15

Islamic Jerusalem, A.D. 638-1099

Islam's association with Jerusalem did not begin until the seventh century because the religion itself did not appear until Muhammad's revolutionary concepts swept across the Arabian peninsula after A.D. 610. In the late sixth century Arabia was far removed from the centers of political power and culture. Its inhabitants belonged to numerous competing tribes led by warrior chieftains called sheikhs. Raids on other tribes were common; life was dominated by a warrior ethos. Wealth was derived from the trade routes through the land that transported goods from as far away as India to the east and Ethiopia to the west. It was along one of these routes, the ancient Frankincense Trail, that some scholars believe Lehi and his family traveled with their caravan when they left Jerusalem. 1

The city of Mecca in particular flourished as a cosmopolitan center in Arabia. Merchants from many places mingled with the indigenous Arab population drawn to Mecca for two reasons. One was the increasing economic opportunities developing there, and the other was religious pilgrimage. Many tribes came annually to Mecca to worship at a shrine called the Ka'bah (Arabic, "cube"), a cube-shaped structure of Meccan granite. Embedded in the eastern corner of the building was a black stone that was a cult object for many Arabs before the seventh century after Christ. The Black Stone is of pre-Islamic origin, possibly a meteor fragment. Islamic teaching ascribes it to God, who gave it to Adam to help him obtain forgiveness of sins.

At that time the Arabians were polytheists, though not very pious ones. Above the multitude of jinn ("genies") and subordinate gods was the high god, Allah—remote and unapproachable. But in the early seventh century the forces of change were suddenly unleashed as a new prophet, Muhammad, appeared in Mecca. He galvanized the Arab world and propelled it to the forefront of world events. When Muhammad was about forty (A.D. 610), he suddenly proclaimed that the one true God, Allah, had spoken to him through the angel Gabriel and named him as His sole and last prophet or messenger. Allah's actual words given through Muhammad were preserved as the Qur'an.

Islam, like Mormonism, believes that God spoke again from the heavens. But unlike Mormons, Muslims believe that Muhammad was the last of the prophets. Latter-day Saint leaders have nevertheless been generally positive in their remarks about Muhammad. Parley P. Pratt, though not believing that Muhammad was a prophet in the fullest sense of the word, enthusiastically praised him and his religion. 2 In 1855 George A. Smith spoke of Muhammad's direct descent from Ishmael, son of Abraham, through one of the noble families of Arabia—the Quraysh. And even though Muhammad's preaching brought him tremendous persecution, he continued preaching a higher way of life: "There was nothing in his religion to license iniquity or corruption; he preached the moral doctrines which the Savior taught; viz., to do as they would be done by; and not to do violence to any man, nor to render evil for evil; and to worship one God." 3

For Latter-day Saints, the single most important statement in modern times about Muhammad was issued by the First Presidency on 15 February 1978. It reads, in part: "The great religious leaders of the world such as Mohammed, Confucius, and the Reformers, as well as philosophers including Socrates, Plato, and others, received a portion of God's light. Moral truths were given to them by God to enlighten whole nations and to bring a higher level of understanding to individuals." 4

Without doubt Muhammad was a messenger bearing some of God's teachings. He presented "a revelation" of magnitude to the warring, impious, polytheistic tribes of the Arabian peninsula. It revolutionized their way of life. But to ascribe to Muhammad the same kind of prophetic office and powers as Joseph Smith possessed goes too far. One LDS scholar on Islam has written that there is "clear reason to believe that, if the text of the Qur'an as we now have it actually goes back to Muhammad, which is likely, he was mistaken on certain issues too central to the Gospel as it has been revealed to the Latter-day Saints for us to be able to endorse or accept him as a prophet in the fullest sense." 5

Muhammad taught that those who believe in Allah and submit, or surrender, to his will (Islam means "submission") are assured of happiness and a reward in heaven. Duties required of each follower or "surrenderer" (Muslim means "one who surrenders") are the five basic pillars of Islam: prayer, alms-giving, fasting, pilgrimage to Mecca, and confession of the faith ("there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet"). At first Muhammad's preaching gained only a few converts, but by 630 his following became strong enough to recapture Mecca, from whence he had been forced to flee eight years earlier. After this feat many Arab tribes began to join the prophet. Together they turned their attention to other tribes and persuaded them to join the true community of Allah. By the time Muhammad died in 632, a new "nation" had been forged, ready to burst out of the confines of Arabia and convert the world to the will of Allah and the word of Muhammad. This mission they undertook with great speed and intensity.

Muhammad and Jerusalem

Between 632 and 656, under the banner of their new religion, Arab Muslims completed a series of military conquests that affected most of the civilized world. They destroyed the recently revived Persian Empire; engulfed the prized Byzantine provinces of Syria, Palestine, Egypt and North Africa; and made forays into India. By 700 Muslim naval forces virtually controlled the Mediterranean Sea. In 711 a Muslim army crossed from North Africa to Spain, overran the Visigoths, set up their own kingdom, and became known as the Moors. In 717 Arab forces were knocking on the gates of Constantinople, and though they were defeated in 718 by Leo II, they still had their sights set on Europe. By 732, however, the Muslim drive had greatly weakened. In one of the watershed battles of European history, Muslim forces were defeated at Tours in Gaul (modern France) by the Frankish leader Charles Martel exactly one century after the death of Muhammad.

Early Muslim conquerors had aimed to bring the holy city of Jerusalem under their control. Jerusalem is mentioned several times in the Qur'an. According to Sura 2:142-143 the earliest Qibla (the direction Muslims face as they pray five times daily) was the sacred city of Jerusalem. This practice followed the example of the Jews. Muhammad first prayed facing toward Jerusalem. His deference to Jewish practice symbolized Islam's allegiance to the continuity of Allah's revelation, given first to Abraham's posterity through Old Testament prophets. But when the followers of Allah were driven from Mecca to Medina, the Ka'bah at Mecca was established as the Qibla. According to the Qur'an, Abraham and Ishmael had raised the foundations of the Ka'bah. A factor in this change seems to have been the Jews' rejection of Muhammad and his teachings, even though they were based on biblical precedent. According to Islamic scholars the change took place about sixteen and a half months after the Hijrah, the emigration of Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina in A.D. 622, or a.h. (anno Hegirae) 1—that is, year 1 of the Muslim calendar. 6

According to Sura 17:1, the sacred nature of Jerusalem was absolutely confirmed to Muhammad, and thus to all Muslims, by the prophet's Night Journey. In that account Jerusalem is referred to as al Masjid al Aqsa ("Farthest Mosque"), the site of Solomon's Temple, at or near which now stands the Dome of the Rock Mosque. It is the "Farthest" because it was the place of worship farthest west that was known to the Arabs in the time of Muhammad. It was to that site that the angel Gabriel took Muhammad at night and from which both ascended together into the heavens. The passage reads: "In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Glory to [Allah] Who did take His Servant For a Journey by night From the Sacred Mosque To the Farthest Mosque Whose precincts We did Bless,—in order that We Might show him some Of Our Signs: for He Is the One Who heareth And seeth [all things]." 7

The "Sacred Mosque" is the Ka'bah at Mecca. Thus, for Muslims, Jerusalem acquired special sanctity, in addition to the other holy places of their religion, because the prophet entered heaven from there after having started out first from Mecca. Jerusalem became the third holiest site in all of Islam, next to Mecca and Medina. Since then Jerusalem has been regarded with reverence. At some point during the Islamic period it came to be called simply al-Quds, "the Holy."

Muhammad's followers regarded the Night Journey as a literal event. The official position of Muslim theologians is that Muhammad made this journey while awake and actually traversed the ground. The Hadith literature (sayings attributed to Muhammad that, with the Qur'an, form the basis of Islamic law) gives details of the Journey that help explain its meaning. The prophet was first transported to the seat of Allah's earliest revelations in Jerusalem and taken through the seven heavens in successive stages, ultimately reaching the Divine Throne. Muslim theologians theorize that such an experience, real for Muhammad, may also symbolize for the rest of humankind the journey of the human soul in its religious growth throughout life.

The prophet's Night Journey to Heaven (Miraj) had a powerful effect on his followers. Some embellished the story and others transmitted only the barest facts. Still, the story of the Miraj influenced other cultures. Tradition states that when the "Servant" (Muhammad) was sleeping near the Ka'bah, the angel Gabriel took him to a winged creature (al-Buraq) and they went to the "Farthest Mosque." From there they arose through the heavens, where they encountered the powers of good and evil. On reaching their destination they saw Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Muhammad prayed in front of the prophets as their leader, which is to say that he was recognized as foremost among them. Miguel Asin, professor of Arabic at the University of Madrid, argues that the story greatly influenced the medieval literature of Christian Europe, especially Dante's Divine Comedy. 8 Ironically, that fourteenth-century Christian poet placed Muhammad in one of the lowest circles of Hell because he was a sower of scandal and schism. Such an assessment is neither accurate nor fair.

One scholar has synthesized the embellished versions of the story of Muhammad's Night Journey. According to them, the Night Journey began as Muhammad lay asleep in his bed in Mecca. Allah's summons impelled the prophet to accompany the "Archangel" Gabriel on the back of a horselike creature named al-Buraq ("Lightning"). The creature had the face of a woman and the tail of a peacock. Alighting at the Western ("Wailing") Wall of the Jewish Temple, Gabriel fastened al-Buraq to a ring in a gate that afterward became known to Muslims as the Gate of the Prophet. The ancient prophets were said to have tethered their mounts there also. (It is said the Western Wall itself is still called 'al-Buraq' by some Arabs.) This gate, located immediately south of today's Western Wall, has been closed for centuries. It is sometimes called Barclay's Gate after the American missionary who discovered it in the nineteenth century. 9

Muhammad then went to the Holy Rock; as he started to climb to Paradise via a ladder of light, the Rock tried to follow him, but Muhammad commanded it to stay and put his hand upon it to force it down. The Rock, however, remained suspended in air, forever marked by the pressure of Muhammad's fingers, and the ground beneath it became a cave. Finally in the presence of Allah, Muhammad received instructions for his followers. The prophet afterwards descended to earth by the same ladder upon which he had ascended through the seven heavens and stood again upon the sacred Rock in Jerusalem. He returned to Mecca the way he had come—riding al-Buraq—and reached his bed before the night was over. 10

The story of Muhammad's journey certainly has parallels in intertestamental Jewish literature. Midrashic works popular in Muhammad's time—The Book of Jubilees, The Book of Enoch, and Toledot Moshe, which is extant in an Arabic version—describe Moses' journey to heaven and his visits to paradise and hell. But Muhammad's experience alone elevated the holiness of Jerusalem in the eyes of more people at one time than any single teaching of Judaism or Christianity.

Conquest of Jerusalem

By far the most significant effects of Muhammad's Night Journey were destined to be felt in Jerusalem itself. The city and its inhabitants were brought under the control of intensely religious military warriors, and significant numbers of Jews again became an integral part of the Holy City. Curiously, however, Muslim conquerors, who spread their new faith across the face of the Near East, did not move against Jerusalem at their first opportunity. Their objectives in Palestine beginning in 634 included trade routes and other areas of urban habitation. But by Christmas Eve, 634, the Greek church patriarch Sophronius complained in a sermon that it was impossible to leave Jerusalem to go to Bethlehem because of the unrestrained Arab divisions garrisoned in the country. Several days later, 6 January 635, in his sermon on the Festival of Epiphany, the patriarch associated the Muslim advance in the Holy Land with Daniel's prophecy of the "abomination of desolation": "Why is there no end to the bloodshed? Why are churches being destroyed and the cross desecrated? The Saracens, 'abomination of desolation' foretold by the Prophet [Daniel 12:11], are passing through lands forbidden to them, plundering cities and destroying fields, burning villages and razing holy monasteries . . . and priding themselves that they will finally conquer the whole world." 11

Sophronius had a right to be nervous. In July 634, Byzantine imperial troops had been defeated at Adjnadain, southwest of Jerusalem. The brother of Emperor Heraclius had been killed and the Byzantine general forced to take shelter in Jerusalem. There was no serious siege against Jerusalem until four years later, however; Islamic troops simply menaced the countryside. Perhaps Jerusalem's impressive fortifications encouraged the invaders to consolidate their positions all around the city before attacking it. Nevertheless, in those four years the city suffered greatly from lack of food and other supplies. 12 In some ways that may have made conquest a welcome alternative.

The various accounts of the Islamic conquest of Jerusalem differ considerably. According to the earliest and most reliable sources, Patriarch Sophronius became sole authority in the city after another defeat of the Byzantine army in 636. He negotiated a surrender after an Arab force sealed off Jerusalem. Khalid ibn Thabit al-Fahmi, the leader of a not particularly outstanding unit, on the explicit condition that Jerusalem, including its people, churches, and buildings, be safe as long as the poll tax (jizya) was paid. 13

Not long after the fall of Jerusalem (638), the city was visited by Caliph Umar (or Omar, 634-644), who was accompanied by Jewish advisers. Contradictory traditions describe his inspection of the different holy sites. The Christian Arabic historian Eutychius, writing in Egypt at the beginning of the tenth century, said that the caliph refused to pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, so Sophronius showed him the site of the Holy Rock, or Foundation Stone (even ha-shetiyyah), on which the Jews believed the world was founded and which was identified with the Temple's Holy of Holies. One tradition indicates that Umar's refusal to pray at the Holy Sepulchre was rooted in his concern for setting a dangerous precedent. Had he prayed there, he said, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre would have been turned into a mosque by his followers and successors. Some Muslim writers, on the other hand, say that the Christians attempted to deceive the caliph by taking him to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre when he specifically asked about the Holy Rock.

Whatever the conflicts among the sources might be, scholarly consensus indicates that Umar cleared the Temple Mount of decay and debris and established there a place for Muslim worship. The Jewish convert to Islam, Kab al-Ahbar, was involved in this work. Umar's other Jewish advisers were entrusted with keeping the area in good order, 14 an indication that the caliph treated Jews with tolerance. Though Jewish traditions definitely influenced early Islamic attitudes about the sanctity of the Temple Mount and its surroundings, Umar opposed Judaization of Islam. When al-Ahbar suggested that the place of Muslim prayer be established north of the Foundation Stone, so worshippers could face both it and the Ka'bah when they prayed, Umar is said to have remarked: "You wish to resemble Judaism, but we Muslims have been commanded only to pray in the direction of the Ka'ba." 15 He subsequently ordered that the place of prayer be established south of the Foundation Stone, near where the al-Aqsa Mosque stands today.

Umar is said to have instituted restrictive laws against the Jews while he was in Jerusalem. 16 Nevertheless, not long after he conquered the Holy City, the body of supreme Jewish authority in Palestine, the Gaonim (Hebrew, "excellencies") was moved from Tiberias to Jerusalem and remained there until the eleventh century.

The Arab conquest also brought a permanent Jewish population to Jerusalem after an absence of five hundred years. A document written in Judeo-Arabic found in the Genizah, or storage room, of the Ibn Ezra Synagogue in Cairo reveals that the Jews asked Umar for permission to settle two hundred families in Jerusalem. Because Sophronius strongly opposed the action, Umar fixed the number at seventy families. The Jews were assigned the quarter of the city southwest of the Temple Mount, where they lived from that time on during the Islamic period. They could pray in the vicinity of the Temple area, and a late source, Rabbi Abraham ben Hiyya (twelfth century), mentions that the Jews were even allowed to build a synagogue and school in that area. 17

Though much welcomed by the Jewish people, this return was unable to assuage completely the anguish some felt as they saw the Holy City under the control of alien elements. Something of this sentiment can be seen in the words of the Jewish poet Amitai ben Sephatia, writing from his home in southern Italy about 900:

I mention God and groan
As I see every city built on its mound
And the city of God utterly downtrodden. 18

Nevertheless, the Jews benefited more than other non-Muslims living in Jerusalem. The Arab conquest of the Holy City was not at all beneficent to the Greek Christians. In fact, it dealt them a severe blow. Sophronius died 11 March 638, just a short time after the city was handed over to the conquerors, and no new patriarch was appointed until 706. The Arab conquest of Jerusalem transformed the ruling minority of Greek church officials into an unprotected minority, little remembered by church leadership outside Palestine for two generations. Still, Jerusalem retained a Christian hue for many years, and though many Arabs went to live in Jerusalem, most of the inhabitants were probably Christian. The city and its outlying monasteries became an important source from which Christian ideas entered Islam. The Muslim religious literature of the post-Islamic conquest reflects the importance of Jerusalem in the information network of the Near East at the time. Such phrases as "I asked the monk at the gate of Jerusalem" and "I heard from a Christian priest in the Jerusalem hills" are found in Muslim writings that discuss ideas with a Christian connection. 19

Shortly after the conquest, Jerusalem was inhabited by important persons from among Muhammad's associates in Medina. Other Arabs also traveled great distances to live in the Holy City. Members of the Yemenite contingent of Islam's military force settled in Jerusalem. 20 Some Arabs who were unable to live in the city desired to spend time there so as to be blessed by its sanctity. Yet, on the whole, Jerusalem seems not to have attracted large numbers of long-term residents from among the Muslims. Many sayings are attributed to Muhammad about the importance of living in Jerusalem, including statements in which Allah promised material blessings to those who stayed in the city. Why go to such lengths to attract stable settlers if Muslims were already flocking to the Holy City to reside there?

One thing for which Jerusalem did not need to advertise was the poor. Umm ad-Darda, wife of the qadi (Muslim judge) of Damascus, spent half a year in the Syrian capital and half a year in Jerusalem, where she would "sit amongst the poor," attempting to help them where she could. 21 A special area of the city seems to have been set aside for the poor. "Apparently begging and giving charity were so interwoven with the holy city that even the conquerors did not consider dwelling in Jerusalem without the poor. Reliable sources characteristically attribute Caliph 'Uthman, whose reign commenced eight years after the conquest, with setting aside the Shiloah (Silwan) village gardens for the city's poor." 22

Umayyad Rule

The prophet Muhammad made no provision for a successor to guide Islam. For thirty years after his death, from 632 to 661, his close associates picked one from among themselves to serve as caliph, to interpret and apply Allah's will as revealed by the prophet. Once Muhammad's personal associates died, struggles for leadership began. Muhammad's son-in-law Ali (656-661) became the fourth caliph. He claimed authority on the basis of kinship, which claim resulted in his assassination. In 661 the Emir of Syria, a man in his fifties named Muawiyya (661-680), was proclaimed caliph at Jerusalem. Three years before, in Jerusalem, he had outmaneuvered his rivals by signing a peace pact with the conqueror of Egypt, Amir ibn al-As. Then, in 661, Muawiyya, the man who had once been called the "Caesar of the Arabs" by Caliph Umar himself, saved the caliphate from anarchy and established the Umayyad dynasty, which held power until 750. During this time the center of the Muslim world was Damascus in Syria and Jerusalem in Palestine. 23

Muawiyya regarded more than just the Foundation Stone on the Temple Mount as sacred or holy. He is known to have prayed at the tomb of Mary, the mother of Jesus, at the time of his coronation in 661. The Qur'an hails Jesus as a true prophet, but Muslim theology rejects as false all of Christ's teachings about himself as the Son of God. To imagine God as having any partners of any kind to share his nature or his activities is the great crime of shirk, or polytheism.

Muawiyya is credited with the construction of a Muslim house of prayer on the Temple Mount, probably on the place where the al-Aqsa Mosque was later built. The Frankish bishop Arkulf, who visited Jerusalem in 670, described it as a square-shaped building, put together in rough fashion with boards and bars. But it was claimed that the structure could hold three thousand persons. Professor Shlomo Goitein is of the opinion that Caliph Muawiyya planned the building of the Dome of the Rock and may have begun its construction, which Caliph Abd al-Malik (685-705) completed in 691 (a.h. 72). 24

A desire to compete with the splendor of the Christian edifices in Jerusalem and the awakening of an aesthetic sense are considered the reasons behind the construction of the magnificent structure that still stands on the site where Solomon's Temple is believed to have stood. 25 Called in Arabic the Qubbat al-Sakhra ("Dome of the Rock") and sometimes but erroneously called the Mosque of Omar, the splendid cupola seemed to both Jews and Christians to be a metamorphosis of Solomon's Temple. For this reason, during the Crusades, Christians turned the Dome of the Rock into a church. Even today it is the best-known image of Jerusalem itself.

With the Qubbat al-Sakhra completed, Caliph Abd al-Malik sought to divert pilgrims from Mecca to Jerusalem because his rival in the struggle for the caliphate, Abdallah ibn al-Zubayr, had fortified himself in Mecca. Muslims did gather in Jerusalem to celebrate the Hajj; after all, it was the third holiest city of Islam, and if political or economic circumstances prohibited them from going to Mecca, Jerusalem was the next best thing. Nevertheless, the purpose of building the Dome of the Rock was not to rival the Ka'bah but rather to compete with the magnificent churches of Jerusalem, Lod, and the towns of Syria. An Arabic geographer has said that the Qubbat al-Sakhra should be seen as a counterpart to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in shape and sanctity. 26 Many churches in Europe were later constructed on the model of the Qubbat.

Caretakers of the Qubbat al-Sakhra were accorded special status in Islam and exempted from paying the poll tax. The Jews considered this appointment to be a great honor, one which they enjoyed until after 750, the beginning of the Abbasid period. 27

Caliph Abd al-Malik is also associated with other building projects in Jerusalem. Under his watchful eye, the city walls were repaired and gates set up. He also built in Jerusalem a government palace, which has been excavated within the last three decades and may be seen by tourists in the Ophel archaeological garden, south of the Haram esh-Sharif.

The first of al-Malik's sons and successors, Caliph al-Walid (705-715), erected the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which, over the course of time, has undergone many changes. 28

All this activity attracted money to Jerusalem, as did the special religious status that was accorded the city on account of the construction of the Dome of the Rock over the very spot from which Muhammad made his Night Journey. Later but erroneous traditions associate the holy rock with the place where Abraham offered Ishmael as a sacrifice. 29 Muslims indeed believe that Ishmael was the son involved in Abraham's sacrifice rather than Isaac, but the site of the event in early Islamic theology is in Arabia. Nevertheless, numerous offerings were sent to Jerusalem, and pilgrims as well as tourists paid visits to the holy places, all of which contributed to the city's economic well-being and added to its reputation. The abundance of spices and incense scattered inside the Dome of the Rock were said to have been so thick that visitors gave off a pleasant smell for a long time after their visit to the shrine. 30

Other accounts of Jerusalem in the late seventh and early eighth centuries comment on the city's pleasant streets, its well-organized drainage systems, and its prosperous lifestyle. Though some of the accounts are probably exaggerations, perhaps motivated by religious and emotional attachments of the travelers to the Holy City, on the whole, early Islamic Jerusalem seems to have given the impression of strength. The descriptions of Arabic geographers and other writers mention the strong city walls, which had eight gates and a moat on some sides. Arabic authors dwell on the al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock mosques.

Despite the religious significance of Jerusalem for the Umayyad dynasty, it never achieved the status of a capital city. Muslim Jerusalem was dealt a blow when Caliph Sulayman (or Suleiman), Abd al-Malik's second son and successor, founded the town of Ramla and made it the capital of Palestine in 716 instead of Jerusalem. The Holy City became a spiritual center with no political significance, but in the process its economy was also gravely affected. Trade routes did not reach it, and without a provincial administration or a strong military garrison, craftsmen had little work. Later complaints about the poverty of existence in Jerusalem—"food is scarce and provisions are limited"—were the result of conditions that developed in this period. 31 Al-Mutahhar bin Tahir noted that Jerusalem after 716 had become one of the provincial cities of Ramla, even though it had once been the royal city of David and Solomon. 32

In 746 the Muslims of Palestine revolted against Caliph Marwan II, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem suffered greatly. Four years later the Umayyad dynasty ended, and a new chapter in the history of the Holy City was inaugurated.

Abbasid Rule

The Abbasid dynasty transferred the capital of the Islamic empire from Damascus to Baghdad, moving the center of activity even farther from Jerusalem. This action brought about slow but progressive decay in the Holy City. The first Abbasid caliphs continued to visit Jerusalem (al-Mansur in 758 and 771 and al-Mahdi in 780), but later rulers did not show any interest in the city. During the caliphate of al-Mansur (754-775), the Dome of the Rock was vandalized; gold and silver were removed from its doors to mint coins. 33

Under the Abbasids Jerusalem remained predominantly non-Muslim, but the religious tolerance the citizens had enjoyed did not continue. High taxes were imposed on Jews and Christians. Jews were strictly prohibited from entering the Haram esh-Sharif, or the Temple Mount. A tenth-century source describes Jews praying at the gates of the holy precinct, and one from the eleventh century indicates that the Mount of Olives became an important prayer site for Jewish pilgrims to the Holy City. When oppression by their Muslim rulers became unbearable, the Christians requested the help of Charlemagne in 797. The great Christian emperor called upon the Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid (786-809) to alleviate the suffering of the Christians in the Holy City. As a token of their gratitude, the Christians sent the emperor the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which were presented to him by the pope during an investment ceremony in Rome. 34

Because cordial relations existed between emperor and caliph, Charlemagne succeeded in having several buildings erected in Jerusalem to accommodate Europeans visiting the city. These included a monastery, a convent, a marketplace, and a hospice for pilgrims. The emperor purchased gardens in the Kidron Valley and funded the construction of the Haceldama Monastery in the Hinnom Valley. These buildings were all destroyed in 1009 by the zealous Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim but were rebuilt a short time later when new Europeans, Italian merchants, settled in the city. They were demolished again when the Seljuk Turks invaded in 1071. 35

The situation in Jerusalem deteriorated after the reign of Charlemagne (d. 814). A plague of locusts struck Palestine and caused a famine in Jerusalem; numerous Muslims left the city. In 841, the villagers around Jerusalem revolted against Muslim authorities. Led by Tamim Abu Harb, who billed himself as a messiah, the rebels eventually sacked the churches, mosques, and residences of Jerusalem. It took officials a year and a half to put down the revolt. The remoteness of Palestine from the center of government in Baghdad fostered the neglect of Jerusalem as it weakened Abbasid control over the entire country. 36

Fatimid Oppression

Toward the middle of the tenth century the power of the Abbasids declined generally, and extremist Muslim ideologies spread throughout the Islamic world. Attacks on non-Muslims and their holy sites increased. In 935 the eastern section of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was turned into the Mosque of Umar, on the grounds that this was the site where Umar had prayed upon entering Jerusalem. In 938 Muslims attacked the Christians in the Holy City as they celebrated Palm Sunday, and they burned and looted the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In 966 riots broke out against the Christians in the city, and Muslims, this time joined by Jews, killed the patriarch of Jerusalem and burned his body when he refused to make his usual payment to the Muslim governor of Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost. 37

In 969, Palestine was overrun by the army of Caliph al-Muizz, whom tradition claims to be a descendant of Fatima, daughter of Muhammad. He established a state in North Africa, conquered Egypt as well as Palestine, and founded the Fatimid dynasty, which ruled until 1099, with a hiatus from 1071 to 1098. At first it seemed the Fatimids would bring stability to Jerusalem, which had been in decline for many years. Two Jewish converts to Islam held senior positions in the administration, one as chief vizier of the kingdom and the other as tax collector for Syria. Second, Karaite Jews began to migrate from Egypt to Jerusalem, and their numbers in the tenth century became as great as those of the rabbinical population of the city. (The Karaites believed only the biblical text and opposed such rabbinic teachings and traditions as the Talmud.) Jerusalem was again becoming a modest center of Jewish learning. But both Palestine and Jerusalem were plunged into turmoil when Bedouin tribes revolted and inflicted great misery once again upon the non-Muslim inhabitants of the Holy City. 38

The attacks on non-Muslims reached their climax during the rule of Caliph al-Hakim (1006-1021). Islamic historians generally regard him as a madman. In 1009 he ordered all Jewish and Christian houses of prayer demolished. He forced non-Muslims to wear degrading badges (the head of a calf, for instance, reminiscent of the golden calf of biblical fame) and to convert to Islam or leave the country. A year before his death, al-Hakim changed his mind and permitted Jews and Christians to return to their religion and to rebuild their destroyed houses of prayer. 39 Both groups were in dire conditions and neither found it easy to rebuild.

From the middle of the eleventh century on, Jerusalem began to supersede Ramla as Palestine's main city for at least two reasons. First, serious earthquakes in 1033 and 1068 caused more damage to Ramla than to Jerusalem. Thousands of buildings were destroyed and tens of thousands of people died. In 1034 the Fatimid Caliph Taker Ali set about repairing the city walls, which gave Jerusalem an air of security. He demolished churches in the vicinity of the ruined walls and used their building stones to restore the walls. Second, and this is the ultimate curiosity of the eleventh century, despite the many difficulties and depredations experienced by the city's people and places, Jerusalem became a religious attraction in the Near East, especially to people from western Europe. Tourism in the Near East reached immense proportions in the peak year of 1065. One contingent alone consisted of twelve thousand pilgrims from southern Germany and Holland. 40

Despite the oppression suffered by the Christians from the Abbasid period on, they maintained considerable property in and around Jerusalem. Monks lived their communal life undisturbed in the valleys surrounding Jerusalem. Only with the conquest of the Holy City by the Seljuk Turks were the monks driven out of the Kidron and Hinnom valleys. 41

In 1071 the Seljuk Turks swept out of their homelands in south-central Asia and overran the Near East with massive military conquests. Once again Jerusalem was a prime target, and it became the brunt of large-scale destruction: "And they burned everything and cast out all." 42 The Seljuks, who were Sunni Muslims, banned all prayers recited in Jerusalem in honor of the Shiite Fatimid caliphs and reintroduced prayers for the welfare of the Abbasid caliphs, whom they regarded as the true caliphs because the Abbasids were Sunnis as well.

In 1076 a revolt against the Seljuks failed, and the Turkish commander who recaptured Jerusalem exacted a terrible price from the rebels. Not even those who fled to the al-Aqsa Mosque were spared. Such brutality did little good in the end, for the Fatimids retook Jerusalem in 1098. But their rule in turn lasted only a short while; the city was soon exposed to the fury of Christian soldiers from Europe when the First Crusade reached Jerusalem in 1099.

Jerusalem in Muslim Thought

A Jewish midrash attributes seventy names to Jerusalem. The Arabs mentioned at least seventeen of their own ("a multiplicity of names is a sign of greatness" 43), but only three of these had any practical importance. It appears that the Holy City was first called Ilia (the Arabic form of the Roman Aelia), which the Arabs took over from the Christians. But that quickly gave way to the city's official and principal name throughout the whole of the Islamic period, Bayt al-Maqdis, which is an abbreviation of Madinat Bayt al-Maqdis ("The City of the Holy Structure or Temple," meaning the Temple of Solomon). Today's Arabic name, al-Haram ("the sacred"), is simply another way of referring to the Bayt al-Maqdis. 44 The third name, al-Quds ("the Holy") is related etymologically to maqdis but is not found among early Arabic writers. Al-Maqdisi, writing around 985, uses it occasionally; and fellow Jerusalemite al-Mutahhar ibn Tahir (c. 966) mentions it once. The Persian traveler Nasir Khosraw, who visited Jerusalem in 1047, notes that the local people called the city al-Quds. 45 It is clear that for more than four centuries of the early Islamic period, Muslims, Jews, and even Christians perpetuated the central idea behind Jerusalem's founding, the essential and enduring characteristic of Jerusalem's long and varied history: holiness.

Orthodox Islam teaches that there are three shrines in the world to which special holiness is attached: the Ka'bah in Mecca, the Mosque of Muhammad in Medina, and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which is also the site of Solomon's Temple. Like Jews and some Christians, Muslims think of Jerusalem as the hub of the universe. Muslim tradition relates that the Holy Rock (al-sakhra), protected by the Dome of the Rock, is located exactly beneath Allah's throne in heaven and directly above a cave, the "well of spirits," where all the souls of the dead congregate twice weekly. Because of the rock's holiness, angels visited it two thousand times before the creation of the first man. It was there that Noah's ark came to rest, from which place civilization began again. Muslim scientists found corroboration for this view in their calculations that the Haram esh-Sharif is located in the center of the fourth climatic zone, the region best suited to develop civilized life. 46

Despite the many changes Jerusalem experienced during the Islamic period, the city retained its special holiness among Muslims, who added layers of traditional belief about the sanctity of the Holy City to their religion. Many Islamic Hadiths speak of the great value of prayer uttered in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem also has a special place in Muslim mysticism. Mystics believed that living in Jerusalem purified the soul. For that reason, as had Christian ascetics before them, many Muslim mystics went to Jerusalem to be close to its holiness.

Muslim belief closely connects Jerusalem with the day of judgment. According to the faith, at the end of days, the angel of death, Israfil, will blow the ram's horn three times while standing on the Holy Rock. All the dead will congregate on the Mount of Olives. All humankind will cross a long bridge suspended from the Mount of Olives to the Haram esh-Sharif, which will be narrower than a hair, sharper than a sword, and darker than night. Along the bridge will be seven arches, and at each arch every person will be asked to account for his actions. The Scales of Judgment will be placed on the arches surrounding the Dome of the Rock. The righteous will be rewarded with sweet water from the rivers of paradise underneath the Holy Rock. 47 This is a concept for which Latter-day Saints have great affinity—this concept of a Jerusalem of renewal and reconciliation. It represents, as it were, a new Jerusalem.

Little wonder, then, that affection for Jerusalem grew among Muslims during its temporary occupation by the Crusaders. It was a powerful motivation for Muslims to regain the Holy Rock in the Holy City.

Notes

^1. Combining a knowledge of scripture, history, and geography, Lynn and Hope Hilton retraced what they believe to be the probable route of Lehi's family. Situated along the western Arabian coastline between the Red Sea and the western mountains of the Arabian peninsula, this coastal plain was the ancient route of the Frankincense Trail. Today it is called Tihama by its residents. The Frankincense Trail leaves the seacoast at one point, turns east, following a pathway up one of the wadis, over the crest of the mountains, through sand and gravel desert, and joins other trails at the caravan city of Abha, now a regional capital in Saudi Arabia. See Hilton and Hilton, In Search of Lehi's Trail, 63, 95-96, 105.

^2. Parley P. Pratt, in Journal of Discourses, 3:40.

^3. George A. Smith, in Journal of Discourses, 3:31.

^4. Palmer, Expanding Church, frontispiece.

^5. Peterson, Abraham Divided, 121.

^6. See the commentary in Holy Qur'an, 56.

^7. Holy Qur'an, 774.

^8. Holy Qur'an, 772.

^9. Klein and Klein, Temple beyond Time, 127.

^10. Klein and Klein, Temple beyond Time, 129.

^11. Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:170.

^12. Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:171.

^13. Avi-Yonah, Jerusalem, 48.

^14. Avi-Yonah, Jerusalem, 48-49.

^15. Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:172.

^16. Klein and Klein, Temple beyond Time, 134.

^17. Avi-Yonah, Jerusalem, 50.

^18. Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:169.

^19. Ad-Din, Great Familiarization, 1.256.

^20. Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:175.

^21. Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:175.

^22. Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:175.

^23. Fisher and Ochsenwald, Middle East, 42-47; Goldschmidt, Concise History of the Middle East, 56.

^24. Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:176.

^25. Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:176.

^26. Avi-Yonah, Jerusalem, 51.

^27. Avi-Yonah, Jerusalem, 51.

^28. Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 83-84; see also Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:178.

^29. See Goldschmidt, Concise History of the Middle East, 48.

^30. Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:177.

^31. Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:180.

^32. Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:180.

^33. Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 86.

^34. Klein, Temple beyond Time, 141-142.

^35. Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 86.

^36. Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:182-84.

^37. Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 86-87.

^38. Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:184-85.

^39. Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:184-85.

^40. Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:185.

^41. Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 88-89.

^42. Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 89.

^43. Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:186.

^44. Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:186-87.

^45. Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:186-87.

^46. Avi-Yonah, Jerusalem, 321.

^47. Avi-Yonah, Jerusalem, 323.