What Jerusalem looked like in the last days of Turkish rule

The ancient city of Jerusalem is rich in history and spiritual culture, shrouded in many secrets, mysteries and legends. And this is one of the sacred places, for the lands of which there is still a war going on to this day. Our review contains unique photographs of Jerusalem during the last years of the Ottoman Empire.

Over the thousand-year history of Jerusalem, its rulers and their subjects changed countless times - ancient pagans, biblical Israelites, Byzantine Christians, Ottoman Muslims...

The Ottoman Turks captured the city in 1517. Jerusalem was swallowed up by an empire whose borders covered vast areas from North Africa to Eastern Europe and the Middle East. By order of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1538, walls were erected along the perimeter of the city, and what was behind them is now called the Old City and is divided into Muslim, Christian, Jewish and Armenian quarters.

These photographs show Jerusalem during the last years of Ottoman rule. The city at that time was called the Jerusalem Mutasarrifat and was an administrative region, part of the border region called Palestine. During this period, due to several waves of immigration, the city's population was primarily Jewish.

In 1917, four centuries after the start of Ottoman rule, the city and surrounding area were captured by British troops and the British Mandate was established in Palestine.

The British Mandate period lasted until 1948, when tense Arab and Jewish nationalist relations led to civil war, the Arab-Israeli War of 1947–1949, and the creation of the Jewish state of Israel.