Bayt Al-Maqdis: Conquered But Not Destroyed

When considering the history of Jerusalem, its repeated destruction and rebuilding is a significant characteristic. The Old City today represents a city built upon many other prior cities. Therefore, we would expect that the destruction and rebuilding of Jerusalem was imminent when caliph Umar showed up with a Muslim army at the gates of Jerusalem in the year 637 CE. However, almost the opposite occurred. What made the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem different than other conquests of the city?

Karen Armstrong, in Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths provides an in-depth theological history of the lives of Muhammad and his successors. Muhammad apparently emphasized to his followers that his religion was merely a series of revelations communicated to him in his own language. He believed that Jews and Christians had received their own revelations in their languages and that those revelations were just as valid and not to be disturbed (220). In fact, Muslims were believed to be descendants of Ishmael, the son of Abraham. Therefore, the deity worshiped by Muslims was really the same deity worshiped by Christians and Jews. The difference according to Muhammad was that Christians and Jews had split into warring sects, while Muslims were wholly devoted to God (Allah in Arabic) and God only (223).

Muhammad established not only a tolerance but a unity with Christians and Jews early on, which was adapted by later caliphs. Caliph Umar arrived in Jerusalem after incredibly successful but violent campaigns against the Sassanian Empire in Persia. Unlike these campaigns, Umar's visit to Jerusalem was apparently very peaceful. He met with Sophronius, the sitting Patriarch of Jerusalem under the Byzantine Empire, and immediately restricted Muslims from praying in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and other Christian holy sites. He believed that if his followers saw him pray there, they would try and take over the sites to commemorate this first prayer (228-229). While Umar disapproved of the mess the Byzantines left at the Temple Mount, they respected their holy sites and religious practices during the early years of Islam. 

Regarding Jews, Muslim conquest of Jerusalem seemed to represent hope for them. Umar allowed seventy Jewish families to move to Jerusalem and make a neighborhood, and allowed some Jews (and Christians) to serve as guards on the Haram, exempting them from paying the jizyah tax (233). Both Jews were considered protected minorities (dhimmis), but Jews were likely more supportive of the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem, since it presented some of them with new opportunities early on to live in Jerusalem, which had been disallowed entirely by the Byzantines. The story of the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem was a surprisingly peaceful one in its early years, free of bloodshed. This was a drastic change of the status quo compared to other conquests of Jerusalem.