The Change to Islam

With the rise of Constantinople, founded in 324 CE by Emperor Constantine I, Jordan became predominantly Christian and flourished during a period of great prosperity. A great many churches were built, often with intricate and stunningly beautiful mosaics. However this peace did not last. Troubled by severe plagues in the 6th and 7th centuries CE and invasions by the Sassanians, who came from Persia and Iraq, the Byzantines became distracted and failed to notice developments of great importance happening in the Arabian Desert.

Bedouin tribes had populated the Arabian Desert for thousands of years and were becoming united by a common faith - Islam, under the direction of the prophet Muhammad. The greatest period of the Arab world had ever seen followed. It took Arab forces only ten years to wrest control of the lands of Jordan, Palestine and Syria from Byzantium. Taking control of Damascus in 661 CE, the Arabs proclaimed it the capital of their Umayyad Empire.

The Umayyads and Abbasids
The Umayyads, essentially a desert people, built caravanserais - elaborate guesthouses for travelling merchants - along desert trade routes, though their greatest achievement was the building of the magnificent Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem in 691 CE. After the earthquake of 747 CE caused widespread destruction across Jordan, the end of the Umayyads’ reign was assured. They were defeated by the Abbasids, who established their capital in Baghdad, leaving Jordan to languish as a provincial backwater.

The Crusades
Almost 300 years later, Jordan once again took centre stage. Responding to a plea for help from Emperor Alexius of Constantinople, Pope Urban II issued a call to arms for the Christian west that became the starting point for the Crusades and initiated one of the many bloody periods of its history. Starting in 1096, the first crusade resulted in Christian forces retaking Jerusalem and proclaiming Godfrey of Bouillon as its first crusader king, the only crusade to achieve its objectives.

The second crusade, led by Conrad III of Germany, and, later, by Louis VII of France, effectively ended when Conrad's forces were comprehensively defeated at Dorylaeum on 25th October 1147. Louis' forces pressed on, but failed to achieve their objective of liberating Edessa and returned home to derision.

The third crusade, though a failure for the Christians, did not lack famous combatants. Frederick Barbarossa, Richard the Lionheart and Salah Eddin al-Ayyubi (Saladin) all contributed to the events of the third crusade, though Barbarossa managed to drown himself while crossing a river before reaching the Holy Land.

The fourth crusade set new levels of failure and resulted in the sacking of Constantinople by the crusading army. Then followed the pathetic interlude of the children's crusade in 1212. Led by a young French peasant who claimed to have visions, it left Marseilles only for all its members to be sold into slavery by unscrupulous seamen.

The rest of the crusades achieved varying levels of success and failure, though by this time their tone had mellowed and several treaties were secured with the Islamic armies and the Caliphs, allowing Christian and Muslim to worship in Jerusalem in relative peace.