In the reign of Charlemagne good political relations existed between that monarch and the Khalif of Baghdad, Harûn er Rashîd. The keys of Jerusalem were presented to the Western monarch, who founded a hospice for the Latins in that city. About half a century later, at the time when Baghdad was at the height of its glory as a centre of literature and civilisation, Bernard, called the Wise,[9] with two other monks, one Italian, the other Spanish, visited the Holy Land from Egypt, and they were able to obtain permits which were respected by the local governors.
The rise of the Fatemites in Egypt altered materially the status of the Christians in Syria. We have no known Christian account of Palestine between the ninth and twelfth centuries. Hakem, the mad Khalif of Egypt, destroyed the Christian churches in Jerusalem in 1010 A.D., and the country seems to have been then closed to pilgrims.
During this period, however, we have at least two important works, namely, that of El Mukaddasi (about 985 A.D.), and the journey of Nasir i Khusrau in 1047 A.D.[10] El Mukaddasi (“the man of Jerusalem”) was so named from his native town, his real name being Shems ed Dîn. He describes the whole of Syria, its towns and holy places (or Moslem sanctuaries), its climate, religion, commerce, manners and customs, and local marvellous sights. The legends are no less wonderful than those of his monkish predecessors, but his notes are often of great historical interest, and he is the earliest writer as yet known who plainly ascribes the building of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem to its real author, the Khalif ’Abd el Melek. It is remarkable that he speaks of the Syrian Moslems as living in constant terror of the Greek pirates, who descended on the coasts and made slaves of the inhabitants, whom they carried off to Constantinople. The Christians were still, he says, numerous in Jerusalem, and “unmannerly in public places.” The power of the Khalifs was indeed at this time greatly shaken by the schisms of Islam, and the Greek galleys invaded the ports, which had to be closed by iron chains. The Samaritans appear to have flourished at this time as well as the Jews, and the Samaritan Chronicle, which commences in the twelfth century, speaks of this sect as very widely spread even earlier, in the sixth and seventh centuries A.D.