After Rome expelled the Jews out of Palestine, Jerusalem and its environs became abandoned.
However, Jerusalem once
again became a center of interest after the Roman Emperor Constantine accepted Christianity (312). Roman Christians built churches in Jerusalem, and transformed it into a Christian city. Palestine remained Roman (Byzantine) territory until the seventh century, when it became part of the Persian Empire for a short time. Eventually, the Byzantines reclaimed it.
The year 637 represents an important turning point in Palestine''s history, for after this it came under Muslim control. This event brought peace and
harmony to Palestine, which for centuries had been the scene of wars, exile, looting and massacre. Moreover, every time it changed hands, which was rather frequent, it witnessed new brutalities. Under Muslim rule, however, its inhabitants, regardless of their beliefs, would live together in peace and harmony.
Palestine was conquered by Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second
caliph. When he entered Jerusalem, the tolerance, maturity, and kindness he showed to the area''s inhabitants, regardless of their religion, marked the beginning of a beautiful new age. A leading British commentator on religion Karen Armstrong describes the capture of Jerusalem by Umar in these terms in her book Holy War:
The Caliph Omar entered Jerusalem mounted on a white camel, escorted by the magistrate of the city, the Greek Patriarch Sophronius. The Caliph asked to be taken immediately to the Temple Mount and there he knelt in prayer on the spot where his friend Mohammed had made his Night Journey. The Patriarch watched in horror: this, he thought, must be the Abomination of Desolation that the Prophet Daniel had foretold would enter the Temple; this must be Antichrist who would herald the Last Days. Next Omar asked to see the Christian shrines and, while he was in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the time for Muslim prayer came round. Courteously the Patriarch invited him to pray where he was, but Omar as courteously refused.
If he knelt to pray in the church, he explained, the Muslims would want to commemorate the event by erecting a mosque there, and that would mean that they would have to demolish the Holy Sepulchre. Instead Omar went to pray at a little distance from the church, and, sure enough, directly opposite the Holy Sepulchre there is still a small mosque dedicated to the Caliph Omar.
The other great mosque of Omar was erected on the Temple Mount to mark the Muslim conquest, together with the mosque al-Aqsa which commemorates Mohammed''s Night Journey.
For years, the Christians had used to the site of the ruined Jewish Temple as the city rubbish dump. The Caliph helped his Muslims to clear the garbage with his own hands and there Muslims raised their two shrines to establish Islam in the third most holy city in the Islamic world .9
In short, Muslims brought civilization to Jerusalem and all of Palestine. Instead of holding beliefs that showed no respect for other peoples'' sacred values and killing people simply because they followed a different faith, Islam''s just, tolerant, and moderate culture brought peace and harmony to the region''s Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities. Muslims never resorted to campaigns of forced conversions, although some non-Muslims who saw that Islam was the true religion did convert of their own free will.
This peace and harmony lasted as long as Muslims ruled in the region. However, at the end of the eleventh century, an external conquering force from Europe entered the region and plundered the civilized land of Jerusalem with a barbarity and savagery that had never been seen there before. These invaders were the Crusaders.