Jerusalem Surrenders to the Caliph Umar

At Christmas 634 Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem, could not lead his people to Bethlehem for the feast. He preached inside the city instead, and the sermon survives. The congregation, he said, was held at home not by chains but by fear of the Saracens. They were like Adam shut out of paradise, except that the sword barring the way was a Saracen one. The “godless Saracens” held Bethlehem and threatened death to anyone who left the walls. He told his hearers that the invaders were a punishment for sin, and that if they mended their lives they would see the “Ishmaelite sword” blunted (Sophronius, Christmas Sermon pp. 506–508, 514–515).

The surrender itself is described here from later writers. Theophanes, a Byzantine monk writing about 810, says that Umar besieged the holy city for two years and took it by agreement, Sophronius receiving a pledge of safety for all Palestine. Umar entered in dirty garments of camel hair and asked for the site of Solomon’s temple, to make it a place of prayer. Sophronius, in this account, quoted the Gospel’s words about the “abomination of desolation” standing in the holy place (Matthew 24:15), and persuaded the caliph to wear a garment he offered until his own was washed. The patriarch died soon afterwards (Theophanes, Chronicle AM 6127 (p. 339)).

The Muslim accounts were written down later still. Al-Baladhuri, who died in 892, reports that the people of the city asked to capitulate on the same terms as the cities of Syria, on condition that Umar make the agreement in person; Umar came, confirmed the terms and “gave them a written statement” (al-Baladhuri, Conquest of the Lands pp. 213–214). Al-Tabari, who died in 923, quotes such a document. In it Umar, as Commander of the Faithful, grants the people of Aelia (the Roman name of Jerusalem) safety for themselves, their property, their churches and their crosses. The churches are not to be occupied or pulled down, and no one is to be forced in matters of religion. No Jew is to live in the city with them. They are to pay the poll tax as other cities do and to expel the Byzantines, and those who wish to leave with the Byzantines may go in safety. Four witnesses are named (al-Tabari, History I, pp. 2405–2406).

This text is known as the assurance or covenant of Umar. It comes down through al-Tabari, nearly three centuries after the event; he gives it on the word of two earlier transmitters, Khalid and Ubada (al-Tabari, History I, pp. 2405–2406). The Christian and Muslim accounts agree that the city was not stormed but yielded on terms. Of the three, it is the document in al-Tabari that says the churches were to be left to the Christians.

Jerusalem thus passed out of the rule of a Christian emperor, three centuries after Constantine had built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre there.