Editing Gaza City (section)

===Mamluk period===
Following Gaza's destruction by the Mongols, Muslim slave-soldiers based in Egypt known as the [[Bahri dynasty|Mamluks]] began to administer the area. In 1277, the Mamluks made Gaza the capital of a province that bore its name, ''Mamlakat Ghazzah'' (Governorship of Gaza). This district extended along the coastal plain of Palestine from [[Rafah]] in the south to just north of [[Caesarea Maritima|Caesarea]], and to the east as far as the [[Samaria]]n highlands and the [[Hebron Hills]]. Other major towns in the province included [[Qaqun]], [[Lod|Ludd]], and [[Ramla]].<ref name="Ring and Salkin2" /><ref name="Sharon">Sharon, 1997, pp.XII-XIII.</ref>{{full citation needed|date=June 2024}} Gaza, which entered a period of tranquility under the Mamluks, was used by them as an outpost in their offensives against the Crusaders which ended in 1290.<ref>Sharon, 2009, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=P2LtyFVNJmcC&pg=PA26 26]</ref> In 1294 an earthquake devastated Gaza, and five years later the Mongols again destroyed all that had been restored by the Mamluks.<ref name="Ring and Salkin2" /> [[Syria (region)|Syrian]] geographer [[Shams al-Din al-Ansari al-Dimashqi|al-Dimashqi]] described Gaza in 1300 as a "city so rich in trees it looks like a cloth of brocade spread out upon the land."<ref name="Doughty" /> Under the governorship of Emir [[Sanjar al-Jawli]], Gaza was transformed into a flourishing city and much of the [[Mamluk architecture|Mamluk-era architecture]] dates back to his reign between 1311 and 1320 and again in 1342.<ref>Sharon, 2009, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=P2LtyFVNJmcC&pg=PA87 87]</ref><ref>Meyer, 1907, p. [https://archive.org/stream/historyofcityofg00meyeuoft#page/83/mode/1up 83]</ref> In 1348 the [[bubonic plague]] spread to the city, killing the majority of its inhabitants and in 1352, Gaza suffered from a destructive flood, which was rare in that arid part of Palestine.<ref name="Ring and Salkin3">Ring and Salkin, 1994, p.290.</ref> However, when Arab writer [[Ibn Battuta]] visited the city in 1355, he noted that it was "large and populous, and has many mosques."<ref>[[Ibn Battuta]] quoted in le Strange, 1890, p. [https://archive.org/stream/palestineundermo00lestuoft#page/442/mode/1up 442]</ref> The Mamluks contributed to Gazan architecture by building mosques, [[madrassa|Islamic colleges]], hospitals, [[caravansaries]], and [[Bath house|public baths]].<ref name="Filfil" />

The Mamluks allowed Jews to return to the city, after being expelled by the Crusaders, and the Jewish community prospered during Mamluk rule. Towards the end of the Mamluk period, the Jewish community in Gaza was the third largest in Palestine, after the communities in Safad and Jerusalem.{{Citation needed|date=December 2013}} In 1481, an Italian Jewish traveller, [[Meshulam of Volterra]], wrote of Gaza:<blockquote>It is a fine and renowned place, and its fruits are very renowned and good. Bread and good wine is to be found there, but only Jews make wine. Gaza has a circumference of four miles and no walls. It is about six miles from the sea and situated in a valley and on a hill. It has a population as numerous as the sands of the sea, and there are about fifty (sixty) Jewish householders, artisans. They have a small but pretty Synagogue, and [[vineyard]]s and fields and houses.<ref>{{cite book | author = Elkan Nathan Adler | title = Jewish Travellers in the Middle Ages | url = https://archive.org/details/jewishtravellers00elka | url-access = registration | publisher = Dover | year = 1987 |orig-year= 1930 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/jewishtravellers00elka/page/180 180–181]| isbn = 9780486253978 }}</ref></blockquote>