The Ecology of the Sacred and Archiving Palestinian Sufism in Ottoman Jerusalem: Muhammad al-Alami’s Ma ʿalim al-Tasdiq li-Maʿrifat Dukhul al-Faqir fi al-Ṭariq

This article examines how sacred authority was preserved and transmitted within the fragile manuscript culture of Ottoman Jerusalem through visionary discourse, sacred geography, and family-held textual traditions. Focusing on Muḥammad al-ʿAlamī's unpublished manuscript Maalim al-Tasdiq li-Marifat Dukhul al-Faqir fi al-Tariq, it argues that dreams, visions, shrine narratives, and imaginal encounters functioned as alternative archives of sanctity alongside written ijazas and scholarly transmission. Unlike Cairo or Damascus, where authority relied heavily on institutional manuscript circulation, Jerusalem fostered localised forms of preservation rooted in oral memory, shrine networks, and family codices. Drawing on Ibn Arabi's theory of the imaginal realm, the study proposes a textual, spatial, and imaginal framework for reading Ottoman Palestinian Sufi self-writing.