Detail map of Jerusalem, Jerusalem District, Israel Overview map of Jerusalem, Jerusalem District, Israel

A: Jerusalem, Jerusalem District, Israel

Muslims Occupy Jerusalem for 451 Years until the First Crusade

638 CE to 1099
Capture of Jerusalem during the First Crusade, 1099. Unidentified late medieval (14th or 15th century?) illustration probably from Sébastien Mamerot, Les Passages d'oultre mer.
Capture of Jerusalem during the First Crusade, 1099. Unidentified late medieval (14th or 15th century?) illustration probably from Sébastien Mamerot, Les Passages d'oultre mer.

Muslims occupied Jerusalem for 451 years, from 638 until 1099

"Byzantine Jerusalem was conquered by the Arab armies of Umar ibn al-Khattab in 638 CE.[162] Among the first Muslims, it was referred to as Madinat bayt al-Maqdis ("City of the Temple"),[163] a name restricted to the Temple Mount. The rest of the city "... was called Iliya, reflecting the Roman name given the city following the destruction of 70 CE: Aelia Capitolina".[164] Later the Temple Mount became known as al-Haram al-Sharif, "The Noble Sanctuary", while the city around it became known as Bayt al-Maqdis,[165] and later still, al-Quds al-Sharif "The Holy, Noble". The Islamization of Jerusalem began in the first year A.H. (623 CE), when Muslims were instructed to face the city while performing their daily prostrations and, according to Muslim religious tradition, Muhammad's night journey and ascension to heaven took place. After 13 years, the direction of prayer was changed to Mecca.[166][167] In 638 CE the Islamic Caliphate extended its dominion to Jerusalem.[168] With the Arab conquest, Jews were allowed back into the city.[169] The Rashidun caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab signed a treaty with Christian Patriarch of Jerusalem Sophronius, assuring him that Jerusalem's Christian holy places and population would be protected under Muslim rule.[170] Christian-Arab tradition records that, when led to pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of the holiest sites for Christians, the caliph Umar refused to pray in the church so that Muslims would not request conversion of the church to a mosque.[171] He prayed outside the church, where the Mosque of Umar (Omar) stands to this day, opposite the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. According to the Gaullic bishop Arculf, who lived in Jerusalem from 679 to 688, the Mosque of Umar was a rectangular wooden structure built over ruins which could accommodate 3,000 worshipers.[172]

"When the Arab armies under Umar went to Bayt Al-Maqdes in 637 CE, they searched for the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque ("The Farthest Mosque") that was mentioned in Quran and Hadith according to Islamic beliefs. Contemporary Arabic and Hebrew sources say the site was full of rubbish, and that Arabs and Jews cleaned it.[173] The Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik commissioned the construction of a shrine on the Temple Mount, now known as the Dome of the Rock, in the late 7th century.[174] Two of the city's most-distinguished Arab citizens of the 10th-century were Al-Muqaddasi, the geographer, and Al-Tamimi, the physician. Al-Muqaddasi writes that Abd al-Malik built the edifice on the Temple Mount in order to compete in grandeur with Jerusalem's monumental churches.[172]

"Over the next four hundred years, Jerusalem's prominence diminished as Arab powers in the region jockeyed for control.[175] Jerusalem was captured in 1073 by the Seljuk Turkish commander Atsız.[176] After Atsız was killed, the Seljuk prince Tutush I granted the city to Artuk Bey, another Seljuk commander. After Artuk's death in 1091 his sons Sökmen and Ilghazi governed in the city up to 1098 when the Fatimids recaptured the city." (Wikipedia article on Jerusalem, accessed 9-2020).

 

 

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