Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Syriac sources—from Ramla and Antioch to Constantinople, Baghdad, and Cairo—describe comparable effects of the 1033/4 CE Palestine Quake(s) in Jerusalem: collapsed city walls, partial destruction of the al-Aqsa Mosque and nearby convents and churches, fallen vaults and domes, shattered prayer niches, and loss of life, followed by aftershocks and major reconstruction efforts under Fatimid authority.

The earliest surviving account of this earthquake comes from Solomon ben Zemah, a contemporary writing in Ramla immediately after the shock. He reports that an earthquake struck “suddenly before sunset,” affecting the whole of Filasṭīn from fortified city to village, including Jerusalem and its surroundings. Near the same time, Yahya of Antioch wrote from Antioch that “part of the great mosque of Jerusalem collapsed, as well as convents and churches in its province.” This independent account details serious wall collapses in major religious structures, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Christian monasteries. A Greek source preserved in an Analecta Ierosolymitikis Stachiologias adds that when the Mutawil of Jerusalem began dismantling churches for stone to rebuild the city walls, “an astonishing earthquake” intervened: part of “the Dome in Jerusalem” fell, half the wall of Ramla collapsed, and “a countless multitude died.” This text, apparently composed soon after the event, highlights damage to domes and vaults as well as defensive masonry.

A century later, the traveler Benjamin of Tudela repeated an earlier Hebrew narrative, describing how “the citadels and the countryside were razed to sea level as far as Banyas … as far as Jerusalem.” In the second half of the 12th century, Michael Glycas, writing near Constantinople, reported that “Jerusalem was afflicted by an earthquake, such that in the ruins of temples and houses a large number of people were crushed and the earth shook for forty days.” His version reinforces both the collapse of domestic and sacred buildings and the persistence of aftershocks.

Baghdadi historian Ibn al-Jawzi added architectural precision: “part of the city walls of Jerusalem collapsed, a large piece fell off the prayer niche (miḥrāb) of David [in Al-Aqsa Mosque], but the Mosque of the Rock was not damaged.” Two later writers preserved or reitereated al-Jawzi's account. Bar Hebraeus noted that “portions of the walls of the Temple in Jerusalem fell down,” and as-Suyūṭī, citing Ibn al-Jawzi as his source, echoed that the wall of Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem) collapsed as did a part of the Miḥrāb of Dāwūd in Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Archaeological corroboration appears in later architectural inscriptions. Restoration of the Haram outer wall and the Aqsa Mosque under the Fatimid caliph al-Ẓāhir is recorded by Le Strange (1890:101-102), who cites an inscription dated 425 A.H. (1033/4 CE) mentioning repair of the southern and eastern outer walls and another inscription observed by Ali of Herat in 1173 CE, recording the restoration and re-gilding of the Dome of the Aqsa in A.H. 426 (1034/5 CE).