The Year Non-Moslem Entrance to the Temple Mount Became the Status Quo

On February 18, 1229, at the end of the Sixth Crusade, the Treaty of Jaffa was signed between Sultan al-Kamil and Frederick II which permitted Christians to reoccupy the holy places of Jerusalem, except for the Temple area which remained under the control of the Moslem religious authorities.

Jerusalem was handed over to Christian rule for ten years, with Moslems denied access to all but the al-Aqsa enclave in the city which was to remain in Moslem hands and where Moslem religious observances would be allowed to continue unobstructedal. The historical record has Kamil saying:

‘We have allowed only ruined churches and monasteries. The al-Aqsa enclave and what is in it consisting of the Dome of the Rock and the rest of shrines are in the hands of the Muslims as before and the sign of Islam is on what is there [al-Aqsa enclave].

Pope Gregory IX wrote to Duke Leopold of Austria (and other prelates and rulers), denouncing Frederick II’s treaty with al-Kamil (18th July 1229):

Secondly, and even more disgraceful and to be abhorred and greeted with astonishment, he has impudently and irreverently ejected that same [faith] from the Temple of God, in which Christ was given and where he established his first cathedral seat when he sat in the midst of the doctors, replying to them, and in His seat he has placed that lost man Mahomed, allowing his evil doctrine and law to be preached and proclaimed in the Temple of God. He has imposed silence on the herald teaching the truth, and entrusted guard on that temple and the keys of His enclosure to the Saracens. He has decreed that no Christian shall enter it, unless having first been questioned from the Temple mount he shall reveal his faith to a pagan. From this it is manifestly clear that it is left to the judgement of a Saracen whether a Christian ought to enter the Temple of God.

1229 - the year non-Moslem entrance to the Temple Mount became the status quo.

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