Demolition of the walls of Jerusalem, 616

At the start of 616 AH al-Malik al-Muʿazzam had the walls of Jerusalem demolished, out of fear and an inability to resist, lest the Franks take it. Work on tearing down the walls began on the first day of Muharram ².

The people cried out. Veiled women, girls, old men and young men went out to the Rock and to al-Aqsa. They cut their hair, fled leaving their property behind, and believed the Franks would come upon them at dawn. Some fled to Egypt, some to Karak, some to Damascus, and many died of hunger and thirst. The property they had left in Jerusalem was plundered. A qintar of oil was sold for ten dirhams and a rotl of copper for half a dirham ³.

People blamed al-Muʿazzam, and poets composed verses criticising him. One poet wrote a verse that mocked him for the ruin of Jerusalem in Muharram and for employing Copts and Christians afterwards. The judge of Tur, Majd al-Din, composed a poem in which he said that if the city could be ransomed with lives, he would ransom it with his own life ³.

Al-Muʿazzam feared the Franks might take the city again and use it as a base. But the demolition fell on its inhabitants before the Franks arrived. In the same year Damietta was handed over by its people to the Franks, and great terror spread through all of Syria ³.