At Easter in 1008, Al-Hakim started tightening controls on religious freedoms in Jerusalem, forbidding Christians from making their annual Palm Sunday procession from Bethany.
Holy Sepulchre destruction
On 29 September 1009, Al-Hakim ordered a governor or Ramla called Yarukh to demolish the area around Constantine's original Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Yarukh, along with his son Yusuf, Al-Husayn ibn Zahir al-Wazzan and Abu'l-Farawis Al-Dayf were among those who started destroying various buildings. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was said to be built on the site of the Calvary or Golgotha where Jesus was believed by Christians to have been crucified, over a rock-cut room that Helena and Macarius identified as the location of the resurrection. The destruction was chronicled by Yahya ibn Sa'id of Antioch who noted it "cast down as far as the foundations" and the rock cut tomb was demolished in the attempt to "cause all trace of it to disappear". All sacred remains and holy relics were "completely annihilated". Iron hammers were ineffectual against the bedrock foundations of the tomb, so they resorted to burning it with fire.
Wider desecration
The desecration was not only carried out on Christian sites in and around Jerusalem. In campaigns of 1011 and 1013–14, Al-Hakim continued his campaign of destruction against Jewish synagogues and Torah scrolls along with churches all over Syria. Unlike other Fatimids, Al-Hakim launched persecutions against dhimmis that lasted throughout his reign. Christians were made to wear crosses and Jews forced to wear wooden blocks around their necks. He only stopped for fear of retaliatory attacks on Mosques in Christian lands.
European reaction
When the news reached Europe, Christians were horrified and Pope Sergius IV sent a circular letter to all churches calling for a holy fight in the Middle East and expulsion of Muslims from the Holy land. The events would later be recalled by Pope Urban II in his preaching for the Crusade at Clermont. Although the crusades happened almost a century after the desecration and caused by various other complex political intrigues, it was still very much in the public mind as a cause. It was considered so by William of Tyre. Adémar de Chabannes wrote about the events, drawing associations between Al-Hakim and the Antichrist, blaming the Jews for inspiring his desecration of the Holy Sepulchre. Rudolfus Glaber also wrote a history of the events blaming French Jews from Orléans for sending a message to the Caliph via a pilgrim disguised as a Jew. The message was said to have been hidden inside a hollow staff and urged the Caliph to destroy the sepulchre on threat Christians would take over his empire otherwise. Rudolfus portrays Al-Hakim as gullible and firmly cast blame on the Jews. This led to outbreaks of antisemitism and violence against Jews across Europe with King Robert II of France ordering forced conversions and Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor to expel Jews from Mainz, condemning Judaism as heresy.
Al-Hakim's motivations for the desecration are unclear and have been variously attested. John J. Saunders states that his anti-Christian policies were intended to mitigate the discontent aroused by his father's liberal attitude towards non-Muslims. There were also suspicions of Christians colluding with Bedouin tribes to undermine Fatimid power. It was possibly in relatiation for Byzantine attacks. In Master of the Age, historian Paul. E Walker writes that in the popular imagination of the era, Al-Hakim's actions were interpreted by some Muslims as "doing what a Muslim leader should do" by destroying the pre-Islamic cultural heritage as part of a policy seen to be "commanding the good and forbidding the bad". William of Tyre suggested Al-Hakim's mother may have been Christian and he desecrated Jerusalem simply to quash these suggestions. Some note Al-Hakim's shifting religious allegiances finally starting a new Abrahamic religion. Others simply think he was psychotic.
