The Consolidation of an Islamic Sacred Topography in Mamluk Galilee and Its Interplay with Judeo-Galilean Traditions

The Mamluk sultan Baybars’ seizure of Safed from the Franks in 1266 was a watershed event which set in motion a process of intensification in Muslim settlement both in Safed and the Galilee region at large. This process was accompanied by the emergence of new Islamic sacred sites which catered to the needs of the growing Muslim population in the region. Drawing mainly on the recently discovered History of Safed by al-ʿUthmānī, written in the late-fourteenth century, this article argues that a new Islamic sacred topography was shaped during this period, through an amalgam of immigrant Sufi saints and preexisting local traditions of sacred sites, mostly preserved among the Jewish communities of the Galilee. These were now integrated into an emerging Islamic sacred topography, formed through a dynamic interplay between local Galilean traditions and wider Islamicate spiritual currents.