아프리카ㆍ중동

East Jerusalem has three major religious communities including the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian Communities. The Muslim community is the majority community of East Jerusalem's population and history. It has occupied an unique position religiously, ethnically, and politically. This community has a relatively strong autonomy in East Jerusalem due to its large population under the Israel's occupation and control for the last sixty years. Despite of them, the Muslim community has shrunk in size and activity compared to its political rival, the Jewish community. The latter has, on contrast, enjoyed its residential expansion beyond the Jewish Quarter in East Jerusalem with the financial and social support of the Israeli government. Particularly, the Jewish settlement movement, mainly composed of Israel's religiously radical right wing groups, had affected the expansion of the Jewish community in the city. Given these challenges, the Muslim community has responded positively centered around East Jerusalem Awqaf Administration. The Awqaf Administration has played a key role in unifying and consolidating the Muslim society of East Jerusalem not only as a religion organization but also a social and political one in various fields of the Muslim community. It tried to defend the Muslim identity through establishing the cultural department, the Department of Islamic Archaeology. Therefore, this research will address the formation and development of the Muslim community, focusing on the competitive relation with the Jewish community. In addition, this research will also find various activities of the Awqaf Administration for protecting its religious community and cultural heritage, further, and the competitive relation with the Palestine National Authority for taking political hegemony and leadership in East Jerusalem. The conclusion of this paper also addresses the implication of East Jerusalem in creating its religious and political identities of the Muslim community.