Editing Western Wall (section)

===Early Muslim to Mamluk period (638–1517)===
Several Jewish authors of the 10th and 11th centuries write about the Jews resorting to the Western Wall for devotional purposes.<ref>David M. Gitlitz & Linda Kay Davidson "Pilgrimage and the Jews" (Westport: CT: Praeger, 2006) 42–.</ref><ref name=report1930/> [[Ahimaaz ben Paltiel|Ahimaaz]] relates that Samuel ben Paltiel (980–1010) gave money for oil at "the sanctuary at the Western Wall."<ref name=Mann72>{{cite book |author=Jacob Mann|title=Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature: Ḳaraitica|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6muQAAAAIAAJ|access-date=May 17, 2013|year=1972|publisher=Ktav Pub. House|page=20|isbn=978-0870680854|quote=An improvement evidently took place after the Fatimid conquest in 970 when permission was granted to pray not at a gate but at the Western Wall (כותל מערבי). This permission may have been due to the intervention of Paltiel, the first Egyptian Nagid. Paltiel's son, Samuel, on the occasion of the transference' of his parents' remains to Jerusalem, donated among other gifts money for "oil for the sanctuary at the Western Wall, for the altar that is inside" (ושמן למקדש בכותל מערבי למזבח שבפנים).}}</ref><ref name=Bonfil09>{{cite book |author=R. Bonfil|title=History and Folklore in a Medieval Jewish Chronicle: The Family Chronicle of Aḥima'az Ben Paltiel|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QX6IYhQZ5MwC&pg=PA336|access-date=May 17, 2013|year=2009|publisher=Brill|isbn=978-90-04-17385-9|page=336}}</ref><ref name=Levanon80>{{cite book |author=Yosef Levanon|title=The Jewish travellers in the twelfth century |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XpBtAAAAMAAJ |access-date=May 17, 2013 |date=1980 |publisher=University Press of America|isbn=978-0-8191-1122-7|page=259|quote=The scroll of Ahim'as (11th century) speaks of a synagogue near the Western Wall.}}</ref> [[Benjamin of Tudela]] (1170) wrote "In front of this place is the western wall, which is one of the walls of the Holy of Holies. This is called the Gate of Mercy, and hither come all the Jews to pray before the Wall in the open court." The account gave rise to confusion about the actual location of Jewish worship, and some suggest that Benjamin in fact referred to the Eastern Wall along with its [[Golden Gate (Jerusalem)|Gate of Mercy]].<ref name=Goldhill09>{{cite book |author=Simon Goldhill|title=Jerusalem: City of Longing|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PoLEULaZHzAC&pg=PA74|access-date=May 20, 2013|year=2009|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-03468-6|pages=74–75|quote=Perhaps the earliest evidence for the Western Wall being used for prayer is found in the Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, who visited Jerusalem at some point between 1169 and 1171 on his long trip around the east from Spain, when the city was ruled by the Crusaders. […] This is a confused account: the Gate of Mercy is in the Eastern Wall. But it may imply that the Western Wall was also used for prayer.}}</ref><ref name=Philipson68>{{cite book |author=David Philipson|title=Hebrew Union College Annual|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mnu1AAAAMAAJ|access-date=May 20, 2013|edition=1930|volume=6|year=1968|publisher=Hebrew Union College|page=7|quote=How this confusion between the Golden Gate and the Western Wall could have arisen it is difficult to imagine, unless it be due to the fact that both spots may have been favourite places of prayer for the Jews of the Middle Ages, just as the Western or Wailing Wall continues to be still today. The fact that this confusion seems to have existed only with Jewish travellers would tend to corroborate this hypothesis.}}</ref> While [[Nahmanides]] (d. 1270) did not mention a synagogue near the Western Wall in his detailed account of the temple site,<ref>{{cite book |author1=Fred Skolnik|author2=Michael Berenbaum|title=Encyclopaedia Judaica|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VkAOAQAAMAAJ|access-date=May 20, 2013|year=2007|publisher=Macmillan Reference |isbn=978-0-02-865949-7|page=25|quote=In the 12th century Benjamin of Tudela mentions Jews coming to the Western Wall for prayers and to the "Mercy Gate," but it is possible that the other walls to the south and east also served a similar purpose. Later visiting rabbis (12th–15th centuries) also refer to the walls of the Temple Mount, but they too, are not specific in terms of a gathering spot for Jewish worship along the Western Wall. The Western Wall is not mentioned at all by Nahmanides (13th century) in his detailed account of the Temple site in 1267 nor in the report of [[Ishtori Haparchi|Estori ha-Parhi]] (14th century). It does not figure even in descriptions of Jerusalem in Jewish sources of the 15th century (e.g., Meshullam of Volterra, [[Obadiah ben Abraham|Obadiah of Bertinoro]], etc.). The name Western Wall, used by Obadiah, refers—as can be inferred from the context—to the southwestern corner of the wall, and there is no hint that there was a place of Jewish worship there. It is only from the 16th century that Jews began praying at the present location and this is clear from the available sources. Thenceforth all literary sources describe it as a place of assembly and prayer for Jews. Transmitted by [[Moses Hagiz]], it was the sultan [[Selim I]], the conqueror of Jerusalem, who recovered the Wall from underneath the dungheap which was hiding it and granted permission to the Jews to hold prayers there.}}</ref> shortly before the [[First Crusade|Crusader period]] a synagogue existed at the site.<ref name=MG1>{{cite book |last=Gilbert |first=Martin |author-link=Martin Gilbert |title=Jerusalem Illustrated History Atlas |year=1977 |publisher=[[Board of Deputies of British Jews]] |location=London |isbn=0-905648-04-8 |page=31 |chapter=The 'Wailing Wall' Under Ottoman rule 1517–1917}}</ref> [[Obadiah ben Abraham|Obadiah of Bertinoro]] (1488) states "the Western Wall, part of which is still standing, is made of great, thick stones, larger than any I have seen in buildings of antiquity in Rome or in other lands."<ref>{{cite book |last=Yaakov Dovid |first=Shulman |title=Pathway to Jerusalem |year=1992 |publisher=CIS Publishers |location=US |isbn=1-56062-130-3 |page=59 |chapter=A Letter to My Father}} Adler preferred the generic translation "western wall" rather than "Western Wall". {{cite book |author=Elkan Nathan Adler |title=Jewish Travellers in the Middle Ages |publisher=Dover |year=1987 |page=240}}</ref>

Shortly after [[Saladin]]'s 1187 [[Siege of Jerusalem (1187)|siege of the city]], in 1193, the sultan's son and successor [[Al-Afdal ibn Salah ad-Din|al-Afdal]] established the land adjacent to the wall as a [[waqf|charitable trust]] (''waqf''). The largest part of it was named after an important mystic, [[Abu Madyan|Abu Madyan Shu'aib]]. The Abu Madyan waqf was dedicated to [[Maghreb]]ian pilgrims and scholars who had taken up residence there, and houses were built only metres away from the wall, from which they were thus separated by just a narrow passageway,<ref>{{cite book |last=Harman |first=Graham |title=A History of Palestine |year=2008 |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |isbn=978-0-691-11897-0|page=225 |chapter=The Mufti and the Wailing Wall |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofpalesti00krea/page/ |url-access=registration |access-date=13 December 2022}}</ref> some {{convert|4|m}} wide.{{citation needed|date=December 2022}}

The first likely mention of the Islamic tradition that Buraq was tethered at the site is from the 14th century. A manuscript by Ibrahim b. Ishaq al-Ansari (known as Ibn Furkah, d. 1328) refers to Bab al-Nabi ({{lit|Gate of the Prophet}}), an old name for [[Barclay's Gate]] below the Maghrebi Gate.<ref name=Ricca07>{{cite book |last=Ricca |first=Simone |title=Reinventing Jerusalem |year=2007 |publisher=[[I.B.Tauris]] |isbn=978-1-84511-387-2 |page=212 |chapter=Notes to Chapter One}}</ref><ref name=KhalidiPI>{{cite book |last=Khalidi |first=Rashid |title=Palestinian Identity |year=1997 |publisher=Columbia University Press |page=216}}</ref> Charles D. Matthews however, who edited al-Firkah's work, notes that other statements of al-Firkah might seem to point to the [[The Double Gate|Double Gate]] in the [[Southern Wall|southern wall]].<ref name=Matthews>{{cite journal |last=Matthews |first=Charles D. |title=The Wailing Wall and Al Buraq. Is the 'Wailing Wall' in Jerusalem the 'Wall of al-Buraq' of Moslem tradition? |year=1932 |pages=331–339 |journal=The Moslem World |volume=22 |number=4 |doi=10.1111/j.1478-1913.1932.tb03757.x |via=reprint in "Al-Haram ash-Sharif in Jerusalem: texts and studies", III, Collected and reprinted by [[Fuat Sezgin]] et al., Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science, [[Frankfurt|Frankfurt/Main]] (2007), pp. 225–235 |url=https://www.answering-islam.org/Books/MW/al-buraq.htm |access-date=13 December 2022|issn =0027-4909}}</ref>