Al-Harawi, the author of a pilgrim's guide to Muslim sacred places (Kitāb al-Ishārāt ilā Maʿrifat al-Ziyārāt), visited Ascalon in 570/1174. He writes that the frontier town (thaghr) of Ascalon was renowned for Abraham's well, a strong fort and a shrine for al-Husayn's head, which the Muslims had delivered to Cairo in 549/1154. For readers wondering how a Muslim could have entered the Latin-ruled town, it bears to cite another twelfthcentury traveller, Ibn Jubayr. The latter notes that each side promised the other a secured status upon payment of a tax, and he concludes: ‘the soldiers engage themselves in their war, while the people are at peace …’ Movement between Frankish and Muslim territory was prevalent. And yet, the roads throughout the land, and especially in the vicinity of Ascalon, were teeming with warriors and brigands from both sides.

Al-Harawi dreams, both figuratively and literally, of the return of Ascalon to Muslim hands. He notes that he spent a night in the city's ‘shrine of Abraham’. By this he must have meant Mashhad al-Husayn, where an apparition of Muhammad promised him that Ascalon ‘will be for Islam, and a sign unto mankind’. Upon awakening, al-Harawi shared his dream with others by scribbling a graffiti message on the southern wall of the shrine, which – he was happy to note – was seen by soldiers and passers-by when the city had indeed returned to Muslim hands. As for the dream, it is worth noting that dreams induced by staying at a holy place were a known and seriously regarded occurence, probably from times immemorial until today, as contemporary anthropologists make note of this phenomenon as well. Some sites were, and still are especially visited in the hopes of triggering such a vision.

Al-Harawi's choice to spend the night in the shrine, however, may have been induced also by his confidence that no one would dare harm him in such a sacred place. A taboo on violating the sanctity of shrines and upsetting their patron-saint by theft or vandalism in ‘their’ abode, although not mentioned in the medieval sources I know, is repeatedly observed in ethnographies of Palestine from the late Ottoman period until today.