The city of Bayt al-Maqdis enjoyed prosperity and its people enjoyed freedom for centuries until the arrival of the Crusades. As soon as the Fatimids seized the city from the Artuqids, change seemed inevitable as the region was soon lost to the first crusade. The Crusaders deliberately evacuated the Holy City and its environs, including its villages and towns through many means, perhaps the most prominent of which was the massacres they carried out in the cities and villages