Islam in Palestine
is a major religion in Palestine, being the religion of the majority of the Palestinian population. Muslims comprise 85% of the population of the West Bank, when including Israeli settlers, and 99% of the population of the Gaza Strip. The largest denomination among Palestinian Muslims are Sunnis, comprising 85% of the total Muslim population.
During the 7th century, the Arab Rashiduns conquered the Levant, succeeded by subsequent Arabic-speaking Muslim dynasties like the Umayyads, Abbasids and the Fatimids, marking the onset of Arabization and Islamization in the region. This process involved both resettlement by nomadic tribes and individual conversions. In the case of the Samaritans, there are records of mass conversion due to economic pressure, political instability and religious persecution in the Abbasid period. Sedentarization facilitated a more rapid Islamization compared to the slower pace of individual conversions among the local populace. Sufi activities and changes in social structures and the weakening of local Christian authorities under Islamic rule also played significant roles.
File:Jerusalem-2013-Al-Aqsa Mosque 04.jpg|thumb|Al-Aqsa Mosque, in East Jerusalem.
Some scholars suggest that by the arrival of the Crusaders, Palestine was already overwhelmingly Muslim, while others claim that it was only after the Crusades that Christianity lost its majority, and that the process of mass Islamization took place much later, perhaps during the Mamluk period.
History
Early Islamization
Islam was first brought to the region of Palestine during the Early Muslim conquests of the 7th century, when the Rashidun Caliphate under the leadership of ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb conquered the Shaam region from the Byzantine Empire.The Muslim army conquered Jerusalem, held by the Byzantine Romans, in November, 636. For four months the siege continued. Ultimately, the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius, agreed to surrender Jerusalem to Caliph Umar in person. Caliph Umar, then at Medina, agreed to these terms and traveled to Jerusalem to sign the capitulation in the spring of 637. Sophronius also negotiated a pact with Caliph Umar, known as the Umariyya Covenant or Covenant of Omar, allowing for religious freedom for Christians in exchange for jizyah, a tax to be paid by conquered non-Muslims, called "dhimmis." Under Muslim Rule, the Christian and Jewish population of Jerusalem in this period enjoyed the usual tolerance given to non-Muslim monotheists.
Having accepted the surrender, Caliph Umar then entered Jerusalem with Sophronius "and courteously discoursed with the patriarch concerning its religious antiquities". When the hour for his prayer came, Umar was in the Anastasis, but refused to pray there, lest in the future the Muslims should use that as an excuse to break the treaty and confiscate the church. The Mosque of Omar, opposite the doors of the Anastasis, with the tall minaret, is known as the place to which he retired for his prayer.
File:Jerusalem Dome of the rock BW 3.JPG|thumb|The Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount, Jerusalem
Jerusalem is Islam's third holiest city after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. Although the Qur'an does not clarify from where exactly Muhammad ascended to Heaven, the Al-Aqsa of Jerusalem is believed by Muslims to be the location. According to the tradition, during a single night around the year 621 CE, the Islamic prophet Muhammad was carried by his mythological steed "al-Burāq" from Mecca to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. According to the tradition, from there he ascended to heaven where he spoke with Allah. This widely accepted Islamic belief is a source of the religious and spiritual importance of the Dome of the Rock and the adjacent al-Aqsa Mosque.
According to the historian James Parkes, during the first century after the Muslim conquest, the caliph and governors of Syria and the Holy Land ruled entirely over Christian and Jewish subjects. He further states that apart from the Bedouin in the earliest days, the only Arabs west of the Jordan were the garrisons.
Bishop Arculf, whose account of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the 7th century, De Locis Sanctis, written down by the monk Adamnan, described reasonably pleasant living conditions of Christians in Palestine in the first period of Muslim rule. The caliphs of Damascus were tolerant princes who were on generally good terms with their Christian subjects. Many Christians held important offices at their court. The Abbasid caliphs at Baghdad, as long as they ruled Syria, were also tolerant of the Christians. Harun Abu-Ja-'afar, sent the keys of the Holy Sepulchre to Charlemagne, who built a hospice for Latin pilgrims near the shrine.
Islamization under Abbasids and Fatimids
Some scholars believe that Islam became the majority religion in Palestine in the 9th century, with acculturation of the locals into Arab identity and when Arabic became the lingua franca. In the Middle East and North Africa in general and Palestine in particular, indigenous peoples in various regions who until then spoke mostly Aramaic, Coptic and Berber languages, began adopting Arabic due to its significance as a liturgical language of the Quran. The shift took place with an extended period of bilingualism, which lasted until the 12th century in Palestine and as late as the 17th century in Egypt.Rival dynasties and revolutions led to the eventual disunion of the Muslim world. During the 9th century, Palestine was conquered by the Fatimid dynasty, centered in Egypt. During that time the region of Palestine became again the center of violent disputes followed by wars, since enemies of the Fatimid dynasty attempted to conquer the region. At that time, the Byzantine Empire continued trying to recapture the territories they previously lost to the Muslims, including Jerusalem.
During the Fatimid era, the cities of Jerusalem and Hebron became prime destinations for Sufi wayfarers. The creation of locally rooted Sufi-inspired communities and institutions between 1000 and 1250 were part and parcel of the conversion to Islam.
The sixth Fatimid caliph, Caliph Al-Hakim, who was believed to be "God made manifest" by the Druze, destroyed the Holy Sepulchre in 1009. This powerful provocation started the near 90-year preparation towards the First Crusade.
The Samaritan community dropped in numbers during the various periods of Muslim rule in the region. The Samaritans could not rely on foreign assistance as much as the Christians did, nor on a large number of diaspora immigrants as did the Jews. The once-flourishing community declined over time, either through emigration or conversion to Islam among those who remained. According to Milka Levy-Rubin, many Samaritans converted under Abbasid and Tulunid rule.
Early Crusades
In 1099, the Christian Crusaders, with the support of the Roman Catholic Church, launched the First Crusade campaign with the aims of regaining control of Jerusalem from the Fatimid Caliphate, and helping the Byzantine Empire fight the Seljuk Turks. During the campaign, the Crusaders launched an assault on the city of Jerusalem, captured it in July 1099, massacred many of the city's Muslim and Jewish inhabitants, and established the first Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Crusaders transformed the Dome of the Rock into the "Shrine of the Lord" and the Al-Aqsa mosque into the "Hall of Solomon". For the local Muslim population, the reaction to the events was to try to find an accommodation with the Crusaders, whereas the larger Muslim world typically looked upon the events with indifference.Ayyubid rule and Late Crusades
In 1187, the Ayyubid Sultan Salah ad-Din captured the region after defeating the Crusader states in the Battle of Hattin. As a direct result of the battle, Islamic forces once again became the dominant power in the region, re-conquering Jerusalem and several other Crusader-held cities. In 1189, the first lodge for Sufi ascetics was established at the Al-Khanqah al-Salahiyya Mosque in Jerusalem, which had been a palace of the Latin Patriarch prior to the reconquest of the city.The Christian defeat led to a Third Crusade aimed to regain the lost territories in the Holy Land. Richard I of England launched a siege upon the city of Acre after which he conquered the city and killed 3,000 Muslims. After a second victory won in the Battle of Arsuf, the Crusaders arrived to Jerusalem, but withdrew without trying to conquer the city. Following another military clash in Jaffa, which wasn't won by either side, Saladin and Richard the Lionheart signed the Treaty of Ramla in June 1192. Under the terms of the agreement, Jerusalem would remain under Muslim control but the city would be open to Christian pilgrims. The treaty reduced the Latin Kingdom to a strip along the coast from Tyre to Jaffa.
Mamluk domination
In 1250, the Ayyubid Egyptian dynasty was overthrown by slave regiments, and a new dynasty - the Mamluks - was born. On September 3, 1260, at the Battle of Ain Jalut held in the Jezreel Valley, the Muslim Egyptian Mamluks under Baibars defeated the Mongols and stopped their advance. His successor Al-Ashraf Khalil completed the victory by sweeping the last of the Crusaders out of Palestine.In 1291, the forces of the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt al-Ashraf Khalil forced a long siege upon the city of Acre, which was the final Christian landhold in the Holy Land. The Mamluks captured the city on May 18, 1291, killing most of the Christian local inhabitants, thus ending the second Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.
The Mamluks were to rule Palestine for the following two centuries. The Muslim population became the majority, and many Muslim shrines were built such as Maqam al-Nabi Yamin, Maqam al-Nabi Musa, Maqam al-Nabi Rubin and many more shrines that Muslims described as a burial sites of Prophets, Sahabas and even what they considered holy Muslim martyrs from Crusader and pre-Crusader times. Some historians say that the shrines were built to make a good strategic positions for Muslims.
The Mamluks, ruling from Damascus, brought some prosperity to the area, particularly to Jerusalem, with an extensive programme involving the building of schools, hospices for pilgrims, the construction of Islamic colleges and the renovation of mosques. Mujir al-Din's extensive writing about 15th century Jerusalem documents the consolidation and expansion of Islamic sites in the Mamluk era.
The ascendency of the Burji over the Bahri Mamluks, together with recurrent droughts, plagues and pestilence like the Black Death and taxation to cover the costs of wars against Crusaders and Mongols brought about both growing insecurity and economic decline. By the end of their reign, with the decay of internal control and massive population losses due to plagues, Bedouins moved in to take advantage of the decline in defenses, and farmers abandoned their lands. They sacked Ramla in 1481 and annihilated a Mamluk army that had been raised in Gaza to repel them. By the end of the 15th century, Jerusalem's population amounted to approximately 10,000, mostly Muslims, with roughly 1,000 Christians and 400 Jews.