Ramla (al-Ramla): History of a Palestinian City and Its Heritage

Almost every Palestinian city is older than Islam. Ramla is the exception. Ramla, Palestine, is the one major town that the Arabs themselves founded, laid out from open ground in the early eighth century rather than inherited from Canaanites, Romans, or Byzantines. Its name says as much: al-Ramla (الرملة) comes from the Arabic raml, meaning sand, for the sandy plain on which it was set. For roughly three and a half centuries it was the capital of Palestine, and its ruins still stand a short walk from where Palestinian families were driven out in the summer of 1948. To keep that history close is part of the work behind FALASTIN's Palestinian heritage collection.

TL;DR

Ramla was founded around 715 CE by the Umayyad governor Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik, who soon became caliph. It is the only major city in Palestine established under Arab-Muslim rule. Sulayman replaced nearby Lydda with his new city and made it the capital of Jund Filastin, the military district of Palestine, a role Ramla held for about 350 years until the Crusader conquest of 1099. Its landmarks include the White Mosque and its surviving square minaret, the White Tower, and the underground Pool of the Arches, an Abbasid cistern from 789 CE. In July 1948, during Operation Danny, Ramla and Lydda were captured and most of their Arab residents expelled.

Where is Ramla in Palestine?

Ramla sits on the coastal plain of central Palestine, on the flat, fertile lowland between the Mediterranean and the hills of the interior. It lies a few kilometres south of Lydda (al-Lidd), its older twin, and roughly midway on the historic road that connected the port of Jaffa to Jerusalem. That position, astride the route from the sea to the holy city, is the reason the city existed at all. Whoever held Ramla controlled the traffic of pilgrims, merchants, and armies moving inland.

The plain around it was planted with olives, vines, and orchards, and Ramla grew into a commercial hub known for pottery, dyeing, weaving, and olive oil. Arab geographers of the tenth century described it as one of the finest cities of the region, larger and busier than most of its neighbours. What survives today is only a fragment of that, because in 1948 the Palestinian city was emptied of most of its people, and the memory of what it had been is now carried more in books and family stories than in its streets.

The Only City the Arabs Founded in Palestine

Ramla was built to order. Around 715 CE the Umayyad prince Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik, then governor of Palestine and soon to be caliph, chose a stretch of sandy ground near Lydda and founded a new capital there. He wanted a city of his own making, and he wanted it to outshine the old town in whose shadow it sat. He laid out markets, a palace, and a great congregational mosque, and he moved the seat of provincial government from Lydda to Ramla.

This makes Ramla unusual. Jerusalem, Jaffa, Nablus, Hebron, and Lydda were all ancient before the Arab conquest; the Muslims who arrived in the seventh century took over cities that were already old. Ramla alone was an Arab foundation, planned and populated as a new administrative center. It became the capital of Jund Filastin, the military district of Palestine, and held that rank for roughly 350 years, through the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid periods, until the Crusaders took it in 1099. For much of the early Islamic era, the capital of Palestine was not Jerusalem. It was Ramla.

That is precisely why its later erasure matters. In July 1948 the city that Arabs had built as their own capital was depopulated, and most of its Palestinian inhabitants became refugees within days. A place founded to be a Palestinian city was, within a single generation, nearly emptied of Palestinians. The stone monuments remained standing; the community that gave them meaning did not. Recording the history plainly is one way to keep that loss from being quietly written out. Its story runs parallel to that of neighbouring Lydda, its twin city on the plain.

The White Mosque and the White Tower

The heart of Sulayman's city was the White Mosque (al-Masjid al-Abyad). Begun under Sulayman and completed around 720 CE under his successor, the caliph Umar II, it was the main congregational mosque of the new capital. Over the centuries it was damaged, rebuilt, and expanded, and today almost nothing of the prayer hall survives above ground.

What remains, and dominates the skyline, is its minaret: the White Tower, a square stone tower about 27 metres (89 feet) high. It is a Mamluk-era structure, built under Sultan Baybars in the 1260s and rebuilt by Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad after an earthquake struck in 1318. A staircase of more than a hundred steps spirals up its interior. The tower is often called the Tower of the Forty, and for centuries it was the tallest thing for miles, visible to travellers long before they reached the city. Beneath the mosque courtyard lie three vaulted underground cisterns, part of the elaborate system that kept the city supplied with water.

The Pool of the Arches: Ramla's Underground Water

A short distance from the mosque lies one of the most striking survivals of early Islamic Palestine: the Pool of the Arches, known in Arabic as Birkat al-Anaziyya and sometimes called the Pool of Saint Helena. It is an underground water cistern, a stone chamber whose roof is carried on rows of pointed arches that rise from within the water itself.

An inscription dates the pool to 789 CE, during the reign of the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid. It was built to give Ramla a steady supply of water in a dry plain, fed by an aqueduct and reached by stairs that descend into the chamber. The pointed arches inside it are an early and often-cited example of the form, which later became widespread in medieval architecture. Visitors have long floated small boats between its columns in the cool underground light. It is a piece of eighth-century engineering that still holds water twelve hundred years later.

What Happened to Ramla in 1948?

Ramla was a thriving Palestinian town on the eve of 1948, with tens of thousands of residents, mosques, churches, schools, and a weekly market that drew the surrounding villages. In July 1948, during the war that followed the end of the British Mandate, Israeli forces launched Operation Danny to clear the towns commanding the Jaffa road. Ramla was captured on 12 July 1948, a day after nearby Lydda.

In the days that followed, most of the remaining inhabitants of Ramla and Lydda were expelled. The historian Benny Morris puts the number driven from the two towns at roughly 50,000 people, forced out in what became known as the Lydda and Ramle exodus. Families left on foot in the summer heat, many walking toward the West Bank, and were not permitted to return. By late 1949 only about two thousand Arabs remained across the two towns, out of a combined population that had been many times that. The city kept its buildings and lost its people. This is the same displacement that scattered the community of the port city of Jaffa further west, and it belongs to the wider story of the Nakba.

Ramla and Lydda, and Why It Is Not Ramallah

Ramla is easy to confuse with two other places, and it is worth separating them clearly. The first is Lydda (al-Lidd), its immediate neighbour a few kilometres north. Lydda is the ancient town, home of the Church of Saint George and a railway junction; Ramla is the younger Arab foundation built beside it to serve as capital. The two share a plain, a road, and the tragedy of the summer of 1948, but they are separate cities with separate histories.

The second is Ramallah, which is a completely different city in the central hills of the West Bank, north of Jerusalem. The names sound alike and both begin with the same Arabic root, but Ramla on the coastal plain and Ramallah in the highlands are not the same place and should never be treated as one. Ramla belongs to the lowland world of Jaffa, Lydda, and the road to Jerusalem; Ramallah belongs to the hills.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Ramla in Palestine?

Ramla lies on the coastal plain of central Palestine, a few kilometres south of Lydda and about midway on the old road between Jaffa and Jerusalem. It sits on flat, fertile lowland that was long planted with olives and orchards.

Who founded Ramla and when?

Ramla was founded around 715 CE by the Umayyad governor Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik, who shortly afterward became caliph. It is the only major city in Palestine that was founded under Arab-Muslim rule, rather than inherited from an earlier people.

What happened to Ramla in 1948?

Ramla was captured by Israeli forces on 12 July 1948 during Operation Danny, and most of its Palestinian residents were expelled in the following days. Historians estimate that roughly 50,000 people were driven from Ramla and Lydda together in what is known as the Lydda and Ramle exodus.

What is the difference between Ramla and Ramallah?

Ramla is a city on the coastal plain near Jaffa and Lydda, founded in the early eighth century. Ramallah is a separate city in the hills of the West Bank, north of Jerusalem. Despite the similar names, they are two different places.

A City Built on Sand

Ramla is a rare thing: a Palestinian city with a birthday. It was planned, named for the sand it stood on, and raised into the capital of Palestine at a moment when the Arabs who built it expected it to last. For centuries it did, its white minaret rising over the plain and its underground pools holding water through the dry months. Then, in one summer, the city was kept and its people were sent away. The White Tower still stands. The Pool of the Arches still holds its water. The story of who built them, and who was forced to leave, is the part that has to be told on purpose, because monuments alone do not remember.

Written for FALASTIN by Jad Sahyoun, with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed for accuracy against published historical scholarship on Ramla, including the work of historians such as Benny Morris on the events of 1948. Further reading: Ramla and the White Mosque of Ramla.

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