Siege of Jerusalem (637)

Siege of Jerusalem

The Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem

date	November 636 to April 637
place	Jerusalem
output	Arab victory
Territorial changes	Jerusalem conquered by the Arabs

Parties to the conflict
Islamic Caliphate	Eastern Roman Empire
Commander
Abu Ubaida ibn al-Jarrah Chālid ibn al-Walīd Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀs Sharhabil ibn Hassana	Patriarch Sophronius
Troop strength
~ 20,000	Unknown

The siege of Jerusalem was part of a 637 conflict over Eastern Roman Jerusalem . It began when an army of the Syrian Caliphate ( Rashidun Army ) under the command of Abu Ubaidah began to besiege Jerusalem in November 636. After six months, the Patriarch Sophronius surrendered the city voluntarily on the condition that it only be handed over to the Caliph personally. In April 637, Caliph Umar traveled to Jerusalem to accept the submission of the city.

The Muslim conquest of the city solidified Saracen control over Palestine, which would last until the First Crusade in the late 11th century. The city soon became a holy place for Islam as it was for Christianity and Judaism .

In 613 the Sassanid conquest of Palestine, with the support of the Jewish and Samaritan population, had also led to the capture of Jerusalem by the Sassanids in 614. After promises of autonomy to the Jews and their settlement in Jerusalem, they were banished from Jerusalem again in 617/618. After the retreat of the Persians, there was probably even a massacre of the Jews by the Eastern Romans in 630.

In 613 the Jewish uprising against the Eastern Roman Empire had culminated with the conquest of Jerusalem by the Sassanid Empire in 614, after which the Jews were temporarily given a high degree of autonomy. After the retreat of the Persians, the massacre of the Jews by the Eastern Romans took place in 630 . 15 years of Jewish autonomy had ended.

After the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem, the Jews were again allowed a higher degree of self-determination, only 8 years after the Christian massacre and 500 years after their expulsion from Judea by the Roman Empire . This also gave rise to the Treaty of Umar of 637, which describes the rights and duties of Christians and Jews under Islamic rule and assigns them the status of dhimmis .

prehistory

Jerusalem was an important city in the eastern Roman province of Palestina Prima . In 614 the city fell to a Sassanid army under General Shahrbaraz . The Persians looted the city and allegedly massacred 90,000 Christian residents. During the looting, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the True Cross of Christ were brought to Ctesiphon . Later the cross was returned to Herakleios after decisively defeating the Sassanids in 628.

After the death of Muhammad in 632, the leadership of the Muslims passed to Abu Bakr , who initially had to assert his rule in the Ridda Wars . After his rule over Arabia was restored, he began a war of conquest to conquer Iraq , then part of the Sassanid Empire; while his armies attacked the Eastern Roman Empire in the west.

In 634 Abu Bakr died. He was followed by Umar, who continued the campaigns of his predecessors. In May 636, Emperor Herakleios launched a major counterattack to regain the lost provinces, but his troops were defeated in the Battle of Yarmuk in August 636. Thereupon Abu Ubaida, the commander in chief of the Muslim army in Syria , held a council of war in October 636 to plan the next steps. Either the capture of the coastal city of Caesarea or that of Jerusalem was at issue . Abu Ubaida was aware of the importance of both cities, which so far had successfully resisted all Muslim attempts at conquest. Unable to make a decision, he wrote to Caliph Umar. In response, the caliph ordered the capture of Jerusalem. Therefore Abu Ubaida marched south from Jabiya, Chālid ibn al-Walīd and his mobile bodyguard led the train. The Muslims reached Jerusalem in November, whereupon the Eastern Roman garrison withdrew to the fortified upper city.

siege

Jerusalem was well fortified by the Eastern Romans after Herakleios was retaken. After the defeat on Jarmuk, the Patriarch of Jerusalem Sophronius had the defenses repaired. The Muslims had not yet dared to seriously siege the city. Nevertheless, from 634 onwards, Saracen troops were able to cut off all routes to the city. Although not yet completely enclosed, Jerusalem has been in a permanent state of siege since the conquest of the neighboring cities of Pella and Bosra . After the battle of Yarmuk, the city was also separated from the rest of Syria and prepared for the inevitable siege.

When the Muslims reached Jericho , Sophronius secretly collected all important relics such as the Holy Cross near the coast so that they could be shipped to Constantinople in an emergency .

The siege of the city began in mid-November 636. Instead of attacking the ramparts non-stop, the Muslims decided to keep the siege going until the Eastern Romans ran out of food and they agreed to a voluntary surrender.

Although exact descriptions of the siege have not been preserved, it appears to have been bloodless. The Eastern Roman garrison could not expect any help from the defeated Herakleios. After four months of siege, Sophronius offered to surrender the city and pay a jizya ( tribute ) on the condition that the caliph should come to Jerusalem to receive the submission. According to legend , after the conditions of the patriarch became known, one of the Muslim commanders, Sharhabil ibn Hassana , suggested that Khalid ibn Walid should pretend to be caliph instead of waiting for the caliph to arrive from Medina , since he looked like Umar. The deception didn't work. Perhaps Khalid was already too well known in Syria, or residents of Jerusalem had already met him in his actual form. So the Patriarch of Jerusalem refused to negotiate. When Khalid reported that his mission had failed, Abu Ubaidah wrote to the caliph of the situation and asked him to come to Jerusalem to accept the surrender.

surrender

Today's Church of the Holy Sepulcher

In April 637 Umar reached Palestine and first went to Jabiya, where Abu Ubaida, Chalid and Yazid received him. Amr had been left as the commander of the besieging army.

Upon Umar's arrival in Jerusalem, a pact known as the Umariyya Treaty was written. In this, the surrender of the city in return for religious freedom for the Christians with ledges of the jizya was laid down. It was signed by Caliph Umar on behalf of the Muslims. In late April 637, Jerusalem was officially handed over to the caliph.

In the Islamic sources it was reported that at the time of the Dhuhr prayers Sophronius invited Umar to pray in the rebuilt Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Umar refused because he feared that accepting it would jeopardize the building's legal status as a church and Muslims would turn it into a mosque . After staying in Jerusalem for ten days, the caliph returned to Medina.

consequences

The Dome of the Rock , built in 691 by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik.

Following the caliph's instructions, Yazid next besieged Caesarea. Amr and Sharhabil hurried to complete the conquest of Palestine, which they succeeded in doing by the end of the year. Caesarea, however, held out until 640, when the garrison Muʿāwiya I , the governor of Syria, surrendered. With an army of 17,000 men, Abu Ubaidah and Chalid set out north to conquer all of Syria . The conquest ended with the conquest of Antioch in 637. In 639 the Muslims invaded Egypt .

During his stay in Jerusalem, Umar was led by Sophronius to several holy places, such as B. the Temple Mount . Seeing the barren area on which the temple had once stood, Umar ordered the cleansing of rubble and bushes and then had a wooden mosque built on the site. The earliest report of such a structure comes from the Gallic Bishop Arculf , who visited Jerusalem between 679 and 682. He describes a primitive prayer house that could accommodate up to 3,000 people and was built from logs over older ruins.

More than half a century after the conquest of Jerusalem, the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik ordered the construction of the Dome of the Rock on a crag on the Temple Mount. Historian al-Muqaddasi wrote that Abd al-Malik built the shrine to compete with the splendor of Christian churches. The construction of the mosque strengthened Jerusalem's bond with the Muslim faith.

Over the next 400 years the importance of Jerusalem diminished due to the ongoing small wars of the Saracens in the region. The city remained under Muslim control until it was captured by Crusaders in 1099 during the First Crusade .

literature

• Agha Ibrahim Akram: The Sword of Allah: Khalid bin al-Waleed - His Life and Campaigns . Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom 2004, ISBN 0-19-597714-9 .
• Meron Benvenisti: City of Stone: The Hidden History of Jerusalem . University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California 1996, ISBN 0-520-20768-8 ( books.google.de ).
• Amikam Elad: Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship: Holy Places, Ceremonies, Pilgrimage . Brill Publishers, Leiden / New York 1995, ISBN 90-04-10010-5 ( books.google.de ).
• Edward Gibbon : The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire . tape 6 . JD Morris Publishers, 1862.
• Moshe Gil : A history of Palestine, 634-1099. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1997, ISBN 0-521-59984-9 .
• Geoffrey Greatrex, Samuel NC Lieu: The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars (Part II, 363-630 AD) . Routledge (Taylor & Francis), New York, New York and London, United Kingdom 2002, ISBN 0-415-14687-9 ( books.google.de ).
• John F. Haldon: Byzantium in the Seventh Century: The Transformation of a Culture . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom 1990, ISBN 0-521-31917-X ( books.google.de ).
• Leslie J. Hoppe: The Holy City: Jerusalem in the Theology of the Old Testament . Liturgical Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8146-5081-3 ( books.google.de ).
• Bernard Lewis : The Arabs in History . Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom 2002, ISBN 0-19-280310-7 ( books.google.de - first edition: 1993).
• David Nicolle : Yarmuk 636 AD: The Muslim Conquest of Syria . Osprey Publishing Limited, Oxford, United Kingdom 1994, ISBN 1-85532-414-8 ( books.google.de ).
• Steven Runciman : A History of the Crusades . tape 1 : The First Crusade and the Foundation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom 1987, ISBN 0-521-34770-X ( books.google.de - first edition: 1951).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Akram: The Sword of Allah: Khalid bin al-Waleed - His Life and Campaigns. 2004, p. 431 (English).
2. ↑ RW Thomson, James Howard-Johnston, Tim Greenwood: The Armenian History attributed to Sebeos . Liverpool University Press, Senate House, Abercromby Square, Liverpool, L69 3BX 1999, ISBN 978-0-85323-564-4 , doi : 10.3828 / 978-0-85323-564-4 .
3. ^ Gil: A History of Palestine, 634-1099. 1997, pp. 70-71 (English).
4. ↑ Greatrex, Lieu: The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars (Part II, 363-630 AD). 2002, p. 198 (English).
5. ^ Haldon: Byzantium in the Seventh Century: The Transformation of a Culture. 1997, p. 46 (English).
6. ↑ Nicolle: Yarmuk 636 AD: The Muslim Conquest of Syria. 1994, pp. 12-14 (English).
7. ^ Lewis: The Arabs in History. 2002, p. 65 (English).
8. ↑ ^{a b} Gil: A History of Palestine, 634-1099. 1997, p. 51 (English).
9. ↑ ^{a b} Runciman: A History of the Crusades. 1987, p. 17 (English).
10. ^ ^{A b} Gibbon: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 1862, Volume 6, p. 321 (English).
11. ↑ Akram: The Sword of Allah: Khalid bin al-Waleed - His Life and Campaigns. 2004, p. 432 (English).
12. ↑ Benvenisti: City of Stone: The Hidden History of Jerusalem. 1998, p. 14 (English).
13. ↑ al-Waqidi. Futuh al-Sham. Volume 1, p. 162; Imad al-Din al-Isfahani. al-Fath al-Qussi fi-l-Fath al-Qudsi , Volume 15, pp. 12-56.
14. ↑ Akram: The Sword of Allah: Khalid bin al-Waleed - His Life and Campaigns. 2004, p. 433 (English).
15. ^ Gil: A History of Palestine, 634-1099. 1997, p. 52 (English).
16. ↑ Akram: The Sword of Allah: Khalid bin al-Waleed - His Life and Campaigns. 2004, p. 434 (English).
17. ^ Gil: A History of Palestine, 634-1099. 1997, p. 54 (English).
18. ↑ al-Waqidi. Futuh al-Sham. Volume 1, p. 169.
19. ↑ Akram: The Sword of Allah: Khalid bin al-Waleed - His Life and Campaigns. 2004, p. 438 (English).
20. ^ ^{A b} Hoppe: The Holy City: Jerusalem in the Theology of the Old Testament. 2000, p. 15 (English).
21. ↑ Elad: Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship: Holy Places, Ceremonies, Pilgrimage. 1999, p. 33 (English).