Islamic Jerusalem: Lecture 14.1 - February 24, 2011

            Once Byzantine Jerusalem was coming to an end, it became evident that the Byzantine Christians did not take any actions in order to help the Jews who had been kept out of Jerusalem from the Herodian rule. However, during the taking of Palestine and Jerusalem between 614-628 CE by the Sasanians, Jews were allowed to resettle in Jerusalem for the first time since the end of the Bar-Kokhba Revolt which was in 135 CE. Because the prophet Muhammad did not leave an heir, Caliphs (delegates or representatives) were established in order to lead the Islamic community.

In 638 CE, the Muslim Caliph Umar takes Jerusalem and establishes a written agreement with the Christian community to prevent the Jews from resettling in Jerusalem. However, he later allowed the Jews to move back into the city, causing the Jewish population to steadily grow. Jerusalem began being referred to as Aeilia, the city of the Temple. The period between 638-750 CE becomes known as the Umayyad Dynasty. In this time Caliph Umar builds a wooden Mosque and Abd al-Malik builds the Dome of the Rock in 691 CE. The purpose of this was to divert pilgrimages from Mecca to Jerusalem because there was a rivalry with Zubayr. Jews and Christians also continued to pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The Dome of the Rock held many traditions that stemmed from Mt. Moriah, Solomon’s Temple and as an axis to Hell. The Al-Aqsa Mosque was built between 705-715 CE by Caliph Walid, the son of Abd al-Malik and was said to be a place where one prayer was the equivalent of five hundred elsewhere. In this lecture Professor Cargill also mentions the five pillars of Islam: Shahada – “testimony” or “witness”, Salat – prayer five times a day, Zakat – almsgiving to the needy, Sawm – fasting in the month of Ramadan, and Hajj – making the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in one’s lifetime.

Professor Cargill finished up this part of lecture the following week and introduced the Abbasid Dynasty and the Fatimids. The Abbasid Dynasty took place between 750-969 CE and was a period of time where the goal was to wipe out any memory of any Umayyad accomplishments such as palaces. The Abbasid Caliph Al-Ma-Mun also took credit for the building of the Dome of the Rock but forgets to erase the date of the construction when doing so. In 965 CE, Muhammad al-Sanhajj, the governor of Jerusalem, kills John, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, demonstrating a slight increase in the hostility towards Christians.  From 969-1099 there was a period of upheaval, yet the population of Jerusalem continued to steadily increase. Caliph al-Hakim ordered the destruction of all Jewish and Christian houses of prayer, including the Holy Sepulcher and in 1033 an earthquake led to immense damage of Jerusalem’s walls and the Dome of the Rock. Years later there was a massacring of thousands of Jerusalem’s inhabitants by the Seljuqs from 1070-1098 leading to the Fatimids 40-day siege on Jerusalem’s fortifications. They destroyed much of the city but were able to retake the city back from the Seljuqs.