The Genizah repository, discovered in 1896, is a remarkable collection of some 400,000 Jewish manuscript fragments and Fatimid administrative documents dating from between the 6th and 19th centuries, that had been kept in the storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat Old Cairo in Egypt. The Genizah Chronicle on the Entry to Jerusalem is an important fragment dating from the early 11th century that describes the resettlement of Jews in Jerusalem following the early Muslim conquest. It captures a historical memory written by Palestinian Jews regarding the day Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab entered Jerusalem (around 637/638 AD). Because the Byzantines had totally banned Jews from the city, Jews actually marched alongside the Muslims to point out the holy sites:
It was an act of kindness by our God who made us favorable in the eyes of the Ishmael kingdom that conquered the glorious land from the hands of Edom. And when they came to Jerusalem, there were people from the nation of Israel among them who showed them the place of the Temple, and have dwelled in their midst ever since.[i]
When Caliph Umar took Jerusalem, he discovered that the Byzantines had used the Temple Mount as a garbage dump to humiliate the Jewish people. Christian accounts and Jewish records note that Umar cleaned the site alongside Jewish guides. When Umar asked how many Jewish families wanted to return, the Jewish leaders made an explicit appeal recorded by the historian Al-Tabari: “We request that seventy families from Tiberias and the Galilee be permitted to settle here with us."[ii] Umar granted the request, effectively reversing a 500-year Roman/Byzantine ban on Jewish life in the holy city.
Theophanes the Confessor was an 8th and 9th century monk and chronicler. In his Chronographia, written in 810AD, of the Muslims he writes:
The godless Umar entered the Holy City... Sophronius (the Patriarch of Jerusalem) said: 'Verily, this is the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place!'... Umar took up the task of building a place of prayer at the Temple. When the Jews saw this, they began to assist the work eagerly, thinking the temple of Solomon was being rebuilt.[iii]
Lucas of Tuy’s 13th Century Chronicon Mundi, summarised earlier Spanish traditions about how the Jews opened the gates of Toledo to the Arab invaders:
The treacherous Jews, who had long suffered under the weight of imperial laws... formed a conspiracy with the Saracens. When the enemy approached the gates of Toledo, the Jews secretly unbolted them from within, welcoming the invaders while the Christian defenders were celebrating the liturgy in church.[iv]
The Byzantine city of Caesarea Maritima on the Mediterranean coast of modern-day Israel, was heavily fortified and had held out against the Muslim armies longer than other Palestinian city. According to the 9th-century Arab historian al-Baladhuri in his work Futuh al-Buldan (The Origins of the Islamic State), the city's defenses were finally breached when a local Jewish resident assisted the besieging forces under their leader and future caliph, Muawiyah.
When Muʿāwiyah at last took it by storm, he found in it 700,000 soldiers with fixed stipends, 30,000 Samaritans and 20,000 Jews. He found in the city 300 markets, all in good shape. It was guarded every night by 100,000 men stationed on its wall. The city was reduced in the following way:—A Jew named Yūsuf came to the Moslems at night and pointed out to them a road through a tunnel the water in which would reach a man’s waist; in consideration for which information, safety was guaranteed him and his relatives. Muʿāwiyah sanctioned the conditions (made to Yūsuf) and the Moslems entered the city by night, calling “Allah is great!” The Greeks seeking to flee through the tunnel found it occupied by Moslems. The Moslems opened the city gate and Muʿāwiyah with his men went in.
Theophanes also extensive wrote an extremely revealing biography of Mohammed and reveals that the Jews had specifically incited Mohammed against the Christians:
"In this year died Mouamed, the leader and false prophet of the Saracens, after appointing his kinsman Aboubacharos (to his chieftainship.) At the same time his repute spread abroad) and everyone was frightened. At the beginning of his advent the misguided Jews thought he was the Messiah who is awaited by them, so that some of their leaders joined him and accepted his religion while forsaking that of Moses, who saw God. Those who did so were ten in number, and they remained with him until his murder. But when they saw him eating camel meat, they realized that he was not the one they thought him to be, and were at a loss what to do; being afraid to abjure his religion, those wretched men taught him illicit things directed against us, Christians, and remained with him.
"I consider it necessary to give an account of this man's origin. He was descended from a very widespread tribe, that of Ishmael, son of Abraham; for Nizaros, descendant of Ishmael, is recognized as the father of them all…Being destitute and an orphan, the aforesaid Mouamed decided to enter the service of a rich woman who was a relative of his, called Chadiga, as a hired worker with a view to trading by camel in Egypt and Palestine.
"Little by little he became bolder and ingratiated himself with that woman, who was a widow, took her as a wife, and gained possession of her camels and her substance. Whenever he came to Palestine he consorted with Jews and Christians and sought from them certain scriptural matters. He was also afflicted with epilepsy. When his wife became aware of this, she was greatly distressed, inasmuch as she, a noblewoman, had married a man such as he, who was not only poor, but also an epileptic. He tried deceitfully to placate her by saying, 'I keep seeing a vision of a certain angel called Gabriel, and being unable to bear his sight, I faint and fall down. '
"Now, she had a certain monk living there, a friend of hers (who had been exiled for his depraved doctrine), and she related everything to him, including the angel's name. Wishing to satisfy her, he said to her, 'He has spoken the truth, for this is the angel who is sent to all the prophets. ' When she had heard the words of the false monk, she was the first to believe in Mouamed and proclaimed to other women of her tribe that he was a prophet. Thus, the report spread from women to men, and first to Aboubacharos, whom he left as his successor. This heresy prevailed in the region of Ethribos, in the last resort by war: at first secretly, for ten years, and by war another ten, and openly nine.
"He taught his subjects that he who kills an enemy or is killed by an enemy goes to Paradise; and he said that this paradise was one of carnal eating and drinking and intercourse with women, and had a river of wine, honey, and milk, and that the women were not like the ones down here, but different ones, and that the intercourse was long-lasting and the pleasure continuous; and other things full of profligacy and stupidity; also that men should feel sympathy for one another and help those who are wronged.
"Mouamed, who had died earlier, had appointed four emirs to fight those members of the Arab nation who were Christian, and they came in front of a village called Mouchea, in which was stationed the vicarius Theodore, intending to fall upon the Arabs on the day when they sacrificed to their idols. The vicarius, on learning this from a certain Koraishite called Koutabas, who was in his pay, gathered all the soldiers of the desert guard and, after ascertaining from the Saracen the day and hour when they were intending to attack, himself attacked them at a village called Mothous, and killed three emirs and the bulk of their army. One emir, called Chaled, whom they call God's Sword, escaped.[v]"
[i] Cairo Genizah document, Cambridge University Library, T-S 16.133, quoted and translated in Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634–1099, trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 70–71.
[ii] Cairo Genizah document, Cambridge University Library, T-S Box K 6.168 / T-S 16.133, translated and discussed in Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634–1099, trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 70–71.
[iii] Theophanes the Confessor, The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern History, AD 284–813, trans. Cyril Mango and Roger Scott (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 471–472, AM 6127.
[iv] Lucas of Tuy, Lucae Tudensis Chronicon mundi, ed. Emma Falque, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 74 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), bk. 3, chap. 64.
[v] Theophanes the Confessor, The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern History, AD 284–813, trans. Cyril Mango and Roger Scott, with Geoffrey Greatrex (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 466, AM 6123.
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