c.638 – Caliph Omar Restores Jewish Access to the Temple Mount

JEWISH MOMENTS IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL 

c.638
A New Dawn in Jerusalem:
Caliph Omar’s Restoration of Jewish Access to the Temple Mount

After the Muslim armies of Caliph Omar finished the conquest of Jerusalem, Jews were allowed free access to the city for the first time in almost five centuries. In fact, Caliph Omar allowed Jews not just to settle in Jerusalem again but also to access the Temple Mount. The area, which had been used as a garbage dump during the Byzantine centuries, was in a state of total disarray. Jews were first employed in the cleaning of the area and subsequently on several maintenance jobs.

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As the Jews of the Land of Israel were concerned, the transformation that followed the conquest of Jerusalem in 638 by Caliph Omar ibn al Khatab [reigned: 634-644] marked the end of a brutal period of Jewish exile from Jerusalem that began in 136 CE, when Emperor Hadrian banned Jews from Jerusalem following the catastrophic Bar Kochba Revolt. The prohibition continued throughout the subsequent Byzantine Christian rule and, therefore, for approximately 500 years, Jews were forbidden from entering Jerusalem.

Under Caliph Omar, and in a dramatic reversal of Roman and Byzantine policies, Jews were now permitted to live in Jerusalem. Sources indicate that Caliph Omar initially allowed seventy Jewish families from Tiberias to return and settle in Jerusalem, primarily in the southern part of the city near the Silwan spring and the Temple Mount gates. But, Caliph Omar’s policies extended beyond allowing broader Jewish settlement in Jerusalem. Jews were also allowed access to the Temple Mount.

When Caliph Omar arrived in Jerusalem in 638 to formally accept the surrender of the Byzantine forces, he found the Temple Mount in a dismal state of neglect. For centuries under Byzantine rule, the Temple Mount had served as the city’s garbage dump. Refuse and debris completely covered the area, a sight that left the Caliph greatly distressed. He reacted by immediately ordering the thorough cleaning of the area.

The cleansing of the Temple Mount became a remarkable undertaking. According to both Islamic and Jewish sources, Jews played a prominent role in the physical restoration of the site. According to Mujir al-Din al-Ulaymi [1456-1522], a highly respected Islamic scholar and historian of the city of Jerusalem, Jews played a critical role in cleaning the area of centuries of accumulated waste.

After the cleaning was completed, many Jews continued to work in the Temple Mount in the mosques and other structures subsequently built there. They would serve as servants, cleaners, and guardians. They would work on producing the glass and wicks for the oil lamps used in those structures.

The Jewish workers employed on the Temple Mount were granted significant privileges for their service. They were exempted from the jizya, the poll tax imposed on non-Muslims, an exemption transmissible to their descendants.

Central to the restoration efforts in the Temple Mount was Ka’b al-Achbar, or Abu Ischak Ka’b ibn Mani’al-Ḥimyari (d. C. 652/656), a Yemenite Jewish convert to Islam who became one of Caliph Omar’s most trusted advisors and remains a highly regarded figure in the Sunni tradition.

According to Mujir al-Din al-Ulaymi, Ka’b al-Achbar played a crucial role in helping Calioh Omar identify the holy sites on the Temple Mount. Medieval sources, including another Muslim historian Abu Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarir al-Ṭabari [839-923], describe how Ka’b al-Achbar guided Omar to the site of the ‘Sachra’ [the Rock] known in Hebrew as the ‘Even Shetiyah’ [Foundation Stone], in Jewish tradition the legendary cornerstone of creation. When Ka’b al-Achbar suggested that Caliph Omar build a mosque behind the Rock, making it face toward the sacred site, the caliph responded with suspicion, suggesting that Ka’b al-Achbar was still being influenced by his Jewish background.

Importantly, although the Temple Mount was not regarded as a particularly significant site in Islam at the time, it was respected, if not revered, as the site of the two Jewish Holy Temples. As such, at the time Jerusalem was often referred to by Muslims as ‘Madinat Bayt al-Maqdis’ or ‘City of the Holy Temple’, the Arabic counterpart of ‘Beit HaMikdash’, the Hebrew designation for the Holy Temple. In Islamic sources, the designation of the city would evolve into ‘Medinat Al Quds’, meaning “The Holy City’ the counterpart of the Hebrew ‘Ir HaKodesh’. And, after the 9th century until today, Jerusalem became routinely referred to by Muslims simply as Al Quds [The Holy].

The use of this nomenclature demonstrates early Muslim recognition of the foundational connection of the Temple Mount to Judaism. As such, the restoration of Jewish access to and ability to pray at the Temple Mount was not merely an administrative measure but had also a profoundly religious meaning.