Encyclopedia of Islam

Jerusalem

  

391  J

---

Ophel (Mount Zion), protected on three sides by 

the Central Valley and the Kidron Valley, which 

met at its southern tip. During the reigns of the 

Israelite kings d

avid

 (r. ca. 1010–970 

b

.

c

.

e

.) and 

Solomon (r. ca. 970–928 

b

.

c

.

e

.), Jerusalem became 

a royal capital and the center of the cult of Yahweh 

(the Lord God), the supreme deity of the Hebrews 

who was worshipped in Solomon’s Temple. The 

city was barely 188,000 square yards in area, or 

about the size of a large shopping mall in the 

United States today. This was not an unusual size 

for an ancient town or city, however. After Solo-

mon’s time, ancient Israel was divided into two 

kingdoms, with Jerusalem as the capital of Judah 

(the Southern Kingdom) and Samaria the capital 

of i

srael

 (the Northern Kingdom). The Northern 

Kingdom fell to the Assyrian army in 722 

b

.

c

.

e

.,

and the Southern Kingdom was destroyed by the 

Babylonians in 686. The Babylonians plundered 

and destroyed the city and its temple, carrying 

the leading inhabitants into captivity in southern 

Mesopotamia. These events were related in the 

historical books of the Hebrew Bible (2 Kings, 1 

& 2 Chron.), and they inspired the revelations 

and visions of the biblical prophets (for example, 

Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel).

A remnant remained in Jerusalem after the 

Babylonian conquest until Cyrus the Great of 

Persia defeated the Babylonians and allowed the 

Israelite exiles to return in 538 

b

.

c

.

e

. The Second 

Temple was built around 515 

b

.

c

.

e

., but the resto-

ration of the city and its walls was not completed 

until the governorship of Nehemiah (mid-sixth 

century 

b

.

c

.

e

.). The city grew to twice the size 

it had been during the time of the First Temple. 

When Alexander the Great’s armies swept through 

K  392