with the True Cross in 629. Jews were accused of
conspiring with the Persians and implicated in the
killing of Christians and destruction of churches.
Once again, Christian authorities banned them
from the city. They were prohibited from public
worship, and in 634 Heraclius ordered that all the
Jews in his empire be baptized.
ISlAMICATE JEruSAlEM
Arabs appear to have lived in Jerusalem in the
first century, for they are mentioned in the New
Testament’s Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:5–11).
There is also evidence that there were Christian
Arabs in the city when it was ruled by the Byz-
antine Empire. Jerusalem was not mentioned by
name in the qUran, but several verses have been
understood by later Muslim commentators as
references to it. The most important of these was
the “farthest mosque” (al-masjid al-aqsa) men-
tioned in Q 17:1, which was identified in Islamic
commentaries with the place where Muhammad
prayed in Jerusalem on his miraculous Night
Journey. The Aqsa Mosque in the Noble Sanctuary
(al-haram al-sharif), or Temple Mount platform,
commemorated this event. The other verse most
commonly associated with Jerusalem is Q 2:142–
153, where commentators maintain that Muham-
mad was commanded to face toward the qibla
of Mecca, instead of Jerusalem, the first qibla of
the Muslims of Medina. Later texts elaborated on
both Muhammad’s Night Journey and the chang-
ing of the qibla. Indeed, a distinct literary genre
concerned with the praiseworthy qualities (fadail)
of Jerusalem would arise around the time of the
crUsades (12th to 13th century) that sought to
place the city on a par with Mecca and Medina
and identify it as the site where important events
were expected to occur on Judgment Day.
Muslim political control over Jerusalem was
established in 638, when Arab armies accepted the
peaceful surrender of the city by the Byzantines.
This was during the reign of the caliph Umar ibn
al-khattab (r. 634–644), who, according to some
accounts, was received by the city’s Christian
patriarch Sophronius. Umar has also been credited
with having the neglected Temple Mount cleared
of debris and building a small mosque near where
the Aqsa Mosque would later be erected. There
was no forced conversion of Jews and Christians
to Islam. Generally faring better than under their
former Roman, Persian, and Byzantine rulers,
they were treated as “protected” (dhimmi) com-
munities because they were people oF the book.
During the Umayyad caliphate (661–750), which
had established its capital in nearby damascUs,
Muslim rulers greatly embellished the Noble
Sanctuary by reconstructing and expanding the
Aqsa Mosque and erecting the Dome of the Rock,
a strikingly beautiful edifice that symbolized the
advent of the new Umayyad political order and
promoted Islamic doctrines about God and Jesus
against those of Christianity.
As the centuries passed, Arabic replaced Greek
as the language of the populace. Jerusalem’s
prosperity declined when the Abbasids ended
Umayyad rule and transferred the capital eastward
from Damascus to baghdad in the mid-eighth
century. As Abbasid power weakened in the 10th
century, rival powers contended for control over
Jerusalem and its environs. It remained a city
where the Christian majority lived together with
Jews and their Muslim rulers until the era of the
crUsades (11th to 13th centuries). Intercommunal
tensions were intensified when the Fatimid caliph
in cairo, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (r. 996–1021),
ordered the destruction of the Church of the
Resurrection in September 1009. Historians have
offered different explanations for these and other
actions taken against Jews, Christians, and even
Muslims. Some explanations point to al-Hakim’s
unstable personality or to his concern that the
Christian holy site was too wealthy and attracting
too many pilgrims, especially during the Easter
holidays. Others posit that he suspected Chris-
tians of colluding with rival rulers and bedoUin
chieftains to undermine Fatimid rule in Syria-Pal-
estine. Earthquakes, warfare, and a poor economy
further contributed to Jerusalem’s decline. More-K 394 Jerusalem