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In 637
CE, the Muslim army under Abu Ubaida ibn al-Jarrah captured Baalbek after
defeating the Byzantine army at Battle of Yarmouk. It was still an opulent city
and yielded rich plunder. It became a bone of contention between the various
Syrian dynasties and the caliphs first of Damascus, then of Egypt. The place
was fortified and took on the name al-Qala‘ but in 748 was sacked again
with great slaughter. The Byzantine Emperor John Tzimisces sacked the city in
975. In 1090 it passed to the Seljuks and in 1134 to Zengi; but after 1145 it
remained attached to Damascus and was captured by Saladin in 1175. The Crusaders
raided its valley more than once but never took the city. Three times shaken by
earthquakes in the 12th century, it was dismantled by 1260 when it served as
the Mongol base for the last unsuccessful attack upon the Mamlukes of Egypt.
But it revived, and most of its fine mosque and fortress architecture, still
extant, belonged to the reign of Sultan Qalawun (1282), during which Abulfeda
describes it as a very strong place. In 1400 Timur pillaged it.
Ottoman period
In 1517,
it passed, with the rest of Syria, to the