page_title: Nablus
section_title: Early Islamic era
hierarchical_section_title: Nablus / History / Early Islamic era
caption_attribution_description: English: An old photo of Nablus' Great Mosque minaret
context_page_description: Nablus is a city in the northern West Bank, approximately 49 kilometers north of Jerusalem, with a population of 126,132. Located between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a Palestinian commercial and cultural center, home to An-Najah National University, one of the largest Palestinian institutions of higher learning, and the Palestinian stock-exchange.
  The city was named by the Roman emperor Vespasian in 72 CE as Flavia Neapolis. During the Byzantine period, conflict between the city's Christian and Samaritan inhabitants peaked in a series of Samaritan revolts before their suppression in 529 dwindled that community's numbers in the city. With the Muslim conquest in the 7th century, the city was given its present Arabic name Nablus. The Crusaders drafted the laws of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Council of Nablus and its Muslim, Christian and Samaritan inhabitants prospered. The city then came under the control of the Ayyubids and Mamluk Sultanate. Under the Ottomans, who conquered the city in 1517, Nablus served as the administrative and commercial center for the surrounding area, corresponding to the present-day northern West Bank.
context_section_description: Neapolis, along with most of Palestine, was conquered by the Muslims under Khalid ibn al-Walid, a general of the Rashidun army of Umar ibn al-Khattab, in 636 after the Battle of Yarmouk. The city's name was retained in its Arabicized form, Nabulus. The town prevailed as an important trade center during the centuries of Islamic Arab rule under the Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid dynasties. Under Muslim rule, Nablus contained a diverse population of Arabs and Persians, Muslims, Samaritans, Christians and Jews. In the 10th century, the Arab geographer al-Muqaddasi, described it as abundant of olive trees, with a large marketplace, a finely paved Great Mosque, houses built of stone, a stream running through the center of the city, and notable mills. He also noted that it was nicknamed "Little Damascus." At the time, the linen produced in Nablus was well known throughout the Old World.
caption: Minaret and entrance of 10th-century Great Mosque of Nablus, 1908
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