Quick recap of the two previous segments.
A question has come up – what constitutes Palestine? Is it the same as ancient Israel or the Promised Land? Approximately, but not the same. The Promised Land did not extend east of the Jordon River. For these essays, Palestine is the inhabitable land on the eastern Mediterranean Sea north of Egypt and south of Syria. In ancient times it would have included what is Jordon today. When the Ottoman Empire fell in 1917, it became necessary to establish specific boundaries for Palestine. The eastern boundary they eventually settled on was the Jordon River.
A Jewish ruled Israel reached its apex under Solomon in about 950 BC. His kingdom extended from the Euphrates River on the northeast south to the Gulf of Aqaba, an extension of The Red Sea. Interestingly, even though it was part of “the Promised Land”, Solomon did not rule Gaza – it was part of Philistia. In 99 BC, a Hasmonaean king, Alexander, conquered Gaza, and it was controlled by the Hasmoneans until the Romans conquered the region several decades later. It would be over 2,000 years (1967) before a Jewish state would again control Gaza.
After conquering Palestine in 63 BC, my reading of history is that for about the next century, the Romans made a special effort to accommodate the Jews there. Unlike other regions of their empire, the Romans (1) did not require Jews to serve in the Roman army because they refused to work/fight on the Sabbath, (2) did not require them to worship Roman or Greek gods, and (3) did not establish Roman settlements in predominantly Jewish lands. During that period, the Romans allowed the upper-class Jews who were willing to work with them to maintain law and order and to remain in positions of power and privilege.
It is estimated that there were some 2.2 million people living in Palestine mid-1st century AD, with a large majority being Jews. And then there were two of the greatest tragedies in Jewish history prior to the Holocaust: the Jewish Revolt/War of 66-70 AD and the Bar Kokhba Revolt about 60 years later. The Romans killed or enslaved over a million Jews during this period. Many Jews also died at the hands of Jewish Zealots who killed other Jews they felt were not zealous enough in opposing the Romans. Of the Jews who survived the two revolts, most were exiled such that by mid-2nd century AD, there were only a few thousand Jews remaining in Palestine. Nineteen centuries would pass before the majority of the people living in “Israel” would be Jewish, though even then, Jews would not constitute the majority of the population of what was then defined as Palestine.
I am not going to dwell on the causes of these revolts. (Research it yourself.) No doubt, the wise policies the Romans initially employed in Palestine gave way to foolish ones. Also, many Jews – especially the Zealots – drew confidence from their interpretation of Scripture that if they went to war against the Romans, God would intervene with His angels, the Messiah, and/or directly to defeat Rome and give them liberty. Things did not work out as they hoped. Not only were the Jews enslaved or slaughtered, their magnificent temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. (Many Christians believed this happened because the Jews rejected Jesus and Jesus predicted that the temple would be destroyed. (Mark 13:1-2)).
The Romans considered Christians a sect of Judaism and for most of the three centuries following the founding of Christianity, Christians were persecuted and many were martyred. Early in the 4th century, Constantine battled other claimants for the throne of the Roman Empire. He credited Jesus Christ for his winning the decisive battle in 312. making him emperor, and converted to Christianity. He made Byzantium the Capital of what became the Eastern Roman aka the Byzantine Empire (after the fall of Rome in the west) and renamed Byzantium Constantinople. A subsequent Emperor of Rome, Theodosius I, made Christianity to official religion of the Roman Empire in 380 AD. Regarding Palestine, the Byzantines promoted the growth of Christianity in the Holy Land, and they discouraged Judaism. (A people group that flourished somewhat were the Samaritans.) The Byzantine era was a time of prosperity and cultural flourishing in Palestine. Many Christian churches were built there then.
Despite the headwinds against the Jews, a significant number did return to Palestine. When a Persian army invaded Palestine in 614, many Jews fought with the Persians against the Byzantines. Their forces destroyed churches, massacred Christians, and took over Jerusalem. In 627, the Byzantines defeated the Persians and reclaimed Palestine. Many of the Jews were executed or exiled by the Byzantines for having allied with the Persians.
Islam was founded in Arabia in 610. In less than a decade after the Byzantines had re-taken Palestine from the Persians, a Muslim army from Arabia defeated the Byzantines and captured most of Palestine. By 640, all of Palestine became part of the Muslim Empire.
Can you imagine what it would have been like to be a resident in Palestine during such a tumultuous time?
Holy Writings & Holy Places.
Before continuing with the history of Palestine, I think it necessary to discuss some of the writings sacred to the Jews, Christians, and Muslims and explain why Jerusalem is religiously important to Muslims.
Holy Writings.
The Jewish Bible aka the Tanakh, contains 22 books consisting of the “Law, the Prophets, and the Writings”. In very general terms, the Christian Scriptures includes the Jewish Bible plus the New Testament. Muhammad, the Founder of Islam and the author of The Quran, the holiest book of Islam, wrote in The Quran: “We believe in Allah, and in what has been revealed to us and to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the descendants (of Jacob) and in what was given to Moses and Jesus and in what the other Prophets received from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and we are those who submit to Allah.” (Surah 2:136).
So, in very general terms, Christians see themselves not as rejecting Judaism, but as adding to/improving on it. And Muslims do not see themselves as rejecting Judaism or Christianity, but as adding to/improving on them. The following is from a Wikipedia article: “Muhammad’s views on Jews”.
“In the course of Muhammad’s proselytizing in Mecca, he viewed Christians and Jews, both of whom he referred to as ‘People of the Book’, as natural allies, sharing the core principles of his teachings, and anticipated their acceptance and support.”
Not only are the Jewish patriarchs and prophets revered in The Quran, so too is Jesus (Isa). While Mohammad did not believe Isa was the Son of God, he did refer to him as “The Spirit of God”. (Infidels to Mohammad, then, were not Christians or Jews, but the polytheists and atheists.)
Just as most Jews found it difficult to accept that Jesus was the Messiah and/or Son of God, most Jews and Christians found it difficult to believe that an Arab born in the 6th C AD could be God’s prophet. There was a large contingent of Jews in Medina. Mohammad offered them equality with Muslims in exchange for political loyalty, to which the Jews initially agreed. In time, though, the Jews there sided with Mohammad’s enemies and were exiled from Medina.
Holy Places.
Most of us are aware why places in Jerusalem and Palestine are considered holy to Christians and Jews. But why to Islam as well? Muhammad did not visit Jerusalem during his lifetime. Muslims believe in Muhammad’s “Night Journey to Heaven” which goes as follows: Muhammad began at the Great Mosque in Mecca and then traveled to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on a winged horse-like creature known as Buraq. From there Muhammad ascended into heaven where he met with Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets and led them in prayer. In a lengthy debate with Moses, Muhammad convinced Moses to reduce the number of required daily prayers by Muslims from 50 to 5. This belief in The Night Journey made Jerusalem the third holiest city in Islam.
The Dome of the Rock was built in the late 7th century on the site on the Temple Mount where Muslims believe Muhammad ascended into heaven. The Temple Mount is where all three Jewish Temples were built by Solomon, the Babylonian exiles, and Herod, respectively. The “mount” is also Mount Moriah, the location where Abraham is believed to have taken Isaac to sacrifice him to God.
The Jews who lived in Palestine after it was conquered by the Muslims, enjoyed significantly more freedom than they had under the rule of the Byzantine Christians.
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