Proto-Canaanite period
Archaeological evidence suggests that the first settlement was established near Gihon Spring between 4500 and 3500 BCE. The first known mention of the city was in c. 2000 BCE in the

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Hellenistic period
Ptolemaic and Seleucid province
When Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire, Jerusalem and Judea fell under Greek

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Rashidun, Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates
Although the Qur'an does not mention the name "Jerusalem", the hadith assert that it was from Jerusalem that Muhammad ascended to heaven in the Night Journey, or Isra and Miraj

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First Crusader kingdom (1099–1187)
Fatimid control of Jerusalem ended when it was captured by Crusadersin July 1099. The capture was

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In 1250 a crisis within the Ayyubid state led to the rise of the Mamluks to power and a transition to the Mamluk Sultanate, which is divided between the Bahri and Burji periods. The Ayyubids tried to hold on to power in Syria, but the Mongol invasion of 1260put

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Early Ottoman period
In 1516, Jerusalem was taken over by the Ottoman Empire along with all of Greater Syria and enjoyed a period of renewal and peace under

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Late Ottoman period
In the mid-19th century, with the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the city was a backwater, with a population that did not exceed 8,000. Nevertheless, it was, even then, an extremely heterogeneous city because of its

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