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Jerusalem: Relations Between Christians, Muslims and Jews in the First Crusader Era

Introduction

I rejoiced because they said to me, We will go up to the house of the LORD." And now we have set foot within your gates O Jerusalem - Jerusalem, built as a city with compact unity. To it the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, According to the decree for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD. In it are set up judgment seats, seats for the house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! May those who love you prosper! May peace be within your walls, prosperity in your buildings. Because of my relatives and friends I will say, Peace be within you!" Because of the house of the LORD of God, I will pray for your good. (Psalm122:1-9)

Rushalimum. Jerushalaim. YRSLM. Al-Quds. Jerusalem. Whatever the name, this poorly situated tract of land in the Middle East has been a site of both holiness and warfare for millennia.

In the Middle Ages, Jerusalem was seen as the exact center of the universe. It was the Holy City for Jews and Christians as well as the third holiest city the Muslim world. But the history of Jerusalem is one of holiness combined with strife and warfare, stretching back to almost the earliest recorded history of the area. Whether Jerusalem can become the city of peace and prosperity, the true City of God, is unknown, but looking at the history of the city may give a hint as to whether the current peace negotiations will ever see fruition in a city revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims or whether the miracle of peace within the walls of Jerusalem will be forever an unrealized dream. One of the most contentious and bloody periods in the history of Jerusalem, beside perhaps the recent Intifada(s), was the era of the Crusades. It would be hard to find anyone today who imagines the Crusades as a chivalrous and glorious time, instead of a brutal and bloody battle for the Holy Land, where the inhabitants of Jerusalem were slaughtered even in their sanctuaries. But to see the true history of Jerusalem, one needs to look beyond the butchery; Jews, Christians and Muslims have had dealings in Jerusalem for more then a thousand years, and it is those past interactions that may give a clue as to what the future may hold.

Pre-Crusader Jerusalem

If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand be forgotten, may my tongue cleave to my palate if I remember you not, if I place not Jerusalem ahead of my joy. (Psalm 137:5-6)

To understand the situation during the crusades, it is important look at the prior history of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem, once the capital of Judea and for a brief period of a united Israel, had not been a truly independent Jewish city since it fell to Babylon in 586 B.C.E., during which time the Temple of Solomon was destroyed for the first time. Persian rule was followed by Greek, Egyptian and then finally Roman vassalage, and it was Roman rule that eventually lead to the complete loss of a Jewish Jerusalem. In C.E. 70 the Emperor Titus destroyed Herod's Temple (the Second Temple), following the Jewish revolt against Roman rule. After the Bar Kokhba uprising in C.E. 135, Jews gained the respect of Rome, but suffered their greatest loss yet when they were banned for all eternity from the city by Emperor Hadrian, who then turned Jerusalem into a Roman city, Aelia Capitolina.

At some point however, this rule was somewhat relaxed. In the third century C.E., Jews gained the right to travel to the Temple Mount on the ninth of the month of Av to mourn the loss of the Temple, on the anniversary of its destruction. Also during this time, a small gentile Christian community was formed in Aelia. These Christians would meet in the Upper Room" which was associated with the last supper of Christ, but despite these associations, Jerusalem did not develop a special sanctity for Christians at this time.

Christians gained control of Jerusalem following the conversion of Constantine at the start of the fourth century C.E., and excluding a brief period in C.E. 362, Jerusalem would now be a Christian city. Under Christian control, Jews remained in exile and many Christian building projects were undertaken, including the Church of the Anastasias, said to contain the tomb of Christ. As a sign of their contempt for the Jews and Jewish holy sites, Christians used the Temple Mount, the land that had once contained the holy Temple of Solomon, as a garbage dump. In general, Jews fared as poorly under Christian rule in Jerusalem as they had under Roman rule.

In C.E. 638 Muslims gained control of the city they would call al-Quds in a bloodless conquest, with the Patriarch Sophronius handing the city directly over the Caliph Umar in a negotiated surrender. When the Caliph Umar first visited the Temple Mount, called the Haram al-Sharif by Muslims, he was so horrified to see the ruined state of the Mosque of David", that he filled his cloak with dirt and rubble, and threw the collected garbage off the platform, an action that was immediately copied by all the Muslims who were with him. This disrespect of the Temple Mount led some Muslims to refer to the Church of the Anastasias as The Dungheap", because they were so appalled by how the Christians had treated a holy place. But the Temple Mount was soon cleaned and reconsecrated, by Muslims as well as Jews, and eventually two mosques, the Dome of the Rock (C.E. 691) and al-Aqsâ (C.E. 709), were built there.

Under Muslim rule, Jews were not only allowed to return to city, but were also allowed to build a synagogue and resume worship in Jerusalem, an action that would have been nearly unfathomable during Roman and Christian control of the city. Jerusalem also contained diverse groups of Christians, including Greeks, Armenians, Copts, Latins and Georgians, who were also free to worship as they chose during this time.

Although Muslims governed the city, their reign was not onerous to either the Christians or the Jews, because as Peoples of the Book", Islamic law stated that as long as the jizya, or poll tax, was paid, churches were not to be destroyed and people were not to be mistreated or forced to convert. Because of these freedoms, and the fact that Jews and Christians were allowed to continue their own forms of worship, Muslim rule was typically seen as friendly by the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Crusader Jerusalem

O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple, they have laid Jerusalem in ruins. They have given the corpses of your servants as food to the birds of heaven, the flesh of your faithful ones to the beasts of the earth. They have poured out their blood like water round about Jerusalem, and there is no one to bury them. We have become the reproach of our neighbors the scorn and derision of those around us. (Psalm 79:1-4)

The Crusader army, led by Godfrey of Boullion, captured Jerusalem on C.E. 15 July 1099, in a conquest that was radically different from the prior Muslim acquisition of the city. All Muslims and Jews in the city were massacred, mosques were converted into churches or other Latin buildings, and the Right of Conquest" gave ownership of any empty home to any Christian who lived in it for a year and a day.

There was also a tremendous change in the social structure of the city. Immediately following the takeover, the sole occupants were the Latin crusaders, and many of these left soon after the capture of the city, in part because the city now lacked the craftsmen and servicemen needed to conduct the day to day business of the city. This eventually led Baldwin I, now ruling as King of the Latins", to realize that the city desperately needed repopulated. The native Syrian Christians, who had been expelled by the Muslims prior to the siege due to the fear they would ally with the crusading Christians, were the first to be allowed to return, followed by other Christian groups, mainly Armenians and Greeks.

Interactions between the Latins and other Christian groups, however, were dreadful, primarily because the Latins treated the local Christians as heretics and schismatics--in essence they were seen as little better than the Jewish and Muslim infidels". But although the Latins controlled the city and the Church of the Anastasias, which they called the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the non-Latin Christians were finally allowed access to the tomb of Christ, as well as the right to build, restore, and conduct worship services in their own churches.

Eventually, relations were to a small extent restored between the Christians and the other faiths; Baldwin II relaxed the ban on Jews and Muslims in the city in C.E. 1170, although only a select few Muslims and Jewish families were allowed into the city, and mosques, including the Dome of the Rock and al-Asqâ remained Christian buildings. But normalization was a point of contention within the Latin community. Those Latin Christians who had been born in Palestine were interested in developing ordinary relations with the Muslims because they had, to a degree, assimilated with the local culture, going so far as to take regular baths and wear Eastern clothes, including the veil for women. The European Christians, however, did not accept this normalization of relations, and were gravely worried by the Easternization of the native Latin Christians.

Although relations were somewhat better between Jews, Christians and Muslims toward the end of the Christian domination following the first crusade, this was still a dark period in the history of Jerusalem, with Christians rejecting the validity of Judaism and Islam, and seeking domination in Jerusalem and throughout the Holy Land. This attitude of supremacy, and the inability of the Latins to deal with the Muslims, would eventually lead to the Latin loss of Jerusalem in C.E. 1187.

Muslim Reconquest

Break out together in song, O ruins of Jerusalem! For the LORD comforts his people, he redeems Jerusalem. The LORD has bared his holy arm in the sight of all nations; All the ends of the earth will behold the salvation of our God. (Isaiah 52:9)

The exile of Muslims and Jews formally lasted until Salâh ad Dîn (the Righteousness of the Faith") Yûsuf ibn Ayyâb, or Saladin, conquered the city on C.E. 20 Sept 1187. Unlike the Crusader conquest of the city in C.E. 1099, this was a bloodless negotiated surrender, in spite of the fact that the Muslims had every reason to slaughter the Christian occupants in retaliation for the massacre 88 years earlier. The Latins paid ransoms to leave the city, and those who paid within 40 days were allowed to leave with all their possessions. Despite this lenient arrangement, some Christians still managed to act uncharitably; the Patriarch Heraklius was seen leaving the city loaded down with treasure, while many poor Christians remained behind, and unable to pay the ransom, became slaves.

Native Christians, however, were permitted to remain, and Jews were allowed to return to the city and resume worship, although their numbers remained low.

Unlike the desecration of the holy places wrought by the crusaders, Saladin left the Christian holy places untouched, although he did restore the Church of the Anastasias to the Greek Christians. The church of the tomb of Christ would ultimately develop into a major point of contention between the different Christian sects, and eventually the key to the church would have to be entrusted to a Muslim family, since one Christian group could not be trusted to allow the others in - a sorry state of affairs that continues to this day.

Conclusion

He carried me away in spirit to the top of a very high mountain and showed me the holy city of Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. It gleamed with the splendor of God. The city had the radiance of a precious jewel that sparkled like a diamond. (Revelation, 21:10)

One of the most important things that Christians and Westerners should know regarding Jerusalem is that the crusades are still a vivid memory for Muslims in the Middle East. When President George W. Bush invoked the idea of a crusade following the 11 September 2001 attacks, this was the probably absolute worst comment he could have made, because it brought to mind for Muslims the wholesale slaughter that had occurred during the Crusades of the Middle Ages, and sounded to Middle Eastern ears as if he desired to wage war against all Muslims, not just those individuals involved in terrorist activities. To Muslims, a crusade is a war against the religion of Islam, not a righteous fight against evil. The other important lesson is that Christian rule was historically tragic for the Jews in Jerusalem, while the relationship between Jews and Muslim was generally good up until the 20th century. This leads to the hope that if Jews and Christians can overcome almost two millennia of hostility, then Jews and Muslims may also be able to overcome a mere century of violence, hatred and war, and that Jerusalem may one day leave behind its legacy of violence and sectarianism and turn once again into a holy city of peace and prosperity.

Bibliography

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