on account of the plague. The fourth time he entered it riding a donkey; this is how Ibn Jarir has transmitted the report. ⦗1⦘

THE CONQUEST OF JERUSALEM AT THE HANDS OF ʿUMAR IBN AL-KHATTAB

Abu Jaʿfar Ibn Jarir ⦗2⦘ records—on the authority of Sayf ibn ʿUmar—and the substance of what he and others relate is as follows:
When Abu Ubaydah had completed his campaign in Damascus he wrote to the people of Iliyāʾ ⦗3⦘, calling them to Allah and to Islam, or else to pay the jizya, failing which they should prepare for war. They refused everything to which he summoned them, so he marched against them with his troops, appointing Saʿid ibn Zayd over Damascus. He then besieged Jerusalem and pressed them hard until they agreed to a settlement on condition that the Commander of the Faithful, ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab, come to them in person. Abu Ubaydah informed ʿUmar of this, and ʿUmar sought counsel from the people. ʿUthman ibn ʿAffan advised him not to travel to them, that they might be further abased and humbled; ʿAli ibn Abi Talib advised him to set out, for that would lighten the Muslims’ burden while they maintained the siege. ʿUmar inclined to ʿAli’s view and not to ʿUthman’s.

He set out with the armies, leaving ʿAli ibn Abi Talib as his deputy in Madinah, while al-ʿAbbas ibn ʿAbd al-Muttalib led the vanguard. When he reached Syria he was met by Abu Ubaydah and the leading commanders—Khalid ibn al-Walid, Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan and others. Abu Ubaydah dismounted, and ʿUmar did likewise. Abu Ubaydah motioned as though to kiss ʿUmar’s hand; ʿUmar was about to kiss Abu Ubaydah’s foot, but Abu Ubaydah restrained him.

ʿUmar then advanced until he made peace with the Christians of Jerusalem, stipulating that the Byzantines evacuate within three days. He entered the city and went into the mosque through the very gate by which the Messenger of Allah had entered on the Night Journey. It is said that when he entered Jerusalem he pronounced the talbiya, then performed the prayer of greeting the mosque at the mihrab of David. The next morning he led the Muslims in the dawn prayer there, reciting in the first rakʿa Surah Sad, prostrating during it with the Muslims following him, and in the second rakʿa Surah Bani Israʾil (al-Israʾ).

He then came to the Rock, located it with the help of Kaʿb al-Ahbar, and Kaʿb advised him to place the mosque behind it ⦗4⦘. ʿUmar replied, “That would be copying the Jews,” and instead placed the mosque to the south of Jerusalem—the site known today as the ʿUmari mosque. He scooped the dirt from the Rock with the edge of his cloak and mantle, and the Muslims did the same with him, enlisting the people of the Jordan to remove the rest. The Byzantines had turned the Rock into a refuse heap because it had been the qibla of the Jews—so much so that a woman would send her menstrual cloth from within the enclosure to be cast upon the Rock. This retaliated for what the Jews had done at Golgotha, the place where they crucified “the crucified one,” where they used to throw rubbish on his grave. Because of this the spot was called al-Qumama (“the Garbage”), and the name passed to the church that the Christians later built there.

Heraclius, when the prophetic letter reached him while he was in Aelia, admonished the Christians for the extremes to which they had gone in casting