From the Arab

The successful unification of the Arabian Peninsula under Islam by the first caliph, Abū Bakr (632–634), made it possible to channel the expansion of the Arab Muslims into new directions. Abū Bakr, therefore, summoned the faithful to a holy war (jihad) and quickly amassed a large army. He dispatched three detachments of about 3,000 (later increased to about 7,500) men each to start operations in southern and southeastern Syria. He died, however, before he could witness the results of these undertakings. The conquests he started were carried on by his successor, the caliph ʿUmar I (634–644).

The first battle took place at Wadi Al-ʿArabah, south of the Dead Sea. The Byzantine defenders were defeated and retreated toward Gaza but were overtaken and almost annihilated. In other places, however, the natural advantages of the defenders were more effective, and the invaders were hard-pressed. Khālid ibn al-Walīd, then operating in southern Iraq, was ordered to the aid of his fellow Arab generals on the Syrian front, and the combined forces won a bloody victory on July 30, 634, at a place in southern Palestine that the sources call Ajnādayn. All of Palestine then lay open to the invaders.




In the meantime, the emperor Heraclius was mustering his own large army and in 636 dispatched it against the Muslims. Khālid concentrated his troops on the Yarmūk River, the eastern tributary of the Jordan River. The decisive battle that delivered Palestine to the Muslims took place on August 20, 636. Only Jerusalem and Caesarea held out, the former until 638, when it surrendered to the Muslims, and the latter until October 640. Palestine, and indeed all of Syria, was then in Muslim hands. After the surrender of Jerusalem, ʿUmar divided Palestine into two administrative districts (jund) similar to the Roman and Byzantine provinces: they were Jordan (Al-ʿUrdūn) and Palestine (Filasṭīn). Jordan included Galilee and Acre (modern ʿAkko, Israel) and extended east to the desert; Palestine, with its capital first at Lydda (modern Lod, Israel) and later at Ramla (after 716), covered the region south of the Plain of Esdraelon.

ʿUmar lost no time in emphasizing Islam’s interest in the holy city of Jerusalem as the first qiblah toward which, until 623, Muslims had turned their faces in prayer and as the third holiest spot in Islam. (The Prophet Muhammad himself had changed the qiblah to Mecca in 623.) On visiting the Temple Mount area—which Muslims came to know as Al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf (Arabic: “The Noble Sanctuary”)—and finding the place suffering from neglect, ʿUmar and his followers cleaned it with their own hands and declared it a sacred place of prayer, erecting there the first structure called Al-Aqṣā Mosque.

Under the Umayyads, a Muslim dynasty that gained power in 661 from the Meccans and Medinans who had initially led the Islamic community, Palestine formed, with Syria, one of the main provinces of the empire. Each jund was administered by an emir assisted by a financial officer. This pattern continued, in general, until the time of Ottoman rule.




For various reasons, the Umayyads paid special attention to Palestine. The process of Arabization and Islamization was gaining momentum there. It was one of the mainstays of Umayyad power and was important in their struggle against both Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula. The caliph ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān (685–705) erected the Dome of the Rock in 691 on the site of the Temple of Solomon, which the Muslims believed had been the halting station of the Prophet on his nocturnal journey to heaven. (See isrāʾ and miʿrāj.) This magnificent structure represents the earliest Muslim monument still extant. Close to the shrine and to the south, ʿAbd al-Malik’s son, al-Walīd I (705–715), rebuilt Al-Aqṣa Mosque on a larger scale. The Umayyad caliph ʿUmar II (717–720) imposed humiliating restrictions on his non-Muslim subjects, particularly the Christians. Conversions arising from convenience as well as conviction then increased. These conversions to Islam, together with a steady tribal inflow from the desert, changed the religious character of Palestine’s inhabitants. The predominantly Christian population gradually became predominantly Muslim and Arabic-speaking. At the same time, during the early years of Muslim control of the city, a small permanent Jewish population returned to Jerusalem after a 500-year absence.
ʿAbbāsid rule

Umayyad rule ended in 750. Along with Syria, Palestine became subject to ʿAbbāsid authority, based in Baghdad, and, like Syria, it did not readily submit to its new masters. Unlike the Umayyads, who leaned on the Yemeni (South Arabian) tribes, the ʿAbbāsids, in Syria, favoured and indeed used the Qays (North Arabian) tribes. Enmity between the two groups was, therefore, intensified and became an important political factor in Palestine. Pro-Umayyad uprisings were frequent and received Palestinian support. In 840/841 Abū Ḥarb, a Yemenite, unfurled the white banner of the Umayyads and succeeded in recruiting a large number of peasant followers, mainly among the Palestinian population, who regarded him as the saviour whose appearance was to save the land from the hated ʿAbbāsids. Though the insurrection was put down, unrest persisted.

The process of Islamization gained momentum under the ʿAbbāsids. ʿAbbāsid rulers encouraged the settlement and fortification of coastal Palestine so as to secure it against the Byzantine enemy. During the second half of the 9th century, however, signs of internal decay began to appear in the ʿAbbāsid empire. Petty states, and some indeed not so petty, emerged in different parts of the realm. One of the first to affect Palestine was the Tūlūnid dynasty (868–905) of Egypt, which marked the beginning of the disengagement of Egypt and, with it, of Syria and Palestine from ʿAbbāsid rule. During that period Palestine also experienced the destructive operations of the Qarmaṭians, an Ismāʿīlī Shīʿite sect that launched an insurrection in 903–906. After ʿAbbāsid authority was briefly restored, Palestine came under Ikhshīdid rule (935–969).
The Fāṭimid dynasty

In the meantime, the Shīʿite Fāṭimid dynasty was rising to power in North Africa. It moved eastward to seize not only Egypt but also Palestine and Syria and to threaten Baghdad itself. The Fāṭimids seized Egypt from the Ikhshīdids in 969 and in less than a decade were able to establish a precarious control over Palestine, where they faced Qarmaṭian, Seljuq, Byzantine, and periodic Bedouin opposition. Palestine was thus often reduced to a battlefield. The country suffered even greater hardship, however, under the Fāṭimid caliph al-Ḥākim (996–1021), whose behaviour was at times erratic and extremely harsh, particularly toward his non-Muslim subjects. He reactivated earlier discriminatory laws imposed on Christians and Jews and added new ones. In 1009 he ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was severely damaged as a result.

In 1071 the Seljuqs captured Jerusalem, which prospered as pilgrimages by Jews, Christians, and Muslims increased despite political instability. The Fāṭimids recaptured the city in 1098 only to relinquish it a year later to a new enemy, the Crusaders of western Europe.
The Crusades

A year after the capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem was established (Christmas Day, 1100). Thereafter there was no effective check to the expansion of the Crusaders’ power until the capture of their stronghold at Edessa (modern Şanlıurfa, Turkey) by the atabeg (governor) of Mosul, ʿImād al-Dīn Zangī ibn Aq Sonqur, in 1144. Zangī’s anti-Crusader campaign was carried on after his death by his son Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd (Nureddin) and, more effectively, by the sultan Ṣalāh al-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb (commonly known in the West as Saladin), a protégé of the atabeg’s family. After consolidating his position in Egypt and Syria, Saladin waged relentless war against the “infidel” Franks (Western Christians). On July 4, 1187, six days after the capture of Tiberias, he dealt the Crusaders a crushing blow at the decisive Battle of Ḥaṭṭīn (Ḥiṭṭīn). Most of Palestine was once again Muslim. Further attempts by the Crusaders to regain control of Palestine proved ineffective, primarily because of incessant quarrels among the Crusaders themselves. Ironically, it was left to an emperor of dubious Christian standing, Frederick II, to negotiate in 1229, while under excommunication, a 10-year treaty that temporarily restored Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem to the Christians. In 1244, however, the Ayyūbid sultan al-Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb definitively restored Jerusalem to Islam.

While the Ayyūbids of Saladin’s house were losing ground to the Turkish-speaking Mamlūks in Egypt, the Mongol sweep westward continued, placing the Crusaders, as it were, between two fires. To make matters worse, the Crusaders themselves were hopelessly riddled with dissension. In 1260 the Mamlūk leader Baybars I emerged as a champion of Muslim resurgence. After taking part in the defeat of the Mongols at the Battle of ʿAyn Jālūt in Palestine, he murdered the incumbent sultan and seized the throne; in the years 1263 to 1271 he carried out annual raids against the harassed Franks. His efforts were continued by the sultan al-Ashraf Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Khalīl, during whose reign the last of the Crusaders were driven out of Acre (May 18, 1291). A chapter in the history of Palestine thus came to an end. The Mamlūks and subsequent Muslim regimes ruled the area with only brief interruptions for the next 600 years.

Palestine under the Mamlūks in the 14th century saw a period of prosperity for some; this was especially notable in Jerusalem, where the government sponsored an elaborate program to construct schools, establish lodgings for travelers and Muslim pilgrims, and renovate mosques. Tax revenues, collected mainly from the villages, were spent largely on support of religious institutions. Palestine formed a part of the district of Damascus, second only to Egypt in the Mamlūk domains. The region suffered the ravages of several epidemics, including the great pestilence, the same Black Death that in 1347–51 devastated Europe. The fall of the Baḥrī Mamlūks and the rise of the Burjī Mamlūks (1382–1517) contributed to a gradual economic deterioration and a decrease in security. During the reigns of the second Burjī sultan, Faraj (1399–1405 and 1405–12), the last onslaught of the Mongols, which made the name of Timur (Tamerlane) a synonym of destruction and plunder, took place. Although Palestine was spared the pillage of his hordes, it could not escape its disastrous repercussions as the Mamlūks moved through in a vain attempt to defend Damascus against the invader. The death of Timur in 1405, and the weakness of Iran in the ensuing century, pitted the Mamlūks against the rising power of the Ottoman Empire for the control of western Asia. Hostilities broke out in 1486 when Sultan Qāʾit Bāy contested with Bayezid II the possession of some border towns. The climax came three decades later on August 24, 1516, when the Ottoman sultan, Selim I, routed the Mamlūk armies at the Battle of Marj Dābiq. Palestine began its four centuries under Ottoman domination.
Ottoman rule

Under the Ottoman Turks, Palestine continued to be linked administratively to Damascus until 1830, when it was placed under Sidon, then under Acre, then once again under Damascus until 1887–88, at which time the administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire were settled for the last time. Palestine was divided into the districts of Nāblus and Acre, both of which were linked with the province of Beirut and the autonomous district of Jerusalem, which dealt directly with Istanbul. With varying fortunes often accompanied by revolts, massacres, and wars, the first three centuries of Ottoman rule isolated Palestine from most outside influences. The prosperity of 16th-century Ottoman Palestine was followed by an economic and political decline in the 17th century. Ottoman control in the 18th century was indirect. Ḍāhir al-ʿUmar (c. 1737–75) dominated the political life of northern Palestine for nearly 40 years. Aḥmad al-Jazzār, the Ottoman governor of Acre, had control of most of Palestine, and in 1799, with English and Ottoman help, he successfully defended Acre against Napoleon I.

Both Ḍāhir and al-Jazzār presided over a tightly controlled Palestine, where trade with Europe as well as taxation were growing. They used their new wealth from these sources to gain influence in Istanbul, which allowed them to gain local autonomy and even intermittent control of many areas outside Palestine.

This period came to an end with Napoleon’s abortive attempt (1798–1801) to carve for himself a Middle Eastern empire. Egypt, always a determining factor in the fortunes of Palestine, was placed, after the French withdrawal, under the rule of the viceroy Muḥammad (Meḥmet) ʿAlī, who soon embarked on a program of expansion at the expense of his Ottoman overlord. In 1831 his armies occupied Palestine, and for nine years he and his son Ibrāhīm gave it a centralizing and modernizing administration. Their rule increasingly opened the country to Western influences and enabled Christian missionaries to establish many schools; at the same time, however, taxes were increased, and urban rebellions broke out against the harshness of the regime. When in 1840 the British, the Austrians, and the Russians came to the aid of the Ottomans, the Egyptians were forced to withdraw, and Palestine reverted to the Ottoman Empire. Increased European interest, however, led the powers to establish consulates in Jerusalem and in Palestine’s port cities.

After 1840 the reforms the sultan promulgated gradually took effect in Palestine. Increased security in the countryside and the Ottoman Land Law of 1858 encouraged the development of private property, agricultural production for the world market, the decline of tribal social organization, growth of the population, and the enrichment of the notable families. As the Ottomans extended the central government’s new military, municipal, judicial, and educational systems to Palestine, the country also witnessed a marked increase in foreign settlements and colonies—French, Russian, and German. By far the most important, in spite of their initial numerical insignificance, were the Jewish agricultural settlements, which foreshadowed later Zionist endeavours to establish a Jewish national home and still later a Jewish state (Israel) in Palestine. The earliest of these settlements was founded by Russian Jews in 1882. In 1896 Theodor Herzl issued a pamphlet entitled Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) and advocated an autonomous Jewish state, preferably in Palestine. Two years later he himself went to Palestine to investigate its possibilities and, possibly, to seek the help of the German emperor William II, who was then making a spectacular pilgrimage to the Holy Land.