ABSTRACT
In autumn 1009 the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem was destroyed on the orders 1 of the caliph of Cairo al-Hakim. When word of this destruction of the most holy structure in Christendom, with its tomb of Christ and remains of the True Cross, reached the West, the reaction was immediate and intense. The Aquitanian chronicler Ademar of Chabannes, writing in the 1020s, says that the tomb of the Lord was smashed by the Jews and the Saracens because the Jews of the West and the Saracens of Spain had sent letters to the East accusing the Christians of ordering armies of the West to attack eastern Saracens. Then, aroused to fury, Hakim, or, as Ademar called him, the Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon — the name of Cairo in the West during the Middle Ages — made a law that required all Christians in his lands to become Muslims or to face execution. Few, according to Ademar, remained true to their Christian beliefs, except most prominently the patriarch of Jerusalem, who was executed after various tortures. Then Hakim destroyed many churches — especially the basilica of the tomb of Christ, which was demolished to its foundation — crushing the stones as much as they could and then setting fire to what remained. But when the church in Bethlehem was miraculously preserved, as was the monastery of Mount Sinai, and plague and famine lasting three years killed 90,000 Saracens and Jews, Hakim had a change of heart. He and his people did penance, and he ordered the Church of the Holy Sepulcher rebuilt because they were deeply terrified. 2
