Muslim conquest of Palestine in 637‒638 until the Latin Crusader invasion of 1099 AD.
Over three millennia from the late Bronze Age and until the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948, Palestine enjoyed a great deal of social, political and economic autonomy and also experienced statehood through distinct, though not mutually exclusive, ways – ways which had a profound impact on the evolution of the ideas of Palestine across the millennia:
- Autonomous economic and monetary systems and the issuing of Palestinian currency: the institution of independent monetary policies and the minting of distinct Palestinian currency were evident in the cases of the coinage of Philistia or Philisto‑Arabian in the 6th‒4th centuries, and the minting of Arab currency ‘in Filastin’ throughout early Islam.
- Imperial patron‒protégé systems: the construction of patron‒client systems and the rise of local and autonomous regional and urban elites in Palestine, as was in the case of the ‘urban notables’ of Ottoman Palestine. But ultimately, these Ottoman urban elites in Palestine were rule‑takers not rule‑makers and rule‑breakers.
- Administrative, provincial and military autonomy: this is evident throughout the Roman and Byzantine periods in what became widely known as Provincia Palaestina or the Dux Palaestinae, the ‘military commander of Palestine’, Mutawalli Harb Filastin (Military Governor of Palestine), and in late Ottoman period Palestine with the creation of the autonomous administrative Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem as the key province of Palestine.
- Palestinian client states: the emergence and creation of several Palestinian client states, partly based on the same patron‒client relationships. Although the types of client states in Palestine and the degree of their subordination to imperial or powerful states varied significantly, the kings of Philistia throughout much of the Iron Age, the client King Herod the Great under the Romans in the 1st century AD, the Ghassanid tribal Arab federate kings (supreme phylarchs) of Palaestina Secunda, Palaestina Prima and Palaestina Tertia in the 6th and early 7th centuries, and to a lesser extent the autonomous regime of Ahmad Pasha al‑Jazzar in the 18th century were cases in point.
- Palestinian practical sovereignty and statehood: this was achieved by Daher al‑‘Umar following his successful rebellion against Ottoman rule in the middle of the 18th century.
- Ecclesiastical independence and autocephaly: this was achieved by the Church of Aelia Capitolina and Provincia Palaestina from the mid‑5th century following the Council of Chalcedon.
- Seafaring and international trade routes in Palestine and the highly sophisticated urban coastal centres of Philistia (which included Gaza, Ascalon, Ashdod and Jaffa) combined to develop geo‑politically as an integrated south in the course of Iron Age II (c. 1000‒600 BC) and Philistia was the first to develop political autonomy and an autonomous monetary system in Palestine in the form of silver coins, issued in the late 6th, 5th and 4th centuries BC. This local Palestinian currency, known as the coinage of Philistia, was circulated widely in the Philisto‑Arabian region and became known as Philisto‑Arabian coins.
- In contrast with the European Zionist settler‑colonial project, which is based on old legends and new Social Darwinism – of ‘iron walls’ and ‘survival of the fittest’, of the appropriation and erasure of indigenous heritage of the country, Palestine and its local heritage have survived across more than three millennia through adaption, fluidity and transformation. The continuities, ruptures, adaption, re‑adaption and metamorphosis of Palestine (from Philistia to Palaestina to Filastin) are also exhibited in the medieval Arabic name Philistin (Filastin), which preserved the Latin Philistina or Philistinus, deriving from ancient Philistia – which gave rise to the Roman administrative name of Provincia Palaestina – in turn based on the ancient name preserved in a variety of ancient languages, the Akkadian (Babylonian) Palastu and Egyptian Parusata/Peleset.
- The modern conception of Palestine as a geo‑political unit and a distinct country is deeply rooted in the ancient history, culture and material and intellectual heritage of the land. Already in the course of the Iron Age (1200 to the Assyrian conquest of 712 BC) Philistia evolved not only into a distinct political geography but also as a separate geo‑political entity. This fact would have a long‑term impact on the evolution of the ancient, medieval and modern representations of Palestine.
- Palestine as a country (balad or bilad) with a distinct history, physical and cultural geography, evolving boundaries, shifting capital cities (al‑Quds/Aelia Capitolina/Iliya/Jerusalem, Caesarea‑Palaestina, al‑Ramla‑Filastin), regional capitals (Gaza, Tiberias, Scythopolis/ Beisan, Safad, Acre, Nablus) existed for millennia; a country may or may not be a sovereign state; Palestine as a country (like Scotland, Wales, Catalonia, Andalus/Andalusia, Kurdistan, the Basque region, Chechnya or Kashmir) should not be automatically conflated or equated with modern Palestinian nationalism or any modern national representations of the ‘nation‑state of Palestine’.
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