The Easter Fire at Jerusalem

Extract

The earliest western mention of the Easter fire seems to be by Fulcher of Chartres in a.d. 1101 and this, like later reports, calls it a miracle. An Arabic account exists in a manuscript in the British Museum of the tatimmat ṣiwān al-ḥikma by 'Alī b. Zaid al-Baihaqī († 1174) though it is not in the Lahore print of this book. It runs:—

He said: How shall I neglect the judgement of the teacher? The fire comes down in the church of the Resurrection in the mosque al-Aqṣā. The story of this fire is that on the night in which God lifted Jesus up to heaven, the night of the 15th of Nisan, in that night every year fire comes down from the ether so that men see it and it lights the lamps of the Church of the Resurrection though there is no window or opening in the roof of this building. But the fire strikes the roof without igniting the timbers and then it lights the lamp and the torches. When dawn comes, it is extinguished. Abū Zaid Yaḥyā b. 'Adī (†974), a pupil of Abū Naṣr al-Fārabī, wrote a book about it and explained that it was a natural occurrence.