Umar in Jerusalem

Part oneThe patriarch's condition

Inside the walls of Jerusalem, the patriarch Sophronius had a hard choice to make. A Muslim army had been camped around the city for months. The city had already suffered in living memory. The Persians had taken it in 614 CE, and the Byzantine emperor Heraclius had won it back around 630 CE. Since the Muslim victory at Yarmuk, no relief army was coming from the emperor. Sophronius was ready to talk, but he set one condition: the agreement would be made with the caliph himself.

Few cities meant as much to so many people. For Christians, Jerusalem held the places of the life of Isa (peace be upon him). For Jews it was the site of the ancient Temple. For Muslims it was the city of the first qiblah, the direction the Prophet ﷺ and his Companions faced in prayer in the early years in Madinah, and it holds Al-Aqsa, which the Quran names in the account of the Prophet's night travel, al-Isra. The Romans had once renamed it Aelia, and the Arabs called it Iliya, or Bayt al-Maqdis. Later centuries gave it the name al-Quds, the Holy.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre had been built under the emperor Constantine in the fourth century. The hill of the old Temple, by contrast, had been left in ruins for centuries, and Jews had long been barred from living in the city under Byzantine rule.

From the Quran

سُبْحَـٰنَ ٱلَّذِىٓ أَسْرَىٰ بِعَبْدِهِۦ لَيْلًا مِّنَ ٱلْمَسْجِدِ ٱلْحَرَامِ إِلَى ٱلْمَسْجِدِ ٱلْأَقْصَا ٱلَّذِى بَـٰرَكْنَا حَوْلَهُۥ لِنُرِيَهُۥ مِنْ ءَايَـٰتِنَآ ۚ إِنَّهُۥ هُوَ ٱلسَّمِيعُ ٱلْبَصِيرُ ۝١

Glory be to the One Who took His servant ˹Muḥammad˺ by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque whose surroundings We have blessed, so that We may show him some of Our signs. Indeed, He alone is the All-Hearing, All-Seeing.

The commanders on the Palestine front, Abu Ubaydah ibn al-Jarrah and Amr ibn al-As (may Allah be pleased with them), sent word to Madinah. Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) set out for the north, a ride of well over a thousand kilometres. He met his commanders at Jabiyah, a camp in southern Syria, and went on from there. He left the affairs of the capital in the hands of a deputy. It is well known that he and his servant had one camel between them and took turns to ride it. As they came near Jerusalem, it was the servant's turn on the camel. Umar walked beside it, leading it by the rein.

Part twoThe guarantee and the prayer

Umar met Sophronius and the leading people of the city, and out of that meeting came a written guarantee of safety, an aman, for the people of Iliya. The word comes from the same Arabic root as iman, faith, and amanah, trust. It promised protection for their lives, their property, their churches and their crosses, for the sick and the healthy alike. Their churches were not to be taken over as homes or pulled down. Those who wished to leave with the Byzantine troops were allowed to go in safety. In return the people were to pay the jizyah, the tax that non-Muslim subjects paid for protection and exemption from military service.

The agreement turned a siege into a settlement, and the city's way of life was to carry on under Muslim rule. Jews were allowed to live in Jerusalem again in the years that followed. The text became one of the best-known documents of early Islam, and later rulers looked back to it. Accounts differ on some details of its wording.

Umar was shown around the city. He was in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre when the time for prayer came, and the patriarch invited him to pray inside. Umar declined and went out to pray a short way off. He explained that if he prayed in the church, later Muslims might use it as a reason to take it from the Christians. A mosque still stands close to that spot, and the church has remained a church.

Umar then asked to be taken to the ancient Temple site. It was covered in rubbish and earth. He began clearing it with his own hands, and the Companions with him joined in. A simple place of prayer was set up there. This is the first Muslim place of prayer on the compound of Al-Aqsa. The grand Dome of the Rock came about fifty years later, under the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik.

Umar did not stay long. He gave instructions for the care of the city, left a garrison, and went home to Madinah, where he lived as simply as before. Soon after, the remaining cities of Palestine also came to terms. Jerusalem was later where Muawiyah was acknowledged as caliph in 661 CE.

Jerusalem stayed under Muslim government for over four centuries, until the Crusaders took it in 1099 CE. When Salahuddin retook the city in 1187 CE, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre stayed in Christian hands. Over the centuries Jerusalem became one of the three holy places that Muslims travel to for prayer, together with Makkah and Madinah.

He walked into Jerusalem leading a camel and left its churches in the hands of their people.

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The mapWhere it happened

• Madinah
• the road north through Arabia
• Jerusalem
• the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
• Al-Aqsa

This map is a simple sketch to help you picture where events took place. Positions, distances and borders are approximate, so please use it for reference only, not as an accurate map.

SourcesSources for this chapter