113 10 OTTOMAN JERUSALEM, 1517–1918 Yuval Ben-Bassat university of haifa Johann Buessow university of bochum The Ottomans governed Jerusalem from 1516 to 1917. They had captured the city peacefully in 1516 following the successful campaign of Sultan Selim I (r. 1512–1520) against the Mamluks in Syria and Palestine, which culminated in their conquest of Cairo in 1517 (on Mamluk Jerusalem, see Antrim, Chapter 9, and Pullan, Chapter 19, both this volume). Towards the end of World War I, some 401 years later, they lost the city to British troops led by General Edmond Allenby. The Jerusalem that the Ottomans had conquered in the sixteenth century, a small pilgrimage town and provincial center, was very different from the rapidly developing and modernizing city that they lost to the British. By that time, Jerusalem had become a center of international attention and the bone of contention between two emerging national movements that were in their initial stages of bitter combat over its control as part of a broader struggle for Palestine in general. Early Ottoman measures to restructure the city Sultan Selim did not initiate any significant projects in the city after taking it from the Mamluks (Evliya Çelebi 1980: 55–59, 2011: 317). The task was left to his son and successor, the famous Sultan Süleyman ‘Kanuni’ (‘the Lawgiver’, better known in Europe as ‘the Magnificent’, r. 1520–1566). Aided by his wife Roxelana and his chief architect Sinan, Süleyman focused on the infrastructure. He ordered the building of the massive city walls that still stand today and are one of the city’s best-known symbols. They encircle what is known today as the Old City of Jerusalem, which covers an area of approximately one square kilometer. The walls encompass all the major sites of Roman (Herodian) Jerusalem, with the notable exception of Mount Zion. When constructing the walls, the citadel adjacent to Jaffa Gate was enlarged by the addition of a tower, a mosque and a stately entrance. The walls were built in part on top of earlier foundations and made secondary use of existing building materials. They served for both the city’s defenses as well as to boost the Sultan’s prestige (Evliya Çelebi 1980: 63–75, 2011: 323–327).