The Monk on the Roof

Around 1900 the small Ethiopian community in Jerusalem found itself in a desperate struggle with the Copts over the Dayr al-Sultan monastery located on the roof of the Holy Sepulchre. Based on a profoundly researched, impassioned and multifaceted exploration of a forgotten manuscript, this book abandons the standard majority discourse and approaches the history of Jerusalem through the lens of a community typically considered marginal. It illuminates the political, religious and diplomatic affairs that exercised the city, and guides the reader on a fascinating journey from the Ethiopian highlands to the Holy Sepulchre, passing through the Ottoman palaces in Istanbul.

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