معاوية بن أبي سفيان
In about 635, an Arab army led by Muawiyah I conquered Palestine and the entire Levant, making it a province of the new Medina-based Arab Empire. The Byzantine ban on Jews living in Jerusalem came to an end and Palestine gradually came to be dominated politically and socially by Muslims, though the dominant religion of the country down to the Crusades may still have been Christian.