Palestine under the Umayyads, forms, with Syria, one of the main provinces of the empire.

An emir assisted by a financial officer administers each jund. (This pattern will continue, in general, up to the time of Ottoman rule.)

The Umayyads for various reasons pay special attention to Palestine, where the process of Arabization and Islamization is gaining momentum.

It is one of the mainstays of Umayyad power and important in their struggle against both Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula.

Caliph 'Abd al-Malik between 685 and 691 has erected a magnificent mosque (eventually known as the Dome of the Rock) on the site of the destroyed great Temple of Jerusalem, which is also the alleged nocturnal resting place of the Prophet Muhammad on his nocturnal journey to heaven.

Constructed not as a mosque for public worship but rather as a mashhad, a shrine for pilgrims, it is virtually the first monumental building in Islamic history (and the earliest Muslim monument still extant.)