The Coming Crusades

In August 636, Caliph ‘Umar conquered Jerusalem from the Byzantine emperor Heraklius, switching control of the holy city from Christian to Muslim hands (Armstrong, 228). Before fleeing, Heraklius took the True Cross from Jerusalem with him (Armstrong, 228). According to Armstrong, the conquest was “the most peaceful and bloodless conquest that the city had yet seen in its long and often tragic history” (Armstrong, 228). 

While it might have been one of the most peaceful conquests of Jerusalem and a conquest that championed upholding religious freedom in the holy city, the Christian majority in Jerusalem felt threatened by the new Muslim rule. In contrast to Christians, Muslims don’t believe Christ was the son of God or that he died on the cross–but instead that Christ was a prophet of God (Armstrong, 229). The inscriptions in the beautiful Dome of the Rock, commissioned in 688, was a rebuke of the Christian faith, stating “the Christ Jesus, son of Mary, was but God’s apostle” (Armstrong, 239).  

In response, Christians began new practices to prove that Christianity was the most favored by God of the three Abrahamic religions. By the early ninth century, Christians held the first ceremony of the Holy Fire in the Anastasis. Accordingly, “as if from heaven, a clearer white flame appeared” within the Anastasis on the evening before Easter Sunday each year (Armstrong, 254). Muslims viewed this new event as a sordid trick used by the Christians to undermine Muslim rule in Jerusalem.

In addition to the escalatory actions committed by Christians in Jerusalem, Christians in Western Europe and the Byzantine Empire were attempting to reconquer Jerusalem from the Muslims. Eventually, religious conflict in Jerusalem hightented to the point that the Christian Martyrium was burned, the Basilica of Holy Sion looted, and the patriarch of Jerusalem was burned at the stake (Armstrong, 256). The growing conflict between Christians and Muslims set the stage for the upcoming Crusades.

Works Cited:

William Holman Hunt (British, 1827 - 1910). The Miracle of the Sacred Fire, Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Mixture of oil and resin on canvas, 1892-1899. Harvard Art Museums; Department of Paintings, Sculpture & Decorative Arts; Fogg Museum, Gift of Grenville L. Winthrop, Class of 1886, JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.9934183. Accessed 2 Mar. 2024.