hand. He then reaches a cave, in which nothing is to be found, and a cave beyond, which is likewise empty, but when he reaches the third cave behold there are six sepulchres, those of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, respectively facing those of Sarah, Rebekah and Leah. The Kurdish Muslim Saladin retook Hebron in 1187 – again with Jewish assistance according to one late tradition, in exchange for a letter of security allowing them to return to the city and build a synagogue there. The name of the city was changed back to Al-Khalil. A Kurdish quarter still existed in the town during the early period of Ottoman rule. Richard the Lionheart retook the city soon after. Richard of Cornwall, brought from England to settle the dangerous feuding between Templars and Hospitallers, whose rivalry imperiled the treaty guaranteeing regional stability stipulated with the Egyptian Sultan As-Salih Ayyub, managed to impose peace on the area. But soon after his departure, feuding broke out and in 1241 the Templars mounted a damaging raid on what was, by now, Muslim Hebron, in violation of agreements. In 1244, the Khwarazmians destroyed the town, but left the sanctuary untouched. Mamluk period In 1260, after Mamluk Sultan Baibars defeated the Mongol army, the minarets were built onto the sanctuary. Six years later, while on pilgrimage to Hebron, Baibars promulgated an edict forbidding Christians and Jews from entering the sanctuary, and the climate became less tolerant of Jews and Christians than it had been under the prior Ayyubid rule. The edict for the exclusion of Christians and Jews was not strictly enforced until the middle of the 14th-century and by 1490, not even Muslims were permitted to enter the caverns. The mill at Artas was built in 1307, and the profits from its income were dedicated to the hospital in Hebron. Between 1318–20, the Na'ib of Gaza and much of coastal and interior Palestine ordered the construction of Jawli Mosque to enlarge the prayer space for worshipers at the Ibrahimi Mosque. Hebron was visited by some important rabbis over the next two centuries, among them Nachmanides (1270) and Ishtori HaParchi (1322) who noted the old Jewish cemetery there. Sunni imam Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya (1292–1350) was penalised by the religious authorities in Damascus for refusing to recognise Hebron as a Muslim pilgrimage site, a view also held by his teacher Ibn Taymiyyah. The Italian traveller, Meshulam of Volterra