First Islamization of Jerusalem under the Caliphates. In 638 CE, the Islamic Caliphate extended its dominion to Jerusalem. With the Arab conquest of the region, Jews were allowed back into the city. The majority population of Jerusalem during the time of Arab conquest was Christian.
This resulted in Jerusalem being conquered by Christian forces, after it had been under Muslim rule for nearly 450 years. It became the capital of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, until it was again conquered by the Ayyubids under Saladin in 1187.
The religious affiliation of the Israeli population as of 2022 was 73.6% Jewish, 18.1% Muslim, 1.9% Christian, and 1.6% Druze. The remaining 4.8% included faiths such as Samaritanism and Baháʼí, as well as "religiously unclassified".
After World War I, Great Britain took over Jerusalem, which was part of Palestine at the time. The British controlled the city and surrounding region until Israel became an independent state in 1948.
Judaism, monotheistic religion developed among the ancient Hebrews.
About eight-in-ten (81%) Israeli adults are Jewish, while the remainder are mostly ethnically Arab and religiously Muslim (14%), Christian (2%) or Druze (2%). Overall, the Arab religious minorities in Israel are more religiously observant than Jews.
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.
The earliest human remains in the region were found in Ubeidiya, some 3 km south of the Sea of Galilee, in the Jordan Rift Valley. The remains are dated to the Pleistocene, c. 1.5 million years ago. These are traces of the earliest migration of Homo erectus out of Africa.
The Islamic history of Jerusalem begins with the conquest of the city by Caliph Umar in 635 (or 638).
Jerusalem is Islam's third holiest site and home to the al-Aqsa mosque (Muslims worldwide faced this mosque in prayer before the direction was changed to the mosque in Makka). It also holds the Dome of the Rock, where the Prophet Muhammad ascended on his night journey to heaven.
However, the Qur'an specifies that the Land of Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people, that God Himself gave that Land to them as heritage and ordered them to live therein.
He was born of a Jewish mother, in Galilee, a Jewish part of the world. All of his friends, associates, colleagues, disciples, all of them were Jews. He regularly worshipped in Jewish communal worship, what we call synagogues. He preached from Jewish text, from the Bible.
Nearly half of all Israeli Jews are descended from Jews who made aliyah from Europe, while around the same number are descended from Jews who made aliyah from Arab countries, Iran, Turkey, and Central Asia. Over two hundred thousand are, or are descended from, Ethiopian and Indian Jews.
Jerusalem remained under Muslim rule until it was captured by Crusaders in 1099 during the First Crusade.
Indigenous Peoples in Israel
Israel's Arab Bedouin citizens are Indigenous to the Negev (Naqab, in Arabic) desert, where they have lived for centuries as a semi-nomadic people, long before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
Between 1949 and 1967, Israel controlled the western part of Jerusalem, while Jordan took the eastern part, including the old walled city containing important Jewish, Muslim and Christian religious sites.
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.
On this day, September 7, 1191, an army led by England's King Richard the Lionheart conquered the seaside town of Arsuf from the forces of Saladin.
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.
Palestine was among former Ottoman territories placed under UK administration by the League of Nations in 1922.
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”).
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.
Islam was first brought to the region of Palestine during the Early Muslim conquests of the 7th century, when the Rashidun Caliphate under the leadership of ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb conquered the Shaam region from the Byzantine Empire. The Muslim army conquered Jerusalem, held by the Byzantine Romans, in November, 636.