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... Here & There
The
Muslim Entrance By 633, the Muslim conquests in the region had begun with the invasion of Syria. The leader of the Muslim troops, Abu-'Ubaidah, was one of the original Ashab {i.e., companions of Mohammed in his flight of 622}, given command of the army by the Caliph, Abu-bakr. By 634, Damascus had fallen. And in 636, the Muslim troops laid siege to Jerusalem -- where, according to the Qur'an, stood not only the city of David and Jesus, but where Mohammed had been taken miraculously in one night's time. The city, then, for them, held a religious significance only behind those of Mecca and Medina. The defenders in Jerusalem consisted not only of the residents of the city, but those soldiers and civilians who had fled the Muslim invasions elsewhere. The siege lasted four months, until, finally, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius, came to the walls and insisted on a conference with Abu-'Ubaidah, which the latter granted. Sophronius laid out his terms, viz., that none of the sacred places of the city should be destroyed, and that none of the residents should me made to accept Islam. Moreover, he insisted that the Caliph himself agree to these terms, in person, by his signature.
And so, according to accounts, the audience was granted and the Caliph came to the wall alone, riding on his camel. He signed the terms of the surrender and entered the city with Sophronius, talking, according to Gibbon, about the city's "religious antiquities." Moreover, tradition has it that, when the time for prayer came, the Caliph and Sophronius were at the site of the church at the Anastasis, i.e., the Holy Sepulchre. Realizing that if he made his prayers there, Muslims everywhere might then consider the spot to be holy for Islam, which in turn might lead to a subsequent breaking of the treaty, he postponed his prayers, no small matter for a Muslim. During the reign of Caliph 'Abd-al-malik {684-705}, there was a revolt in Iraq and the Hijaz was taken. Thus prevented from making pilgrimage, Jerusalem became an alternate center. In consequence, the Caliph subsequently built a mosque on the site of the old Temple, which spot had remained vacant during the Christian reign in the city. In 691, Abd-al-malik replaced the building with the "Dome of the Rock" (Qubbet-es-Sachra), the beautiful structure that still stands in the middle of the Temple area. By the end of the 9th century CE, rivalries among the Muslims themselves had resulted in war and oppression, not only for the Muslim sects which were subjugated by one another, but for the Christian community in Jerusalem, which, up to that time, as monotheists like the Jews, had enjoyed a certain amount of tolerance from their Muslim rulers. But as the Hijaz was now open, now closed, and Jerusalem increasingly became a center of pilgrimage, and as the mistreatment of the Christian community increased in violation of the original treaty, a backlash began to develop in the North, in Europe ... a backlash that comes down to us today best known as The Crusades. The
Crusades Things seemed to cool somewhat in the years immediately subsequent. Merchants from Amalfi had established themselves in Jerusalem. Emperor Constantine IX {1042-1054} had reached an agreement with Caliph Al-Mustansir-bi-llah {1036-1094} to allow some rebuilding, on the condition of the release of some 5000 Muslim prisoners, and of allowing prayer in the mosques situated within the empire, and, by 1048, the rebuilding was completed, although the Holy Sepulcher remained untouched until 100 years later. But by 1077, the Seljuk Turks were ruling Palestine, and conditions for the Christian community once again deteriorated, with the Turks not allowing Christian services to be performed, as well as numerous instances of destroying churches and murdering pilgrims. Subsequently, the Council of Clermont {1095} resulted in the first Crusade of 1099. The First Crusade resulted in the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, subsequently destroyed by Saladin in 1187, then re-established again several years later, at the site of Saint-Jean d'Acre. Among those engaged in this 1st Crusade were the likes of Frederick Barbarossa, Richard the Lionhearted, and Philip Augustus, who came together, if only temporarily, to join in the efforts. ... But the city of Jerusalem itself was still out of reach. When Innocent III ascended to the Papal See in 1198, the recapture of Jerusalem and the Holy Land was his first priority. He not only enjoined all Christians to participate, but even sought to enlist the aid of the Byzantine Emperor, Alexius III. But the political situation soon got out of hand, and the next major effort of the Crusades was directed, not at Jerusalem and the Holy Land, but at Constantinople. ... The Kingdom continued to have titular heads, with the Kings of Cyprus, as well as two houses of Anjou claiming the right to the title right through the late 15th century. But in 1489, a daughter of John III, King of Cyprus, who had married Louis of Savoy, gave up her right of title to a nephew, Charles of Savoy, and it was with that house that the title remained until 1870. Nonetheless, in addition -- at various times, and for even more various reasons -- the title King of Jerusalem also was retained by or found its way into the various branches of the houses of Anjou {as kings of Jerusalem and the two Sicilies, right up to the the Italian revolution in 1860}, and even, through a somewhat tortured bit of lineage, to the Hapsburgs, up to the time of Ferdinand I {1835-48}. For all that, however, the effective Kingdom of Jerusalem ended almost as soon as it had begun, with the entrance of Saladin through the city gates in 1187. ...
The
Years Since ... The land of Syria remained under the Egyptian Caliphs up through the 16th century, although even the Mongols, among others, had made incursions and taken territory for a brief time, first in the mid-13th century, then again at the beginning of the 15th c.. In fact, it was the early Mongol invasion which prompted the emigration of the Ottomans, a Turkish tribe originally from Khorassan who fled from the advancing armies of Genghis Kahn in the early 13th century, and who would eventually establish an empire that spanned territories from Eastern Europe to Western India, and from the Black to the Red Seas -- more than 1 million square miles. The Ottoman rule over the territory held until the surrender of Jerusalem on December 9th, 1917, at the end of WW I. This marked the beginning of 30 years of British rule, with the Mandate civil administration taking over from the military in July of the following year. But during this time, the overriding question concerned the future of Palestine in general, and of Jerusalem in particular. Tensions between Jews and Arabs erupted into riots in 1920, then again in 1929. Eventually, there followed the Arab revolt of 1936-1939. And, eventually, the establishment of the State of Israel after WW II. And
now ... Jerusalem and the Holy Land stand both as one of the most tragic situations in the world, but also, one with the greatest possibility for hope, not only for peace in the region itself, but for peace everywhere. ... Given the significance of the region for the adherents of each of the major religions of the west, the possibility of peace in Jerusalem and the Holy Land ought to be among the highest priorities for Jews, Christians, and Muslims everywhere. . *Note: If you would like to download the full-size image of this photo, you can get it directly from the NASA site. However, be aware that it is a very large, high-quality *.tif image file, 18 megabytes in size. If you'd like it nonetheless, click here. SOURCES: . ******* ******* If you would like to submit something for our Travel Here & There feature, or if you simply would like to suggest something you think we ought to cover, e-mail us at ... autotravel@downstreetmagazine.com. ******* ******* If you would like to advertise in this section, or throughout the magazine, please visit our Advertising Info Pages ... or call, write, or e-mail ads@downstreetmagazine.com. ******* *******
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