Foreword by Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, Preface by Halit Eren
İstanbul, 2009 (in Turkish),
ISBN 978-92-9063-182-8 (Turkish ed.)
This album was published within the framework of the 40th anniversary commemoration of the OIC, which has the problem of al-Quds and Palestine as its foremost cause. Prof. Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, Secretary General of the OIC, wrote the Foreword. As he mentions, preservation of the multicultural character of the city with due respect of the populations and the shrines of each faith is an indispensable part of any acceptable solution of the problem. This character is well reflected in the authentic photographs in the album. Due to its special importance, al-Quds/Jerusalem was visited and described by many travelers. Then,
the region became the first place of interest of the pioneer photographers. The Ottoman Palace was among the first in the world to acquire photographs of the region. The Yıldız photograph collection which was formed during the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid
II contains a large number of them. The album contains the reproductions of 405 photographs gathered from IRCICA’s archive comprising the Yıldız Photograph Albums and several other collections.
