Control Of Jerusalem And The City example essay topic

The Start of the First Crusade The First Crusade was fought because of the change from Arab to Turkish control over Jerusalem. This change had an effect on the people that were allowed to live there, and the beliefs that they could have. Since the city was important to Christians, Jews, and Muslims, this change affected very many people. When the change in power occurred, Jews and Christians were no longer allowed to live in Jerusalem. Pope Urban II gave a speech to encourage to volunteer to fight to regain Jerusalem. Jerusalem is integral to the history of Judaism.

David conquered the city from the Jebusites in the 11th century BC, and made it the political capital of the Jewish state. Solomon, his son, made it the religious capital by building the Temple there in the 10th century BC. The Temple was the center of religious activity for all Jews until Solomon's death, when the kingdom split into Judah and Israel. (Pernoud 114) The Jews in Judah continued with the Temple as their religious center, while the Jews in Israel to the north attempted to build new religious centers that could never quite replace Jerusalem's Temple. The Temple was destroyed in 586 BC by Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian ruler, who razed the city and exiled most of the Jewish population from Jerusalem.

In 536 BC, the Persian Empire, which conquered the Babylonians, allowed the Jews to return and construction began on a new Temple. About 500 years later, under the leadership of Herod the Great, Jerusalem rose to prominence in the Roman Empire, with a lavish new Temple and a cosmopolitan nature. After Herod's death, the Jews rebelled and the Temple was burned by invading Roman armies in 70 AD. In 135 AD, the Jews revolted again and the Roma Emperor Hadrian exiled them from the city. This time, they were gone for 500 years, until the Muslim capture of the city in 638 AD finally introduced a regime in Jerusalem that would allow them to return. While the Temple existed, pilgrimage to Jerusalem was a duty to Jews.

(Jerusalem) They visited on Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. Following its final destruction and their exile, pilgrimage became impossible. Muslim rule opened the doors to Jews wishing to live in and visit the Holy City. Following the Crusaders' conquer of Jerusalem, the city was closed to them for nearly 10 years.

But for a people who had lived in this city for more than 2000 years, a decade was not a long time to wait. In the Christian mind, Jerusalem exists both in the physical and spiritual world. It is an actual city, with human inhabitants, but it is also a spiritual place where Christ was crucified and resurrected. (Phillips 104) Almost all of the Christian holy sites in the city are places where Christ spent the last days of his life, or where he was killed, buried or resurrected. Those not directly related to Jesus's life are often connected to his family; Many shrines are devoted to his mother Mary, and there is even one for his grandparents.

(Jerusalem) Christianity arrived in Jerusalem along with Christ, and after his death, it was where the movement spread from. The Byzantine Empire brought a breath of new life to Christianity in Jerusalem in 326 AD. The emperor of the Byzantine Empire, Constantine, was a Christian convert and a strong supporter of holy sites in Jerusalem. (Lamb 208) His mother, the Empress Helena, is traditionally believed to have discovered the cave which contained the True Cross and the nails which held Christ to it.

In honor of this discovery, Constantine ordered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to be built on the spot. Later Byzantine emperors more or less continued the tradition of Christianity and support for Jerusalem's holy sites. Numerous churches were constructed during the 300 years that the Byzantine Empire had control of Jerusalem, and the city took on a distinctively Christian feel. Christianity was the dominant religion in Jerusalem until the arrival of the Muslims in 638 AD. It would be over 450 years until the city was ruled by Christians again. (Muslim Jerusalem) The Crusaders' arrival was the beginning of a new period of Christian dominance in the Holy City.

Jerusalem holds an honored place in Islam too. It is a place rich in ideological, mythic, and historical importance. From an ideological standpoint, the city's importance is unparalleled. The most important of these virtues attributed to Jerusalem is was the one asserting that Bayt al-Maquis (Arabic for Jerusalem) is the place of the second and final hijira (the first hijira being to Medina). Jerusalem is the place of the Resurrection, where, on the eve of the Day of Judgment, God will send his best creatures and most faithful to be saved. The Rock at Jerusalem will be the bastion, the refuge, of Muslims from al-Daj jal (the anti-Christ).

To all Islamic groups, Jerusalem is the place to which the Mahdi (the Messiah) will come to triumph over evil (Muslim Jerusalem). Because of the esteem in which the city is held, Muhammad the Prophet, founder of Islam, initially made Jerusalem the qibla. This is the place to which Muslims turn and direct their prayers. For political reasons, he stripped it of this honor when difficulties arose with the Jewish community there, and designated Mecca to be the new qibla. Though it suffered a fall from grace in Islamic eyes, Jerusalem remains at the heart of an enduring tradition known as Muhammad's Night Journey (Phillips 42).

According to tradition, the Angel Gabriel took Muhammad to Jerusalem on the back of a winged half mule / half donkey. There, he ascended from the rock on the Temple Mount to heaven to stand with other prophets of God, including Jesus and Moses, and led their prayers. Because of its enormous ideological and traditional importance, it is not surprising that Jerusalem was quickly conquered by the Muslim armies. In 638 AD, about six years after Muhammad's death, the city was taken, and the Muslims moved quickly to make their mark upon this mostly-Christian city.

They found the rock where Muhammad is said to have ascended into heaven, and built the magnificent structure of the Dome of the Rock on it (Muslim Jerusalem) In the 600's A.D., Jerusalem was taken over by Arab invaders. They were mostly Muslims. These Arabs did tolerate other religions besides Islam. Therefore, both Christians and Jews were still allowed to live there. This way all of the three religions had a place in the city.

Though they were not in control of the city, Christians and Jews were happy because they were allowed to stay in the city that meant so much to them. The Arabs that were in charge of Jerusalem for so long tolerated other religions. This meant that Christians and Jews could live there; not just Muslims. Of course this made everyone happy because they all got to live in the city that was sacred to them in their own ways. Jews and Christians that lived in Jerusalem had to pay taxes and follow certain regulations, but that was a small sacrifice for living in the holiest place on Earth. (Joinville and Villehardouin 15) This land was part of their religious heritage, so Christians, Jews, and Muslims obviously would all want to live in Jerusalem.

This would change though, and would prove to cause a lot of trouble. In the late 1000's A.D., the Seljuk Turks, a Muslim people from central Asia, conquered the Arabs and took over Jerusalem. This changed everything that was happening, and created a very dangerous situation. (Grosset 98). The Seljuks Turks were, like the Arabs, a Muslim people, but they ran Jerusalem much, much differently.

The Seljuk Turks did not allow Christians and Jews to stay in Jerusalem. This posed a huge problem for the future of Jerusalem. (Pernoud 123) It was a problem for Christians and Jews not to be allowed to live in Jerusalem because of all of these events that happened there. The city was a part of their heritage, and without it, their lives would not be the same. They could not have the same customs that had roots in Jerusalem, they could not worship in places that were sacred to their religion, and they were unable to see, but only hear legends about the place that meant so much to them. Therefore, they would have to try to regain the territory somehow.

The First Crusade began on November 27, 1095, with a proclamation from Pope Urban II delivered to clergy and lay folk who had gathered in a field in Clermont, central France. His topic: an appeal for help that he had received from the Byzantine Emperor, Alexius I Comnenus. (The First Crusade, an Overview) There are no records of exactly what pope Urban said, but it seems he began with a general denouncement of the continual warfare which plagued the Europe of his day. He then described in lurid detail the attacks of the Turks upon the Christian Byzantine Empire, and begged the soldiers present to travel to the east to attack the Muslims, rather than their fellow Christians. As a further encouragement Urban offered them a Papal indulgence, which promised the immediate remission of all sins of any who participated in the expedition. (Lamb 74).

The speech motivated the people very much, and most of them agreed to go and fight. The crowd responded with the chant the was to become the war cry of the first crusade - Dieu li Volt. (Smail 67). Of course the people would not be cleansed of their sins, but they did not know that. Also, they feared what might happen if they did not agree to go on the crusade.

So Jerusalem was a very important city in the starting of the First Crusade. It was an important city to Muslims, Jews, and Christians, and this caused problems when certain religions were not allowed to live there. Before the Seljuk Turks, people of three religions were all able to live peacefully in Jerusalem. But when then when the Seljuks took over, everything changed, and the Jews and Christians were no longer allowed to live there. This is what sparked the flame that was the First Crusade.