On the other hand, there is clear evidence that the status of the Jewish population under Persian rule had deteriorated prior to The Persians apparently realized that there was little to be gained from appeasing a small local minority. The Persian victory, however, was not to last. Khosrow was deposed and assassinated, and his son, who wished to end the war, died in Heraclius reached an agreement with the Persian army commander who ordered his troops to withdraw from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria and Palestine, and also returned to the Byzantines the relics of the True Cross.
On March 29, , as Heraclius triumphantly entered Jerusalem, Christians wept with joy at the miracle of the restoration of the True Cross. In his hour of glory, the emperor magnanimously refrained from taking reprisal against the Jews. But the Christian restoration was also short-lived. In the Arabs invaded the land and besieged Gaza. In they defeated the Byzantines by the Yarmuk River, and two years later Jerusalem was conquered by the Muslim army.
The Jews of Palestine looked on powerless as three empires fought over their land. Over a period of about 30 years, Arab warriors, riding fast horses and camels, conquered the entire Persian empire and much of the Byzantine. Arab warriors were filled with confidence that God destined them for victory. They believed that if they died in battle for God, they would become martyrs, rewarded for eternity in paradise. They did not fear death, which made them fierce fighters.
Those Arab warriors who survived battle benefited from the loot, women, and slaves they captured. The caliph was always entitled to one-fifth of the spoils of war. The people conquered by the Muslims usually faced a choice. They could denounce their religion and convert to Islam, pay a tax to continue practicing their beliefs, become a slave, or be executed. Most chose to convert. But many people paid the tax. In time, the tax proved such a lucrative source of revenue that many Muslim rulers actually discouraged conversions.
Those who paid the religious tax were called dhimmis. To Muslims, dhimmis were considered inferior and were treated as inferiors. In , a civil war broke out over the succession of the caliph. The Umayyad family gained control of the growing Dar al-Islam , land of Islam. But this civil war marked a division within Islam that exists to this day.
The vast majority of Muslims, known as Sunnis, believe that the Umayyads were the rightful successors to the caliphate. Shi'ite Muslims deny the legitimacy of the Umayyads. The Umayyads ruled for nearly years, during which the empire spread from the Middle East into Europe. Damascus in Syria served as the capital of their empire. In , the forces of the Umayyad caliph attacked Constantinople, in Asia Minor. It was the capital of the Christian Byzantine Empire.
But after seven years of siege, the Muslims gave up their first attempt to take the city. They defeated the Byzantines and converted the Berber tribes also known as Moors. The invaders met forces sent by Rodrigo, the Visigoth Christian king. Outnumbered, the Muslims still defeated King Rodrigo. The Arab and Berber cavalry went on to capture most of Iberia for Islam by Following the collapse of the Roman Empire, Europe in the s was divided into numerous kingdoms and even smaller dukedoms that were almost always at war with each other.
No unified nations existed. Most living in Europe were Christians, but some peoples still practiced pagan religions.
The Kingdom of the Franks, a loose confederation of dukedoms, occupied lands that would later become France and part of Germany. Power rested in the hands of the local dukes and their noblemen followers. They acknowledged a Frankish king, but he was little more than their puppet. The Franks had been converted to Christianity years earlier.
When Pippin died in , his wife, Plectrude, imprisoned Charles to assure that her grandson, then a small child, would become king. But Charles soon escaped. Plectrude came under attack by several dukedoms in the Frankish kingdom. Charles, however, raised a small fighting force to confront them. In his first battle, Charles was defeated.
But this would be his last defeat. Plectrude bribed the invaders to cease their attack, but on their way home, Charles ambushed them and killed many. Charles then went on the offensive and invaded his enemies' territory.
After winning several battles, he returned home to confront Plectrude. In , he installed his own puppet king and made himself "Mayor of the Palace," the power behind the throne. For the rest of his life, Charles was engaged in constant warfare throughout the Frankish kingdom. He assembled a formidable army of experienced fighters who received land from Charles in exchange for their loyalty.
Charles went to war to take land, sometimes from churches and monasteries, which enabled him to increase his army. While Charles and the other Franks were fighting one another, the Muslims in Iberia were preparing to fight the Franks.
In , they mounted raids across the Pyrenees Mountains into Aquitaine, the southernmost dukedom of the Franks. Duke Eudo of Aquitaine defeated the Muslims in one battle, but they continued their raids. The Muslim cavalry looted and burned churches, monasteries, and entire cities.
Around , the Muslim governor in Iberia, Abd ar-Rahman, led thousands of horsemen and their families into Aquitaine once again. They killed, burned, and looted as they went. Duke Eudo, a longtime enemy of Charles, had to call upon him for help to stop the Muslim invaders. Charles responded quickly, and an epic battle soon took place near Tours.
It is known as the Battle of Tours also as the Battle of Poitiers. There are many uncertainties about this battle. We are not sure exactly where it took place, the length of it, the number of combatants, the tactics used, or even the year in which it occurred or But we do know that a major battle took place and the Franks led by Charles won. In BC, the Israelite king, David, invaded Jerusalem and walled and fortified the city against further invasion.
Later, when King Solomon built the temple, Jerusalem became a spiritual capital, first for the Jews and later for Christians and Muslims too. In BC it fell to the Babylonians and their temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar but later rebuilt.
Towards the approach of the 1st century, the city was the ruling capital of the Maccabean empire of Simon Maccabee, before giving way to the long rule of the Romans.
During the Roman era, the town of Bethlehem near Jerusalem witnessed the birth of Jesus Christ, a prophet in Islam and, in the Christian belief, the son of God. Jerusalem is a spiritual capital for Jews, Christians and Muslims.
Jesus preached the importance of worshipping one God in the towns of Nazareth and Galilee where he lived. But it would be in Jerusalem where he was tried by the Roman official Pontius Pilate as a rebel and false prophet. The sentence he received was death, and Christians believe he was then crucified.
This act became the central pillar of Christianity and the place of his alleged crucifixion in Jerusalem became the holiest site in Christendom. His followers flocked to the site in pilgrimage and a church, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, was built around it. Biblical Palestine became a holy land for Christians.
After Jerusalem was conquered by the Romans, it became the capital of the Herod dynasty that ruled under the direction of Rome. In AD70 the Roman emperor Titus destroyed the Temple to punish and discourage the Jews who had rebelled against his rule. In AD the Roman emperor Hadrian rebuilt the city, giving it new walls and officially naming the land as Palestine while re-naming Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina in honour to his pagan God, Jupiter.
From AD, with the widespread acceptance of Christianity by Rome, Jerusalem underwent a revival, greatly aided by St Helena wife of Emperor Constantine , who sponsored much re-building of the city in the early 4th century. It became a centre for Christian pilgrimage. By AD, with the rapid spread of a new religion in the region, Islam, the city was captured by an army led by Abu Ubaydah under the caliphate of Umar ibn al-Khattab and Islam came to Palestine.
The two mosques and their surroundings became known as al-Haram al-Sharif and it became the third holiest site for Muslims. By the 11th century, Islam had been in the region for more than years. The city gained a worldwide reputation as a city of the three faiths.
But with the Fatimids in power, their empire fighting Christian expansionism, the rulers began to restrict the flow of Christian pilgrims. The Fatimid ruler al-Hakim destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre later rebuilt in response to an uprising, an act that contributed to the onslaught brought by the coming Crusaders.
Those who will fight, he said, are promised heavenly redemption for their sins and booty for what they capture or conquer. For much of the 12th century it became the capital of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. In AD, under the leadership of Salah al-Din, Muslims recaptured the city and, much to the relief of the Christian inhabitants, there was no revenge killing. Those who wanted to leave were permitted to do so, with all their goods and belongings, and those who wanted to stay were guaranteed protection for their lives, property, and places of worship.
Thereafter, under Mamluk and then Ottoman rule, Jerusalem was rebuilt and restored especially by Sulayman II also known as Sulayman the Magnificent , building walls, gates, towers, and aqueducts for the city.
His most notable work is the beautiful tile work commissioned for the exterior of the Dome of the Rock. With the incomparable skills of Persian master ceramicists, 40, tiles were fired and put into place, crowned by the inscription of verses from the Quran.
They remain to this day. Fifteen years later it was retaken by an Egyptian army led by the pasha governor , Kharazmi. It was held by the Egyptians in the face of the seventh Crusade until the 15th century, when it passed in to the hands of the Ottoman Turks. During Ottoman rule there was a small but significant Jewish presence in Palestine and, by the 19th century, at the onset of Ottoman collapse, Jerusalem had become a more open city. Christian pilgrims increased and churches, hospices, and other institutions were built.
European Jewish immigration into Jerusalem was also on the rise and has been seen by some groups as pivotal to a master plan concieved by Zionists. By , Jews made up the largest community in the city and the expanded settlement outside the Old City walls. In , the First World war led to turmoil, destruction and the need for expansion and conquest by the European powers.
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