Al-Hakim destroys the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Al-Hakim, who became caliph at the age of eleven in 996 and took power into his own hands in 1000, began in 1004 to issue decrees against the non-Muslims of his realm: Christians were forbidden to celebrate Epiphany and Easter, from 1005 Christians and Jews had to wear distinctive black turbans and belts, crosses or wooden blocks, and churches and synagogues in Egypt and Syria were confiscated or destroyed, especially in 1011 and 1013–1014. The order against the Holy Sepulchre was carried out by Yaruq, governor of Ramla. According to the Christian chronicler Yahya of Antioch, the work began on Tuesday, 18 October 1009: the church was stripped of its furnishings and pulled down together with Calvary and the basilica of Constantine, and "only those things that were too difficult to demolish were spared". The rock-cut tomb itself was hacked away and burned; only parts of its walls survived.

Al-Hakim's motives remain unclear. Several Muslim chroniclers say he was angered by the ceremony of the Holy Fire at Easter, which they regarded as a fraud by the clergy; the crusader-era historian William of Tyre claimed that the caliph wanted to dispel rumours that his mother was a Christian, a story most historians dismiss. Modern explanations range from political motives — retaliation for Byzantine attacks, suspicion that Christians were colluding with the Bedouin — to the caliph's unstable character, which earned him the name of the "Mad Caliph" in the West. In his last years he allowed forced converts to return to their faith and to rebuild their houses of worship; Ismaili missionaries proclaimed him a manifestation of God, the origin of the Druze faith, and in 1021 he vanished.

In Europe the news caused horror. The chroniclers Adémar of Chabannes and Rodulfus Glaber blamed the Jews for inciting the caliph, and persecutions of Jews followed in France and Germany. A bull of Pope Sergius IV calling for the Muslims to be driven from the Holy Land survives, but its authenticity is disputed: Carl Erdmann thought it genuine, while Aleksander Gieysztor considered it a forgery from the time of the First Crusade. After negotiations in 1027–1028, al-Hakim's son al-Zahir allowed the Byzantines to rebuild the church; the work, concentrated on the rotunda over the tomb, was completed in 1048 under Constantine IX Monomachos, while the great basilica remained in ruins. The destruction was later invoked among the grievances that justified the crusades.