Lecture 16- 5/21/10

Today's Lecture dealt with the transformation of Jerusalem into a uniquely Islamic city. Following in the footsteps of a power vacuum created by the divide between the Roman West and the Byzantine East, the Islamic empire swept in and conquered Jerusalem fairly easily, instituting a rule that was uncharacteristically benign in its treatment and tolerance of religious views different from those of the Muslim conquerors.

However, while there was a level of benevolence at the center of Islamic rule, the building projects undertaken by these new rulers clearly had at their core a motive of making Jerusalem an Islamic city, using architectural prowess to assert political and religious authority over the local Christian and Jewish populations (Jews allowed back into the city).

During this building phase, iconic structures such as the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque came to dominate the Temple Mount, at this point known as the Haram al-Sharif. While Jerusalem was simply given the role of 3rd holiest city in the Islamic faith, the political usage of these magnificent structures also came with the added bonus of turning Jerusalem into a tourist attraction, not only bringing in multitudes of Christian and Jewish pilgrims, but now the added patronage of muslim faithful. Now in direct competition for "tourist business" in the form of attracting pilgrims with the holy city of Mecca, the Umayyad dynasty was creating internal tension between those open to the holiest of the newly conquered city and those unnerved by a challenge to the reverence for Mecca. This divide would leave the Islamic empire without a united front and thus vulnerable in the face of the impending Crusade attack.