High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Jerusalem was besieged and captured by the Rashidun army in 637 CE during the Islamic invasion of the Byzantine Empire, shortly after the decisive defeat of the Byzantine army at the Battle of Yarmouk. Rashidun army under Abu Ubaidah besieged Jerusalem in November 636. After a prolonged siege of six months, Patriarch Sophronius agreed to surrender the city but only to the caliph himself. In April 637, Caliph Umar personally came to Jerusalem to receive its submission. The Muslim conquest of Jerusalem solidified the Arab control over Palestine, which would not again be threatened until the Crusades. The city of Jerusalem came to be regarded as a holy site by Islam as well as the earlier major religions of Christianity and Judaism. It was after the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem that the Jews were allowed to live and practice their religion freely in Jerusalem by Caliph Umar after nearly 500 years of expulsion from the Holy Land by the Romans.