(1481) found not more than twenty Jewish families living in Hebron. and recounted how the Jewish women of Hebron would disguise themselves with a veil in order to pass as Muslim women and enter the Cave of the Patriarchs without being recognized as Jews. Minute descriptions of Hebron were recorded in Stephen von Gumpenberg's Journal (1449), by Felix Fabri (1483) and by Mejr ed-Din It was in this period, also, that the Mamluk Sultan Qa'it Bay revived the old custom of the Hebron "table of Abraham," and exported it as a model for his own madrasa in Medina. This became an immense charitable establishment near the Haram, distributing daily some 1,200 loaves of bread to travellers of all faiths. The Italian rabbi Obadiah ben Abraham Bartenura wrote around 1490: I was in the Cave of Machpelah, over which the mosque has been built; and the Arabs hold the place in high honour. All the Kings of the Arabs come here to repeat their prayers, but neither a Jew nor an Arab may enter the Cave itself, where the real graves of the Patriarchs are; the Arabs remain above, and let down burning torches into it through a window, for they keep a light always burning there. . Bread and lentil, or some other kind of pulse (seeds of peas or beans), is distributed (by the Muslims) to the poor every day without distinction of faith, and this is done in honour of Abraham. Early Ottoman period The expansion of the Ottoman Empire along the southern Mediterranean coast under sultan Selim I coincided with the establishment of Inquisition commissions by the Catholic Monarchs in Spain in 1478, which ended centuries of the Iberian convivencia (coexistence). The ensuing expulsions of the Jews drove many Sephardi Jews into the Ottoman provinces, and a slow influx of Jews to the Holy Land took place, with some notable Sephardi kabbalists settling in Hebron. Over the following two centuries, there was a significant migration of Bedouin tribal groups from the Arabian Peninsula into Palestine. Many settled in three separate villages in the Wādī al-Khalīl, and their descendants later formed the majority of Hebron. The Jewish community fluctuated between 8–10 families throughout the 16th century, and suffered from severe financial straits in the first half of the century. In 1540, renowned kabbalist Malkiel Ashkenazi bought a courtyard from the small Karaite community, in which he established the