{"id":15983,"date":"2016-07-11T20:58:33","date_gmt":"2016-07-11T19:58:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/?p=15983"},"modified":"2016-07-11T20:58:33","modified_gmt":"2016-07-11T19:58:33","slug":"the-annals-of-eutychius-of-alexandria-10th-c-ad-chapter-18c-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/2016\/07\/11\/the-annals-of-eutychius-of-alexandria-10th-c-ad-chapter-18c-part-4\/","title":{"rendered":"The Annals of Eutychius of Alexandria (10th c. AD) \u2013 chapter 18c (part 4)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The discussion of the events of the Muslim conquest fills many\u00a0a page of Eutychius.\u00a0 I confess that it doesn’t excite me.\u00a0 Much of the material seems written with an eye to the events, not of the 7th century, but of the 10th, and to safeguarding church property – always an important concern for senior clergy, whatever their creed\u00a0– from Muslim encroachments.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

7.\u00a0 Omar ibn al-Khattab then wrote to Amr ibn al-As to go with his army into Palestine, saying, among other things:\u00a0“I have appointed Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan as governor of Damascus, Sarhabil ibn Hasana as governor of the territory of Jordan, and Abu Ubayda ibn al-Garrah as governor of Homs”.\u00a0 Amr ibn al-As then left for Palestine, Sarhabil\u00a0for the territories of Jordan and Abu Ubayda ibn al-Garrah went to Baalbek.\u00a0 [The people of Baalbek] said:\u00a0“We have no objection to\u00a0making a\u00a0covenant of friendship with you, in the same way as the inhabitants of Damascus did.”\u00a0 He granted them\u00a0a guarantee\u00a0in writing and left for Homs.\u00a0 Then he granted\u00a0a written guarantee\u00a0to the people of Aleppo and to\u00a0every [other] town that asked him.\u00a0 Then the news of the arrival of Omar ibn al-Khattab came to the muslims.\u00a0 Abu Ubayda ibn al-Garrah left the command of his men to Iyas Ibn Ghanm;\u00a0Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan left\u00a0his to\u00a0Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan, Amr ibn al-As to his son Abd Allah, and they met with Omar ibn al-Khattab.\u00a0 Then they all set out for Jerusalem and besieged it.\u00a0 Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, then went\u00a0to Omar ibn al-Khattab.\u00a0 Omar ibn al-Khattab granted him his protection, and wrote a letter to them which stated that:\u00a0“In the name of God, gracious and merciful. From Omar ibn al-Khattab to the inhabitants of the city of Aelia.\u00a0 A guarantee is granted\u00a0on their persons, their children, their property and on their churches,\u00a0and\u00a0they\u00a0will not be\u00a0destroyed\u00a0or be reduced to dwelling places” and he swore this in the name of Allah.\u00a0 After the\u00a0gate of\u00a0the city was opened and\u00a0he went in\u00a0together with his men, Omar went to sit in the courtyard of the Church of the Resurrection.\u00a0 When it was time for prayer, he said to the patriarch Sophronius:\u00a0“I would like to pray.” The patriarch replied:\u00a0“O prince of believers, you may pray as well just where you are.”\u00a0 “I will not pray here,” said Omar.\u00a0 Then the patriarch Constantine\u00a0led him into the church and ordered mat to be laid in the middle of the church.\u00a0 But Omar said:\u00a0“No, I will not pray either.”\u00a0 Omar then\u00a0went out and walked to the step that was at the door of the Church of St. Constantine, on the east side.\u00a0 He prayed alone on the steps, then he sat down and said to the patriarch Sophronius:\u00a0“Do you know,\u00a0O patriarch,\u00a0why I have not prayed in the church?”\u00a0 The patriarch replied:\u00a0“I do not really know, O prince of the believers.”\u00a0 “If I had prayed in the church,” said Omar, “it would have been taken away from you, and you would have lost possession because on my departure the Muslims would take it from you, saying in chorus:\u00a0‘Here\u00a0Omar prayed'”.\u00a0 Bring me a piece of paper\u00a0so I can\u00a0write you a ‘sigili'”.\u00a0 Omar then wrote a ‘sigili’, prescribing that no Muslim should pray on the steps\u00a0except one by one, and that ritual prayer could be held unless someone the muezzin ascended.\u00a0 He wrote a ‘sigili’ and gave it to the Patriarch.\u00a0 Then Omar said:\u00a0“You owe me for your life and for the goods which I granted you.\u00a0 Come, give me a place where I can build a mosque.” The Patriarch said:\u00a0“Give to\u00a0the prince of believers a place where he can build a temple that the king of Rum\u00a0was not able to build.\u00a0 This place is the Rock on which God spoke to Jacob and Jacob called “the gate of heaven”;\u00a0the sons of Israel called it “Sancta Sanctorum” and it is at the center of the earth.\u00a0 It was\u00a0once the temple\u00a0of the children of Israel, which they have always magnified and every time\u00a0they prayed they turned their faces towards it, wherever they were.\u00a0 This place will I give you, provided you write me a ‘sigili’\u00a0that no other\u00a0mosque will be built in Jerusalem other than this”.<\/p>\n

Omar ibn al-Khattab wrote him a ‘sigili’ and handed it to him.\u00a0 When the Rum became Christians, and Helena, mother of Constantine, built churches in Jerusalem, the place of the Rock and its surroundings were lying in ruins and abandoned; on the\u00a0Rock\u00a0so much earth\u00a0had been thrown\u00a0and it was\u00a0reduced to a huge garbage dump.\u00a0 The Rum had totally neglected it, and not held it in high regard, as in fact had the children of Israel.\u00a0 They had erected no church on it, because of what Christ, our Lord, had said in his holy gospel:\u00a0“Behold, your house is left in ruins,” and again:\u00a0“There will not remain\u00a0one stone upon another that\u00a0has not been demolished and destroyed”.\u00a0 It was for this reason that the Christians left it in ruins and not built on there any church.\u00a0 The patriarch Sophronius took Omar ibn al-Khattab by the hand and took him out\u00a0to that place of refuse.\u00a0 Omar lifted the hem of his robe, filled it with earth and poured it into the valley of Gehenna.\u00a0 As soon as the Muslims saw Omar ibn al-Khattab take the\u00a0earth in his lap, they all hastened to take the earth, each in his lap, or clothes,\u00a0or shields, some in baskets of palm leaves and\u00a0some in basins until they emptied the place, cleaned it up and the Rock became visible.\u00a0 Then\u00a0some of them said:\u00a0“Let’s build the mosque so that the Rock is our qibla<\/em>“.\u00a0 But Omar said:\u00a0“No,\u00a0let’s build\u00a0the mosque and\u00a0leave the Rock\u00a0out\u00a0at\u00a0the back”.\u00a0 So Omar built the mosque, leaving the Rock\u00a0at the\u00a0rear of it.\u00a0 Then Omar went on a visit to Bethlehem.\u00a0 Now\u00a0it was\u00a0the time of prayer, and he prayed inside the church facing Mecca.\u00a0 At this time it was all covered with mosaics.\u00a0 Then Omar wrote a ‘sigili’ for the Patriarch which provided that Muslims\u00a0would not pray in that place but\u00a0in another.\u00a0 He\u00a0also forbade prayer\u00a0in the church\u00a0and the muezzin to call the faithful to prayer.\u00a0 He also stipulated that\u00a0no changes\u00a0should be made to these\u00a0provisions.\u00a0 In these present days the\u00a0Muslims have contravened the ‘sigili’ of Omar ibn al-Khattab.\u00a0 They have removed the mosaics from the ceiling and have written what they wanted, they make communal prayer, and the muezzin is calling the faithful.\u00a0 The same thing they have done\u00a0at the step that was at the door of the Church of Constantine and on which\u00a0Omar had prayed; they have appropriated the middle atrium of the church and\u00a0have built inside it a mosque\u00a0which they\u00a0have called the mosque of “Omar”.\u00a0 Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, died after having held the office four years.\u00a0 After his death Jerusalem remained without a patriarch for twenty-nine years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The discussion of the events of the Muslim conquest fills many\u00a0a page of Eutychius.\u00a0 I confess that it doesn’t excite me.\u00a0 Much of the material seems written with an eye to the events, not of the 7th century, but of the 10th, and to safeguarding church property – always an important concern for senior clergy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[672,674],"class_list":["post-15983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-my-diary-announcements","tag-eutychius","tag-eutychius-chapter-18"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15983\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}