After the Muslim victories at Yarmūk and the long investment of Jerusalem, the city's patriarch Sophronius offered surrender on condition the caliph receive it in person. ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb travelled from Madinah, accepted the surrender, and granted the inhabitants the assurance of safety for their persons, churches and crosses that later tradition preserved as al-ʿUhdah al-ʿUmariyyah, the Pact of ʿUmar.
The chronicles tell how he declined to pray inside the Church of the Resurrection lest it be turned into a mosque after him, praying instead outside — and how he had the neglected Temple Mount cleared, where the Aqṣā mosque would rise.
The year is transmitted as 16 AH in the main line, with 15 and 17 also given; no month or day is recorded, and this entry says so rather than inventing one.