History of Jerusalem during the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The History of Jerusalem during the Kingdom of Jerusalem began with the siege of the city in 1099 as part of the First Crusade. This resulted in Jerusalem being conquered by Christian forces, after it had been under Muslim rule for nearly 450 years.
The famous golden roof of the
By the 11th century, Islam had been in the region for more than 500 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 eventual fall of the Crusader states by 1291 led to a period of almost-uninterrupted Muslim rule that lasted for seven centuries, and a dominant Islamic culture was consolidated in the region during the Ayyubid, Mamluk and early Ottoman periods.
AMMAN: Arabs were the first inhabitants of Jerusalem and have lived there for at least 5,000 years, according to a white paper published by an Amman-based think tank.
The Islamic history of Jerusalem begins with the conquest of the city by Caliph Umar in 635 (or 638). Umar had been one of the prophet Muhammad's closest companions and served as his second successor (khalifa) after Abu Bakr.
The Mamluks ruled over Palestine including Jerusalem from 1260 until 1516. In the decades after 1260 they also worked to eliminate the remaining Crusader states in the region. The last of these was defeated with the capture of Acre in 1291. Jerusalem was a significant site of Mamluk architectural patronage.
The British controlled the city and surrounding region until Israel became an independent state in 1948. Jerusalem was divided during the first 20 years of Israel's existence. Israel controlled the Western portions of it, while Jordan controlled East Jerusalem.
The Natufian Culture. From 12,500 – 9,500 BCE Palestine was inhabited by people from the Natufian culture. They were hunter-gatherers who lived in villages gathering and processing wild cereals. They built stone houses and granaries.
The oldest fossils of anatomically modern humans found outside Africa are the Skhul and Qafzeh hominids, who lived in northern Israel 120,000 years ago. Around 10th millennium BCE, the Natufian culture existed in the area.
For Muslims, Jerusalem is a site of key events in the life of Jesus and other important figures. It's also the spot where, according to traditional interpretations of the Koran and other texts, the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.
According to the Quran, Jerusalem was also the last place the Prophet Muhammad visited before he ascended to the heavens and talked to God in the seventh century. Before that, he was flown from Mecca to Jerusalem overnight by a mythical creature.
Although the city of Jerusalem is not mentioned by any of its names in the Qur'an, it is mentioned in later Islamic literature as the place of Muhammad's Night Journey. The story of Muhammad's ascension from Al-Aqsa Mosque was understood as relating to the Temple in Jerusalem (referred to as Bayt Al-Maqdis).
While the State of Israel was established on 15 May 1948 and admitted to the United Nations, a Palestinian State was not established. The remaining territories of pre-1948 Palestine, the West Bank - including East Jerusalem- and Gaza Strip, were administered from 1948 till 1967 by Jordan and Egypt, respectively.
During the First Crusade, Christian knights from Europe capture Jerusalem after seven weeks of siege and begin massacring the city's Muslim and Jewish population.
For the next several centuries, the land of modern-day Israel was conquered and ruled by various groups, including the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Fatimids, Seljuk Turks, Crusaders, Egyptians, Mamelukes, Islamists and others.
Palestine's Early Roots
Throughout history, Palestine has been ruled by numerous groups, including the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Fatimids, Seljuk Turks, Crusaders, Egyptians and Mamelukes. From about 1517 to 1917, the Ottoman Empire ruled much of the region.
In 1917, in order to win Jewish support for Britain's First World War effort, the British Balfour Declaration promised the establishment of a Jewish national home in Ottoman-controlled Palestine.
The 1948 war ended with Israeli forces controlling approximately 78 percent of historical Palestine. The remaining 22 percent fell under the administration of Egypt and Jordan. In 1967, Israel absorbed the whole of historical Palestine, as well as additional territory from Egypt and Syria.
Palestine has undergone many demographic and religious upheavals throughout history. During the 2nd millennium BCE, it was inhabited by the Canaanites, Semitic-speaking peoples who practiced the Canaanite religion. The Israelites emerged later as a separate ethnic and religious community in the region.
The British, who held a colonial mandate for Palestine until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region.
In 634 CE, the Muslim armies from Arabia took Syria-Palaestina and renamed it Jund Filastin (“Military District of Palestine”).
Al-Quds is the most common Arabic name for Jerusalem and is used by many cultures influenced by Islam. The name may have been a direct translation of the Hebrew nickname for the city, "Ir HaKodesh" (עיר הקודש "The Holy City" or "City of the Holiness").
Aramaic is best known as the language Jesus spoke. It is a Semitic language originating in the middle Euphrates. In 800-600 BC it spread from there to Syria and Mesopotamia. The oldest preserved inscriptions are from this period and written in Old Aramaic.
After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran severed all diplomatic and commercial ties with Israel, and its theocratic government does not recognize the legitimacy of Israel as a state.