Conquest of Jerusalem

After a siege, the Christian patriarch Sophronius agreed to surrender Jerusalem, but he asked that Caliph Umar himself accept the terms. Umar traveled from Medina and signed an agreement that guaranteed the security of the city's Christians, their churches and property. A well-known account says Umar prayed outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre so that the church would not later be claimed as a mosque. The surrender is dated to 637 CE.