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When these terms had been agreed upon by both sides and the treaty signed and sealed, ‘Omar requested the patriarch to lead him to the Mosque (Masjid, or “place of adoration,”) of David. The patriarch acceding to this request, ‘Omar, accompanied by four thousand attendants, was conducted by him into the Holy City. They first proceeded to the church of the Holy Sepulchre,[27] which the patriarch pointed out as the site of David’s temple. “Thou liest,” said ‘Omar, curtly, and was proceeding to leave the spot when the hour of prayer arrived, and the caliph declared his intention of retiring to perform his religious duties. The patriarch invited him to pray where he stood, in the church itself. This ‘Omar refused to do, and was next led to the church of Constantine, where a sejjádeh, or prayer mat, was spread for him. Declining this accommodation also, the caliph went outside the church, and prayed alone upon the door-steps. When asked the reason for his objection to pray within the church, he told the patriarch that he had expressly avoided doing so, lest his countrymen should afterwards make his act a precedent and an excuse for confiscating the property. So anxious was he not to give the least occasion for the exercise of injustice, that he called for pen and paper, and then and there wrote a document, which he delivered to the patriarch, forbidding Moslems to pray even upon the steps of the church, except it were one at a time, and strictly prohibiting them from calling the people to prayer at the spot, or in any way using it as one of their own mosques.

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