Jews will never be forced to abandon the Western Wall again. Obama’s biased UNSC resolution will make the conflict worse, incite more terrorism

“Mecca: The heart of Islam; Jerusalem: The Heart of Judaism…Muslims have 4 holy cities, why can’t Jews have one? Jerusalem: The Spiritual Capital of Judaism…”

King David’s Jerusalem: the heart of Judaism; Mohammed’s Mecca: the heart of Islam
by Ezequiel Doiny

Part 1: Jerusalem  has always been the only spiritual capital of Judaism, the Muslims have Mecca, Medina, Najaf, Karbala.On May 20, 2016 ABC News reported that “Arab and Islamic nations are demanding that the United Nations remove a panel from an Israeli exhibition that calls Jerusalem “the spiritual and physical capital of the Jewish people.”A letter from the Palestinian U.N. mission to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and General Assembly President Mogens Lykketoft circulated Thursday evening expressed “vehement rejection” at the description, echoing protests by Arab nations at the U.N. and the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation…The letter said any references “which purport to assert Israeli sovereignty on this land … are legally, politically and morally incorrect and unacceptable.arabs”

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/arabs-demand-remove-panel-israeli-exhibition-39244036

Jerusalem has always been the only spiritual capital of the Jewish People. The spiritual capital of the Arabs is Mecca. Jews face Jerusalem when they pray around the World. Muslims face Mecca, even when they pray in or around Jerusalem.

The word Jerusalem comes from the Hebrew “Yir-Hu-Shalaim” (City of Peace) founded by King David as described in the Bible.

The Arabs call it “Al-Quds” because they don’t speak hebrew and need to rename it in Arabic. Many other cities that the Arabs claim also have Hebrew names: Hebron (described in the Bible as the city where the Jewish Patriarcs Abraham, Itzac and Yaakov (but not the Muslim Prophet Muhammad) are buried), Belem (from the Hebrew “Bait Lehem”, house of bread)). Muslims want to rename Jerusalem to Al-Quds, the same way they renamed Constantinople to Istambul.

The name “Judaism” comes from “Judea”, the name of the Kingdom that was located where today is the West Bank named after “Judah” one of the sons of the Jewish Patriarch Jacob.

On May 2016 Elder of Zion wrote “According to Shia Islam, Najaf and Karbala are holier than Jerusalem with some even claiming that Karbala is holier than Mecca and Medina…Sufi Muslims have a completely different list of top holiest sites.

Describing the Al Aqsa Mosque as the third holiest site in Islam is simply wrong. At best, it is the third holiest site in Sunni Islam. (You can also argue about whether Mohammed was describing Jerusalem in his “night journey” story – it is not at all clear that he was.)…”

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2016/05/time-to-kill-third-holiest-site-in.html

S.M.Zwemer, a respected American Christian missionary who lived in Muslim Countries for many years , in his book “Mohammed or Christ, an account of the rapid spread of Islam…” wrote in 1915 “Mecca has not loss its importance in the passing of the centuries…it is still the heart of Islam…Mecca is not only the religious capital of the cradle of the Muslim faith and the birth place of their prophet but it is the central shrine of Islam towards which for centuries prayers and pilgrimages have gravitated. The whole narrative… both in the Koran and in  tradition, finds in Mecca its real environment. Adam and Eve meet each other in Mount Arafah. Eve lies buried in Jiddah.  God himself appointed the place for the Kaaba, and the stone is still sacred on which Abraham stood when he erected the building!…seen from an airplane,  there would be  concentric circles of  living worshippers covering an even  widening area, and one would also see stretched out vast areas of moslem  cemeteries with every grave built towards the sacred city…Mohammed …reasserted the sanctity of the black stone that “came down from heaven” ;  he ordained that everywhere throughout the World the Moslem should pray looking towards the Kaaba, and enjoined him to make the pilgrimage thither. Mecca is to the Moslem what Jerusalem is to the Jew.”

Wikipedia describes:

“Mecca is a city in Saudi Arabia…As the birthplace of Muhammad and the site of Muhammad’s first revelation of the Quran (specifically, a cave 3 km (2 mi) from Mecca), Mecca is regarded as the holiest city in the religion of Islam…”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecca

“The Hajj (/hæd?/;[1] Arabic: ???? ?a?? “pilgrimage”) is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, and a mandatory religious duty for Muslims that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by all adult Muslims who are physically and financially capable of undertaking the journey, and can support their family during their absence…there were approximately 2,000,000 pilgrims in 2015…”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajj

Medina  is a city in Saudi Arabia. The city contains al-Masjid an-Nabawi (“the Prophet’s Mosque”), which is the burial place of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and is the second-holiest city in Islam after Mecca.

Medina was Muhammad’s destination after his Hijrah from Mecca, and became the capital of a rapidly increasing Muslim Empire, first under Muhammad’s leadership, and then under the first four Rashidun caliphs, Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali. It served as the power base of Islam in its first century where the early Muslim community developed. Medina is home to the three oldest mosques, namely the Quba Mosque, al-Masjid an-Nabawi, and Masjid al-Qiblatayn (“the mosque of the two qiblas”). Muslims believe that the chronologically final surahs of the Quran were revealed to Muhammad in Medina, and are called Medinan surahs in contrast to the earlier Meccan surahs…

Medina’s importance as a religious site derives from the presence of al-Masjid an-Nabawi. The mosque was expanded by the Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid I. Mount Uhud is a mountain north of Medina which was the site of the second battle between Muslim and Meccan forces.

The first mosque built during Muhammad’s time is also located in Medina and is known as the Quba Mosque. It was destroyed by lightning, probably about 850 CE, and the graves were almost forgotten. In 892, the place was cleared up, the graves located and a fine mosque built, which was destroyed by fire in 1257 CE and almost immediately rebuilt. It was restored by Qaitbay, the Egyptian ruler, in 1487.[9]

Masjid al-Qiblatain is another mosque also historically important to Muslims. It is where the command was sent to Muhammad to change the direction of prayer (qibla) from Jerusalem to Mecca according to authentic Hadith…”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medina

“…Though not a part of Hajj, pilgrims may choose to travel to the city of Medina and the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (Mosque of the Prophet), which contains Muhammad’s tomb.[47] The Quba Mosque and Masjid al-Qiblatayn are also usually visited”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajj

“Najaf  is a city in Iraq ….Najaf is considered sacred by both Shi’a and Sunni Muslims. Najaf is renowned as the site of the tomb of Ali ibn Ab? Talib also known as “Imam Ali”, the First Imam of the Shiites, the cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, whom the Shi’a consider to be the righteous caliph. Sunnis consider Ali the fourth Rashidun (rightly guided Caliphs). The city is now a center of pilgrimage from throughout the Shi’a Islamic world. It is estimated that only Mecca and Medina receive more Muslim pilgrims. As the burial site of Shi’a Islam’s second most important figure,[7] the Imam Ali Mosque is considered by Shiites as the third holiest Islamic site”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Najaf

“…The Secretariat General of the Holy Shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf province assured that the number of the pilgrims who visited the province on Eid al-Fitr reached up to million visitors.

The Director of the Media Department within the Holy Shine’s administration stated to IraqiNews.com “The number of the visitors who headed to the holy shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf during the Eid al-Fitr occasion reached more than a million.”

Meshed_ali_usnavy_(PD)

“Karbala  is a city in Iraq….The city, best known as the location of the Battle of Karbala (680), is believed to be the holiest city for Shia Muslims before Mecca, Medina and the noble sanctuary in Jerusalem because tens of millions of Shia Muslims visit the site twice a year, which is more than the total Shia visitors of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem combined (see list of largest peaceful gatherings in history). Karbala is home to the Imam Hussein Shrine. Karbala is famous as the site of the martyrdom of Hussein ibn Ali (Imam Husain), and commemorations are held by millions of Shias annually to remember it. Karbala is considered sacred by Shias[2] and rivals Mecca as a place of pilgrimage…”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karbala

“The Arbaeen Pilgrimage is the largest religious gathering that is held every year.[1][2] It is held at the end of the 40-day mourning period following Ashura, the religious ritual for the commemoration of the Prophet Mohammad’s grandson Hossein ibn Ali’s death in 680.[3][4] Arba’een marks a “pivotal event in history”[5] in which the pilgrims make their journey to Karbala on foot,[6] where Husayn ibn Ali, the third Imam of Shia, and his army were killed and beheaded by the army of Yazid I.[1] Some of the pilgrims make their journey from cities as far as Basra, about 500 km away by road…Over 19 million people from 40 countries of the world participate in this occasion…”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arba%27een_Pilgrimage

Mohammed never visited Jerusalem. There is no evidence Mohammed was describing Jerusalem in his “night journey” story. In 2001 Daniel Pipes wrote in Middle East Forum that “The Jewish connection to Jerusalem is an ancient and powerful one. Judaism made Jerusalem a holy city over three thousand years ago and through all that time Jews remained steadfast to it. Jews pray in its direction, mention its name constantly in prayers, close the Passover service with the wistful statement “Next year in Jerusalem,” and recall the city in the blessing at the end of each meal. The destruction of the Temple looms very large in Jewish consciousness; remembrance takes such forms as a special day of mourning, houses left partially unfinished, a woman’s makeup or jewelry left incomplete, and a glass smashed during the wedding ceremony. In addition, Jerusalem has had a prominent historical role, is the only capital of a Jewish state, and is the only city with a Jewish majority during the whole of the past century. In the words of its current mayor, Jerusalem represents “the purist expression of all that Jews prayed for, dreamed of, cried for, and died for in the two thousand years since the destruction of the Second Temple.”1

What about Muslims? Where does Jerusalem fit in Islam and Muslim history? It is not the place to which they pray, is not once mentioned by name in prayers, and it is connected to no mundane events in Muhammad’s life. The city never served as capital of a sovereign Muslim state, and it never became a cultural or scholarly center. Little of political import by Muslims was initiated there.

One comparison makes this point most clearly: Jerusalem appears in the Jewish Bible 669 times and Zion (which usually means Jerusalem, sometimes the Land of Israel) 154 times, or 823 times in all. The Christian Bible mentions Jerusalem 154 times and Zion 7 times. In contrast, the columnist Moshe Kohn notes, Jerusalem and Zion appear as frequently in the Qur’an “as they do in the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita, the Taoist Tao-Te Ching, the Buddhist Dhamapada and the Zoroastrian Zend Avesta”—which is to say, not once.2

The city being of such evidently minor religious importance, why does it now loom so large for Muslims, to the point that a Muslim Zionism seems to be in the making across the Muslim world? Why do Palestinian demonstrators take to the streets shouting “We will sacrifice our blood and souls for you, Jerusalem”3 and their brethren in Jordan yell “We sacrifice our blood and soul for Al-Aqsa”?4 Why does King Fahd of Saudi Arabia call on Muslim states to protect “the holy city [that] belongs to all Muslims across the world”?5 Why did two surveys of American Muslims find Jerusalem their most pressing foreign policy issue?6

Because of politics. An historical survey shows that the stature of the city, and the emotions surrounding it, inevitably rises for Muslims when Jerusalem has political significance. Conversely, when the utility of Jerusalem expires, so does its status and the passions about it. This pattern first emerged during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad in the early seventh century. Since then, it has been repeated on five occasions: in the late seventh century, in the twelfth century Countercrusade, in the thirteenth century Crusades, during the era of British rule (1917-48), and since Israel took the city in 1967. The consistency that emerges in such a long period provides an important perspective on the current confrontation.

I. The Prophet Muhammad

According to the Arabic-literary sources, Muhammad in a.d. 622 fled his home town of Mecca for Medina, a city with a substantial Jewish population. On arrival in Medina, if not slightly earlier, the Qur’an adopted a number of practices friendly to Jews: a Yom Kippur-like fast, a synagogue-like place of prayer, permission to eat kosher food, and approval to marry Jewish women. Most important, the Qur’an repudiated the pre-Islamic practice of the Meccans to pray toward the Ka‘ba, the small stone structure at the center of the main mosque in Mecca. Instead, it adopted the Judaic practice of facing the Temple Mount in Jerusalem during prayer. (Actually, the Qur’an only mentions the direction as “Syria”; other information makes it clear that Jerusalem is meant.)

This, the first qibla (direction of prayer) of Islam, did not last long. The Jews criticized the new faith and rejected the friendly Islamic gestures; not long after, the Qur’an broke with them, probably in early 624. The explanation of this change comes in a Qur’anic verse instructing the faithful no longer to pray toward Syria but instead toward Mecca. The passage (2:142-52) begins by anticipating questions about this abrupt change:

The Fools among the people will say: “What has turned them [the Muslims] from the qibla to which they were always used?”

God then provides the answer:

We appointed the qibla that to which you was used, only to test those who followed the Messenger [Muhammad] from those who would turn on their heels [on Islam].

In other words, the new qibla served as a way to distinguish Muslims from Jews. From now on, Mecca would be the direction of prayer:

now shall we turn you to a qibla that shall please you. Then turn your face in the direction of the Sacred Mosque [in Mecca]. Wherever you are, turn your faces in that direction.

The Qur’an then reiterates the point about no longer paying attention to Jews:

Even if you were to bring all the signs to the people of the Book [i.e., Jews], they would not follow your qibla.

Muslims subsequently accepted the point implicit to the Qur’anic explanation, that the adoption of Jerusalem as qibla was a tactical move to win Jewish converts. “He chose the Holy House in Jerusalem in order that the People of the Book [i.e., Jews] would be conciliated,” notes At-Tabari, an early Muslim commentator on the Qur’an, “and the Jews were glad.”7 Modern historians agree: W. Montgomery Watt, a leading biographer of Muhammad, interprets the prophet’s “far-reaching concessions to Jewish feeling” in the light of two motives, one of which was “the desire for a reconciliation with the Jews.”8

After the Qur’an repudiated Jerusalem, so did the Muslims: the first description of the town under Muslim rule comes from the visiting Bishop Arculf, a Gallic pilgrim, in 680, who reported seeing “an oblong house of prayer, which they [the Muslims] pieced together with upright plans and large beams over some ruined remains.”9 Not for the last time, safely under Muslim control, Jerusalem became a backwater.10

This episode set the mold that would be repeated many times over succeeding centuries: Muslims take interest religiously in Jerusalem because of pressing but temporary concerns. Then, when those concerns lapse, so does the focus on Jerusalem, and the city’s standing greatly diminishes.

II. Umayyads

The second round of interest in Jerusalem occurred during the rule of the Damascus-based Umayyad dynasty (661-750). A dissident leader in Mecca, ‘Abdullah b. az-Zubayr began a revolt against the Umayyads in 680 that lasted until his death in 692; while fighting him, Umayyad rulers sought to aggrandize Syria at the expense of Arabia (and perhaps also to help recruit an army against the Byzantine Empire). They took some steps to sanctify Damascus, but mostly their campaign involved what Amikam Elad of the Hebrew University calls an “enormous” effort “to exalt and to glorify” Jerusalem.11 They may even have hoped to make it the equal of Mecca.

The first Umayyad ruler, Mu‘awiya, chose Jerusalem as the place where he ascended to the caliphate; he and his successors engaged in a construction program – religious edifices, a palace, and roads – in the city. The Umayyads possibly had plans to make Jerusalem their political and administrative capital; indeed, Elad finds that they in effect treated it as such. But Jerusalem is primarily a city of faith, and, as the Israeli scholar Izhak Hasson explains, the “Umayyad regime was interested in ascribing an Islamic aura to its stronghold and center.”12 Toward this end (as well as to assert Islam’s presence in its competition with Christianity), the Umayyad caliph built Islam’s first grand structure, the Dome of the Rock, right on the spot of the Jewish Temple, in 688-91.13 This remarkable building is not just the first monumental sacred building of Islam but also the only one that still stands today in roughly its original form.

The next Umayyad step was subtle and complex, and requires a pause to note a passage of the Qur’an (17:1) describing the Prophet Muhammad’s Night Journey to heaven (isra’):

Glory to He who took His servant by night from the Sacred Mosque to the furthest mosque. (Subhana allathina asra bi-‘abdihi laylatan min al-masjidi al-harami ila al-masjidi al-aqsa.)

When this Qur’anic passage was first revealed, in about 621, a place called the Sacred Mosque already existed in Mecca. In contrast, the “furthest mosque” was a turn of phrase, not a place. Some early Muslims understood it as metaphorical or as a place in heaven.14 And if the “furthest mosque” did exist on earth, Palestine would seem an unlikely location, for many reasons. Some of them:

Elsewhere in the Qur’an (30:1), Palestine is called “the closest land” (adna al-ard).Palestine had not yet been conquered by the Muslims and contained not a single mosque.

The “furthest mosque” was apparently identified with places inside Arabia: either Medina15 or a town called Ji‘rana, about ten miles from Mecca, which the Prophet visited in 630.16

The earliest Muslim accounts of Jerusalem, such as the description of Caliph ‘Umar’s reported visit to the city just after the Muslims conquest in 638, nowhere identify the Temple Mount with the “furthest mosque” of the Qur’an.

The Qur’anic inscriptions that make up a 240-meter mosaic frieze inside the Dome of the Rock do not include Qur’an 17:1 and the story of the Night Journey, suggesting that as late as 692 the idea of Jerusalem as the lift-off for the Night Journey had not yet been established. (Indeed, the first extant inscriptions of Qur’an 17:1 in Jerusalem date from the eleventh century.)

Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiya (638-700), a close relative of the Prophet Muhammad, is quoted denigrating the notion that the prophet ever set foot on the Rock in Jerusalem; “these damned Syrians,” by which he means the Umayyads, “pretend that God put His foot on the Rock in Jerusalem, though [only] one person ever put his foot on the rock, namely Abraham.”17

Then, in 715, to build up the prestige of their dominions, the Umayyads did a most clever thing: they built a second mosque in Jerusalem, again on the Temple Mount, and called this one the Furthest Mosque (al-masjid al-aqsa, Al-Aqsa Mosque). With this, the Umayyads retroactively gave the city a role in Muhammad’s life. This association of Jerusalem with al-masjid al-aqsa fit into a wider Muslim tendency to identify place names found in the Qur’an: “wherever the Koran mentions a name of an event, stories were invented to give the impression that somehow, somewhere, someone, knew what they were about.”18

Despite all logic (how can a mosque built nearly a century after the Qur’an was received establish what the Qur’an meant?), building an actual Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Palestinian historian A. L. Tibawi writes, “gave reality to the figurative name used in the Koran.”19 It also had the hugely important effect of inserting Jerusalem post hoc into the Qur’an and making it more central to Islam. Also, other changes resulted. Several Qur’anic passages were re-interpreted to refer to this city.20 Jerusalem came to be seen as the site of the Last Judgment. The Umayyads cast aside the non-religious Roman name for the city, Aelia Capitolina (in Arabic, Iliya) and replaced it with Jewish-style names, either Al-Quds (The Holy) or Bayt al-Maqdis (The Temple). They sponsored a form of literature praising the “virtues of Jerusalem,” a genre one author is tempted to call “Zionist.”21 Accounts of the prophet’s sayings or doings (Arabic: hadiths, often translated into English as “Traditions”) favorable to Jerusalem emerged at this time, some of them equating the city with Mecca.22 There was even an effort to move the pilgrimage (hajj) from Mecca to Jerusalem.

In Case You Missed It:  NATO running out of weapons for Ukraine: “bottom of the barrel” now visible

Scholars agree that the Umayyads’ motivation to assert a Muslim presence in the sacred city had a strictly utilitarian purpose. The Iraqi historian Abdul Aziz Duri finds “political reasons” behind their actions.23 Hasson concurs:

The construction of the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque, the rituals instituted by the Umayyads on the Temple Mount and the dissemination of Islamic-oriented Traditions regarding the sanctity of the site, all point to the political motives which underlay the glorification of Jerusalem among the Muslims.24

Thus did a politically-inspired Umayyad building program lead to the Islamic sanctification of Jerusalem.

Abbasid Rule

Then, with the Umayyad demise in 750 and the move of the caliph’s capital to Baghdad, “imperial patronage became negligible”25 and Jerusalem fell into near-obscurity. For the next three and a half centuries, books praising this city lost favor and the construction of glorious buildings not only came to an end but existing ones fell apart (the dome over the rock collapsed in 1016). Gold was stripped off the dome to pay for Al-Aqsa repair work. City walls collapsed. Worse, the rulers of the new dynasty bled Jerusalem and its region country through what F. E. Peters of New York University calls “their rapacity and their careless indifference.”26 The city declined to the point of becoming a shambles. “Learned men are few, and the Christians numerous,” bemoaned a tenth-century Muslim native of Jerusalem.27 Only mystics continued to visit the city.

In a typical put-down, another tenth-century author described the city as “a provincial town attached to Ramla,”28 a reference to the tiny, insignificant town serving as Palestine’s administrative center. Elad characterizes Jerusalem in the early centuries of Muslim rule as “an outlying city of diminished importance.”29 The great historian S. D. Goitein notes that the geographical dictionary of al-Yaqut mentions Basra 170 times, Damascus 100 times, and Jerusalem only once, and that one time in passing. He concludes from this and other evidence that, in its first six centuries of Muslim rule, “Jerusalem mostly lived the life of an out-of-the-way provincial town, delivered to the exactions of rapacious officials and notables, often also to tribulations at the hands of seditious fellahin [peasants] or nomads … . Jerusalem certainly could not boast of excellence in the sciences of Islam or any other fields.”30

By the early tenth century, notes Peters, Muslim rule over Jerusalem had an “almost casual” quality with “no particular political significance.”31 Later too: Al-Ghazali, sometimes called the “Thomas Aquinas of Islam,” visited Jerusalem in 1096 but not once refers to the Crusaders heading his way.

III. Early Crusades

The Crusader conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 initially aroused a very mild Muslim response. The Franks did not rate much attention; Arabic literature written in Crusader-occupied towns tended not even to mention them . Thus, “calls to jihad at first fell upon deaf ears,” writes Robert Irwin, formerly of the University of St Andrews in Scotland.32 Emmanuel Sivan of the Hebrew University adds that “one does not detect either shock or a sense of religious loss and humiliation.”33

Only as the effort to retake Jerusalem grew serious in about 1150 did Muslim leaders seek to rouse jihad sentiments through the heightening of emotions about Jerusalem. Using the means at their disposal (hadiths, “virtues of Jerusalem” books, poetry), their propagandists stressed the sanctity of Jerusalem and the urgency of its return to Muslim rule. Newly-minted hadiths made Jerusalem ever-more critical to the Islamic faith; one of them put words into the Prophet Muhammad’s mouth saying that, after his own death, Jerusalem’s falling to the infidels is the second greatest catastrophe facing Islam. Whereas not a single “virtues of Jerusalem” volume appeared in the period 1100-50, very many came out in the subsequent half century. In the 1160s, Sivan notes, “al-Quds propaganda blossomed”; and when Saladin (Salah ad-Din) led the Muslims to victory over Jerusalem in 1187, the “propaganda campaign … attained its paroxysm.”34 In a letter to his Crusader opponent, Saladin wrote that the city “is to us as it is to you. It is even more important to us.”35

The glow of the reconquest remained bright for several decades thereafter; for example, Saladin’s descendants (known as the Ayyubid dynasty, which ruled until 1250) went on a great building and restoration program in Jerusalem, thereby imbuing the city with a more Muslim character. Until this point, Islamic Jerusalem had consisted only of the shrines on the Temple Mount; now, for the first time, specifically Islamic buildings (Sufi convents, schools) were built in the surrounding city. Also, it was at this time, Oleg Grabar of Princeton’s Institute of Advanced Study notes, that the Dome of the Rock came to be seen as the exact place where Muhammad’s ascension to heaven (mi‘raj) took place during his Night Journey:36 if the “furthest mosque” is in Jerusalem, then Muhammad’s Night Journey and his subsequent visit to heaven logically took place on the Temple Mount—indeed, on the very rock from which Jesus was thought to have ascended to heaven.

IV. Ayyubids

But once safely back in Muslim hands, interest in Jerusalem again dropped; “the simple fact soon emerged that al-Quds was not essential to the security of an empire based in Egypt or Syria. Accordingly, in times of political or military crisis, the city proved to be expendable,” writes Donald P. Little of McGill University.37 In particular, in 1219, when the Europeans attacked Egypt in the Fifth Crusade, a grandson of Saladin named al-Mu‘azzam decided to raze the walls around Jerusalem, fearing that were the Franks to take the city with walls, “they will kill all whom they find there and will have the fate of Damascus and lands of Islam in their hands.”38 Pulling down Jerusalem’s fortifications had the effect of prompting a mass exodus from the city and its steep decline.

Also at this time, the Muslim ruler of Egypt and Palestine, al-Kamil (another of Saladin’s grandsons and the brother of al-Mu‘azzam), offered to trade Jerusalem to the Europeans if only the latter would leave Egypt, but he had no takers. Ten years later, in 1229, just such a deal was reached when al-Kamil did cede Jerusalem to Emperor Friedrich II; in return, the German leader promised military aid to al-Kamil against al-Mu‘azzam, now a rival king. Al-Kamil insisted that the Temple Mount remain in Muslim hands and “all the practices of Islam”39 continued to be exercised there, a condition Friedrich complied with. Referring to his deal with Frederick, al-Kamil wrote in a remarkably revealing description of Jerusalem, “I conceded to the Franks only ruined churches and houses.”40 In other words, the city that had been heroically regained by Saladin in 1187 was voluntarily traded away by his grandson just forty-two years later.

On learning that Jerusalem was back in Christian hands, Muslims felt predictably intense emotions. An Egyptian historian later wrote that the loss of the city “was a great misfortune for the Muslims, and much reproach was put upon al-Kamil, and many were the revilings of him in all the lands.”41 By 1239, another Ayyubid ruler, an-Nasir Da’ud, managed to expel the Franks from the city.

But then he too ceded it right back to the Crusaders in return for help against one of his relatives. This time, the Christians were less respectful of the Islamic sanctuaries and turned the Temple Mount mosques into churches.

Their intrusion did not last long; by 1244 the invasion of Palestine by troops from Central Asia brought Jerusalem again under the rule of an Ayyubid; and henceforth the city remained safely under Muslim rule for nearly seven centuries. Jerusalem remained but a pawn in the Realpolitik of the times, as explained in a letter from a later Ayyubid ruler, as-Salih Ayyub, to his son: if the Crusaders threaten you in Cairo, he wrote, and they demand from you the coast of Palestine and Jerusalem, “give these places to them without delay on condition they have no foothold in Egypt.”42

The psychology at work here bears note: that Christian knights traveled from distant lands to make Jerusalem their capital made the city more valuable in Muslim eyes too. “It was a city strongly coveted by the enemies of the faith, and thus became, in a sort of mirror-image syndrome, dear to Muslim hearts,”43 Sivan explains. And so fractured opinions coalesced into a powerful sensibility; political exigency caused Muslims ever after to see Jerusalem as the third most holy city of Islam (thalith al-masajid).

Mamluk and Ottoman Rule

During the Mamluk era (1250-1516), Jerusalem lapsed further into its usual obscurity – capital of no dynasty, economic laggard, cultural backwater—though its new-found prestige as an Islamic site remained intact. Also, Jerusalem became a favorite place to exile political leaders, due to its proximity to Egypt and its lack of walls, razed in 1219 and not rebuilt for over three centuries, making Jerusalem easy prey for marauders. These notables endowed religious institutions, especially religious schools, which in the aggregate had the effect of re-establishing Islam in the city. But a general lack of interest translated into decline and impoverishment. Many of the grand buildings, including the Temple Mount sanctuaries, were abandoned and became dilapidated as the city became depopulated. A fourteenth-century author bemoaned the paucity of Muslims visiting Jerusalem.44 The Mamluks so devastated Jerusalem that the town’s entire population at the end of their rule amounted to a miserable 4,000 souls.

The Ottoman period (1516-1917) got off to an excellent start when Süleyman the Magnificent rebuilt the city walls in 1537-41 and lavished money in Jerusalem (for example, assuring its water supply), but things then quickly reverted to type. Jerusalem now suffered from the indignity of being treated as a tax farm for non-resident, one-year (and very rapacious) officials. “After having exhausted Jerusalem, the pasha left,” observed the French traveler François-René Chateaubriand in 1806. At times, this rapaciousness prompted uprisings. The Turkish authorities also raised funds for themselves by gouging European visitors; in general, this allowed them to make fewer efforts in Jerusalem than in other cities to promote the city’s economy. The tax rolls show soap as its only export. So insignificant was Jerusalem, it was sometimes a mere appendage to the governorship of Nablus or Gaza. Nor was scholarship cultivated: in 1670, a traveler reported that standards had dropped so low that even the preacher at Al-Aqsa Mosque spoke a low standard of literary Arabic. The many religious schools of an earlier era disappeared. By 1806, the population had again dropped, this time to under 9,000 residents.

Muslims during this long era could afford to ignore Jerusalem, writes the historian James Parkes, because the city “was something that was there, and it never occurred to a Muslim that it would not always be there,” safely under Muslim rule.45 Innumerable reports during these centuries from Western pilgrims, tourists, and diplomats in Jerusalem told of the city’s execrable condition. George Sandys in 1611 found that “Much lies waste; the old buildings (except a few) all ruined, the new contemptible.” Constantin Volney, one of the most scientific of observers, noted in 1784 Jerusalem’s “destroyed walls, its debris-filled moat, its city circuit choked with ruins.” “What desolation and misery!” wrote Chateaubriand. Gustav Flaubert of Madame Bovary fame visited in 1850 and found “Ruins everywhere, and everywhere the odor of graves. It seems as if the Lord’s curse hovers over the city. The Holy City of three religions is rotting away from boredom, desertion, and neglect.” “Hapless are the favorites of heaven,” commented Herman Melville in 1857. Mark Twain in 1867 found that Jerusalem “has lost all its ancient grandeur, and is become a pauper village.”

The British government recognized the minimal Muslim interest in Jerusalem during World War I. In negotiations with Sharif Husayn of Mecca in 1915-16 over the terms of the Arab revolt against the Ottomans, London decided not to include Jerusalem in territories to be assigned to the Arabs because, as the chief British negotiator, Henry McMahon, put it, “there was no place … of sufficient importance … further south” of Damascus “to which the Arabs attached vital importance.”46

True to this spirit, the Turkish overlords of Jerusalem abandoned Jerusalem rather than fight for it in 1917, evacuating it just in advance of the British troops. One account indicates they were even prepared to destroy the holy city. Jamal Pasha, the Ottoman commander-in-chief, instructed his Austrian allies to “blow Jerusalem to hell” should the British enter the city. The Austrians therefore had their guns trained on the Dome of the Rock, with enough ammunition to keep up two full days of intensive bombardment. According to Pierre van Paasen, a journalist, that the dome still exists today is due to a Jewish artillery captain in the Austrian army, Marek Schwartz, who rather than respond to the approaching British troops with a barrage on the Islamic holy places, “quietly spiked his own guns and walked into the British lines.”47

V. British Rule

In modern times, notes the Israeli scholar Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, Jerusalem “became the focus of religious and political Arab activity only at the beginning of the [twentieth] century.” She ascribes the change mainly to “the renewed Jewish activity in the city and Judaism’s claims on the Western Wailing Wall.”48 British rule over city, lasting from 1917 to 1948, then galvanized a renewed passion for Jerusalem. Arab politicians made Jerusalem a prominent destination during the British Mandatory period. Iraqi leaders frequently turned up in Jerusalem, demonstrably praying at Al-Aqsa and giving emotional speeches. Most famously, King Faysal of Iraq visited the city and made a ceremonial entrance to the Temple Mount using the same gate as did Caliph ‘Umar when the city was first conquered in 638. Iraqi involvement also included raising funds for an Islamic university in Jerusalem, and setting up a consulate and an information office there.

The Palestinian leader (and mufti of Jerusalem) Hajj Amin al-Husayni made the Temple Mount central to his anti-Zionist political efforts. Husayni brought a contingent of Muslim notables to Jerusalem in 1931 for an international congress to mobilize global Muslim opinion on behalf of the Palestinians. He also exploited the draw of the Islamic holy places in Jerusalem to find international Muslim support for his campaign against Zionism. For example, he engaged in fundraising in several Arab countries to restore the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa, sometimes by sending out pictures of the Dome of the Rock under a Star of David; his efforts did succeed in procuring the funds to restore these monuments to their former glory.

Perhaps most indicative of the change in mood was the claim that the Prophet Muhammad had tethered his horse to the western wall of the Temple Mount. As established by Shmuel Berkowitz,49 Muslim scholars over the centuries had variously theorized about the prophet tying horse to the eastern or southern walls—but not one of them before the Muslim-Jewish clashes at the Western Wall in 1929 ever associated this incident with the western side. Once again, politics drove Muslim piousness regarding Jerusalem.

Jordanian Rule

Sandwiched between British and Israeli eras, Jordanian rule over Jerusalem in 1948-67 offers a useful control case; true to form, when Muslims took the Old City (which contains the sanctuaries) they noticeably lost interest in it. An initial excitement stirred when the Jordanian forces captured the walled city in 1948 — as evidenced by the Coptic bishop’s crowning King ‘Abdullah as “King of Jerusalem” in November of that year—but then the usual ennui set in. The Hashemites had little affection for Jerusalem, where some of their worst enemies lived and where ‘Abdullah was assassinated in 1951. In fact, the Hashemites made a concerted effort to diminish the holy city’s importance in favor of their capital, Amman. Jerusalem had served as the British administrative capital, but now all government offices there (save tourism) were shut down; Jerusalem no longer had authority even over other parts of the West Bank. The Jordanians also closed some local institutions (e.g., the Arab Higher Committee, the Supreme Muslim Council) and moved others to Amman (the treasury of the waqf, or religious endowment).

Jordanian efforts succeeded: once again, Arab Jerusalem became an isolated provincial town, less important than Nablus. The economy so stagnated that many thousands of Arab Jerusalemites left the town: while the population of Amman increased five-fold in the period 1948-67, that of Jerusalem grew by just 50 percent. To take out a bank loan meant traveling to Amman. Amman had the privilege of hosting the country’s first university and the royal family’s many residences. Jerusalem Arabs knew full well what was going on, as evidenced by one notable’s complaint about the royal residences: “those palaces should have been built in Jerusalem, but were removed from here, so that Jerusalem would remain not a city, but a kind of village.”50 East Jerusalem’s Municipal Counsel twice formally complained of the Jordanian authorities’ discrimination against their city.

Perhaps most insulting of all was the decline in Jerusalem’s religious standing. Mosques lacked sufficient funds. Jordanian radio broadcast the Friday prayers not from Al-Aqsa Mosque but from an upstart mosque in Amman. (Ironically, Radio Israel began broadcasting services from Al-Aqsa immediately after the Israel victory in 1967.) This was part of a larger pattern, as the Jordanian authorities sought to benefit from the prestige of controlling Jerusalem even as they put the city down: Marshall Breger and Thomas Idinopulos note that although King ‘Abdullah “styled himself a protector of the holy sites, he did little to promote the religious importance of Jerusalem to Muslims.”51

Nor were Jordan’s rulers alone in ignoring Jerusalem; the city virtually disappeared from the Arab diplomatic map. Malcolm Kerr’s well-known study on inter-Arab relations during this period (The Arab Cold War) appears not once to mention the city.52 No foreign Arab leader came to Jerusalem during the nineteen years when Jordan controlled East Jerusalem, and King Husayn (r. 1952-99) himself only rarely visited. King Faysal of Saudi Arabia spoke often after 1967 of his yearning to pray in Jerusalem, yet he appears never to have bothered to pray there when he had the chance. Perhaps most remarkable is that the PLO’s founding document, the Palestinian National Covenant of 1964, does not once mention Jerusalem or even allude to it.

VI. Israeli Rule

This neglect came to an abrupt end after June 1967, when the Old City came under Israeli control. Palestinians again made Jerusalem the centerpiece of their political program. The Dome of the Rock turned up in pictures everywhere, from Yasir Arafat’s office to the corner grocery. Slogans about Jerusalem proliferated and the city quickly became the single most emotional issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The PLO made up for its 1964 oversight by specifically mentioning Jerusalem in its 1968 constitution as “the seat of the Palestine Liberation Organization.”53

“As during the era of the Crusaders,” Lazarus-Yafeh points out, Muslim leaders “began again to emphasize the sanctity of Jerusalem in Islamic tradition.”54 In the process, they even relied on some of the same arguments (e.g., rejecting the occupying power’s religious connections to the city) and some of the same hadiths to back up those allegations. Muslims began echoing the Jewish devotion to Jerusalem: Arafat declared that “Al-Quds is in the innermost of our feeling, the feeling of our people and the feeling of all Arabs, Muslims, and Christians in the world.”55 Extravagant statements became the norm (Jerusalem was now said to be “comparable in holiness” to Mecca and Medina; or even “our most sacred place”).56 Jerusalem turned up regularly in Arab League and United Nations resolutions. The Jordanian and Saudi governments now gave as munificently to the Jerusalem religious trust as they had been stingy before 1967.

In Case You Missed It:  WEF Adviser Prof. Sarah Harper says UK’s population collapse is “good for the planet”

Nor were Palestinians alone in this emphasis on Jerusalem: the city again served as a powerful vehicle for mobilizing Muslim opinion internationally. This became especially clear in September 1969, when King Faysal parlayed a fire at Al-Aqsa Mosque into the impetus to convene twenty-five Muslim heads of state and establish the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a United Nations-style institution for Muslims. In Lebanon, the fundamentalist group Hizbullah depicts the Dome of the Rock on everything from wall posters to scarves and under the picture often repeats its slogan: “We are advancing.” Lebanon’s leading Shi‘i authority, Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, regularly exploits the theme of liberating Jerusalem from Israeli control to inspire his own people; he does so, explains his biographer Martin Kramer, not for pie-in-the-sky reasons but “to mobilize a movement to liberate Lebanon for Islam.”57

Similarly, the Islamic Republic of Iran has made Jerusalem a central issue, following the dictate of its founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, who remarked that “Jerusalem is the property of Muslims and must return to them.”58 Since shortly after the regime’s founding, its 1-rial coin and 1000-rial banknote have featured the Dome of the Rock (though, embarrassingly, the latter initially was mislabeled “Al-Aqsa Mosque”). Iranian soldiers at war with Saddam Husayn’s forces in the 1980s received simple maps showing their sweep through Iraq and onto Jerusalem. Ayatollah Khomeini decreed the last Friday of Ramadan as Jerusalem Day, and this commemoration has served as a major occasion for anti-Israel harangues in many countries, including Turkey, Tunisia, and Morocco. The Islamic Republic of Iran celebrates the holiday with stamps and posters featuring scenes of Jerusalem accompanied by exhortative slogans. In February 1997, a crowd of some 300,000 celebrated Jerusalem Day in the presence of dignitaries such as President Hashemi Rafsanjani. Jerusalem Day is celebrated (complete with a roster of speeches, an art exhibit, a folkloric show, and a youth program) as far off as Dearborn, Michigan.

As it has become common for Muslims to claim passionate attachment to Jerusalem, Muslim pilgrimages to the city have multiplied four-fold in recent years. A new “virtues of Jerusalem” literature has developed.59 So emotional has Jerusalem become to Muslims that they write books of poetry about it (especially in Western languages).60 And in the political realm, Jerusalem has become a uniquely unifying issue for Arabic-speakers. “Jerusalem is the only issue that seems to unite the Arabs. It is the rallying cry,” a senior Arab diplomat noted in late 2000.61

The fervor for Jerusalem at times challenges even the centrality of Mecca. No less a personage than Crown Prince ‘Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has been said repeatedly to say that for him, “Jerusalem is just like the holy city of Mecca.”62 Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbullah goes further yet, declaring in a major speech: “We won’t give up on Palestine, all of Palestine, and Jerusalem will remain the place to which all jihad warriors will direct their prayers.”63

Dubious Claims

Along with these high emotions, three historically dubious claims promoting the Islamic claim to Jerusalem have emerged.

The Islamic connection to Jerusalem is older than the Jewish. The Palestinian “minister” of religious endowments asserts that Jerusalem has “always” been under Muslim sovereignty.64 Likewise, Ghada Talhami, a polemicist, asserts that “There are other holy cities in Islam, but Jerusalem holds a special place in the hearts and minds of Muslims because its fate has always been intertwined with theirs.”65 Always? Jerusalem’s founding antedated Islam by about two millennia, so how can that be? Ibrahim Hooper of the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations explains this anachronism: “the Muslim attachment to Jerusalem does not begin with the prophet Muhammad, it begins with the prophets Abraham, David, Solomon and Jesus, who are also prophets in Islam.”66 In other words, the central figures of Judaism and Christianity were really proto-Muslims. This accounts for the Palestinian man-in-the-street declaring that “Jerusalem was Arab from the day of creation.”67

The Qur’an mentions Jerusalem. So complete is the identification of the Night Journey with Jerusalem that it is found in many publications of the Qur’an, and especially in translations. Some state in a footnote that the “furthest mosque” “must” refer to Jerusalem.68 Others take the (blasphemous?) step of inserting Jerusalem right into the text after “furthest mosque.” This is done in a variety of ways. The Sale translation69 uses italics:

from the sacred temple of Mecca to the farther temple of Jerusalem

the Asad translation70 relies on square brackets:

from the Inviolable House of Worship [at Mecca] to the Remote House of Worship [at Jerusalem]

and the Behbudi-Turner version71 places it right in the text without any distinction at all:

from the Holy Mosque in Mecca to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Palestine.

If the Qur’an in translation now has Jerusalem in its text, it cannot be surprising to find that those who rely on those translations believe that Jerusalem “is mentioned in the Qur’an”; and this is precisely what a consortium of American Muslim institutions claimed in 2000.72 One of their number went yet further; according to Hooper , “the Koran refers to Jerusalem by its Islamic centerpiece, al-Aqsa Mosque.”73 This error has practical consequences: for example, Ahmad ‘Abd ar-Rahman, secretary-general of the PA “cabinet,” rested his claim to Palestinian sovereignty on this basis: “Jerusalem is above tampering, it is inviolable, and nobody can tamper with it since it is a Qur’anic text.”74

Muhammad actually visited Jerusalem. The Islamic biography of the Prophet Muhammad’s life is very complete and it very clearly does not mention his leaving the Arabian Peninsula, much less voyaging to Jerusalem. Therefore, when Karen Armstrong, a specialist on Islam, writes that “Muslim texts make it clear that … the story of Muhammad’s mystical Night Journey to Jerusalem … was not a physical experience but a visionary one,” she is merely stating the obvious. Indeed, this phrase is contained in an article titled, “Islam’s Stake: Why Jerusalem Was Central to Muhammad” which posits that “Jerusalem was central to the spiritual identity of Muslims from the very beginning of their faith.”75 Not good enough. Armstrong found herself under attack for a “shameless misrepresentation” of Islam and claiming that “Muslims themselves do not believe the miracle of their own prophet.”76

Jerusalem has no importance to Jews. The first step is to deny a Jewish connection to the Western (or Wailing) Wall, the only portion of the ancient Temple that still stands. In 1967, a top Islamic official of the Temple Mount portrayed Jewish attachment to the wall as an act of “aggression against al-Aqsa mosque.”77 The late King Faysal of Saudi Arabia spoke on this subject with undisguised scorn: “The Wailing Wall is a structure they weep against, and they have no historic right to it. Another wall can be built for them to weep against.”78 ‘Abd al-Malik Dahamsha, a Muslim member of Israel’s parliament, has flatly stated that “the Western Wall is not associated with the remains of the Jewish Temple.”79 The Palestinian Authority’s website states about the Western Wall that “Some Orthodox religious Jews consider it as a holy place for them, and claim that the wall is part of their temple which all historic studies and archeological excavations have failed to find any proof for such a claim.”80 The PA’s mufti describes the Western Wall as “just a fence belonging to the Muslim holy site” and declares that “There is not a single stone in the Wailing-Wall relating to Jewish history.”81 He also makes light of the Jewish connection, dismissively telling an Israeli interviewer, “I heard that your Temple was in Nablus or perhaps Bethlehem.”82 Likewise, Arafat announced that Jews “consider Hebron to be holier than Jerusalem.”83 There has even been some scholarship, from ‘Ayn Shams University in Egypt, alleging to show that Al-Aqsa Mosque predates the Jewish antiquities in Jerusalem – by no less than two thousand years.84

In this spirit, Muslim institutions pressure the Western media to call the Temple Mount and the Western Wall by their Islamic names (Al-Haram ash-Sharif, Al-Buraq), and not their much older Jewish names. (Al-Haram ash-Sharif, for example, dates only from the Ottoman era.) When Western journalists do not comply, Arafat responds with outrage, with his news agency portraying this as part of a “constant conspiracy against our sanctities in Palestine” and his mufti deeming this contrary to Islamic law.85

The second step is to deny Jews access to the wall. “It’s prohibited for Jews to pray at the Western Wall,” asserts an Islamist leader living in Israel.86 The director of the Al-Aqsa Mosque asserts that “This is a place for Muslims, only Muslims. There is no temple here, only Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.”87 The Voice of Palestine radio station demands that Israeli politicians not be allowed even to touch the wall.88 ‘Ikrima Sabri, the Palestinian Authority’s mufti, prohibits Jews from making repairs to the wall and extends Islamic claims further: “All the buildings surrounding the Al-Aqsa mosque are an Islamic waqf.”89

The third step is to reject any form of Jewish control in Jerusalem, as Arafat did in mid-2000: “I will not agree to any Israeli sovereign presence in Jerusalem.”90 He was echoed by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah, who stated that “There is nothing to negotiate about and compromise on when it comes to Jerusalem.”91 Even Oman’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Yusuf bin ‘Alawi bin ‘Abdullah told the Israeli prime minister that sovereignty in Jerusalem should be exclusively Palestinian “to ensure security and stability.”92

The final step is to deny Jews access to Jerusalem at all. Toward this end, a body of literature blossoms that insists on an exclusive Islamic claim to all of Jerusalem.93 School textbooks allude to the city’s role in Christianity and Islam, but ignore Judaism. An American affiliate of Hamas claims Jerusalem as “an Arab, Palestinian and Islamic holy city.”94 A banner carried in a street protest puts it succinctly: “Jerusalem is Arab.”95 No place for Jews here.

Anti-Jerusalem Views

This Muslim love of Zion notwithstanding, Islam contains a recessive but persistent strain of anti-Jerusalem sentiment, premised on the idea that emphasizing Jerusalem is non-Islamic and can undermine the special sanctity of Mecca.

In the early period of Islam, the Princeton historian Bernard Lewis notes, “there was strong resistance among many theologians and jurists” to the notion of Jerusalem as a holy city. They viewed this as a “Judaizing error—as one more among many attempts by Jewish converts to infiltrate Jewish ideas into Islam.”96 Anti-Jerusalem stalwarts circulated stories to show that the idea of Jerusalem’s holiness is a Jewish practice. In the most important of them, a converted Jew named , Ka‘b al-Ahbar, suggested to Caliph ‘Umar that Al-Aqsa Mosque be built by the Dome of the Rock. The caliph responded by accusing him of reversion to his Jewish roots:

‘Umar asked him: “Where do you think we should put the place of prayer?””By the [Temple Mount] rock,” answered Ka‘b.

By God, Ka‘b,” said ‘Umar, “you are following after Judaism. I saw you take off your sandals [following Jewish practice].”

“I wanted to feel the touch of it with my bare feet,” said Ka‘b.

“I saw you,” said ‘Umar. “But no … Go along! We were not commanded concerning the Rock, but we were commanded concerning the Ka‘ba [in Mecca].”97

Another version of this anecdote makes the Jewish content even more explicit: “in this one, Ka‘b al-Ahbar tries to induce Caliph ‘Umar to pray north of the Holy Rock, pointing out the advantage of this: “Then the entire Al-Quds, that is, Al-Masjid al-Haram will be before you.”98 In other words, the convert from Judaism is saying, the Rock and Mecca will be in a straight line and Muslims can pray toward both of them at the same time.

That Muslims for almost a year and a half during Muhammad’s lifetime directed prayers toward Jerusalem has had a permanently contradictory effect on that city’s standing in Islam. The incident partially imbued Jerusalem with prestige and sanctity, but it also made the city a place uniquely rejected by God. Some early hadiths have Muslims expressing this rejection by purposefully praying with their back sides to Jerusalem,99 a custom that still survives in vestigial form; he who prays in Al-Aqsa Mosque not coincidentally turns his back precisely to the Temple area toward which Jews pray. Or, in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s sharp formulation: when a Muslim prays in Al-Aqsa, “his back is to it. Also some of his lower parts.”100

Ibn Taymiya (1263-1328), one of Islam’s strictest and most influential religious thinkers, is perhaps the outstanding spokesman of the anti-Jerusalem view. In his wide-ranging attempt to purify Islam of accretions and impieties, he dismissed the sacredness of Jerusalem as a notion deriving from Jews and Christians, and also from the long-ago Umayyad rivalry with Mecca. Ibn Taymiya’s student, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziya (1292-1350), went further and rejected hadiths about Jerusalem as false. More broadly, learned Muslims living after the Crusades knew that the great publicity given to hadiths extolling Jerusalem’s sanctity resulted from the Countercrusade—from political exigency, that is—and therefore treated them warily.

There are other signs too of Jerusalem’s relatively low standing in the ladder of sanctity: a historian of art finds that, “in contrast to representations of Mecca, Medina, and the Ka‘ba, depictions of Jerusalem are scanty.”101 The belief that the Last Judgment would take place in Jerusalem was said by some medieval authors to be a forgery to induce Muslims to visit the city.

Modern writers sometimes take exception to the envelope of piety that has surrounded Jerusalem. Muhammad Abu Zayd wrote a book in Egypt in 1930 that was so radical that it was withdrawn from circulation and is no longer even extant. In it, among many other points, he

dismissed the notion of the Prophet’s heavenly journey via Jerusalem, claiming that the Qur’anic rendition actually refers to his Hijra from Mecca to Madina; “the more remote mosque” (al-masjid al-aqsa) thus had nothing to do with Jerusalem, but was in fact the mosque in Madina.102

That this viewpoint is banned shows the nearly complete victory in Islam of the pro-Jerusalem viewpoint. Still, an occasional expression still filters through. At a summit meeting of Arab leaders in March 2001, Mu‘ammar al-Qadhdhafi made fun of his colleagues’ obsession with Al-Aqsa Mosque. “The hell with it,” delegates quoted him saying, “you solve it or you don’t, it’s just a mosque and I can pray anywhere.”103

Conclusion

Politics, not religious sensibility, has fueled the Muslim attachment to Jerusalem for nearly fourteen centuries; what the historian Bernard Wasserstein has written about the growth of Muslim feeling in the course of the Countercrusade applies through the centuries: “often in the history of Jerusalem, heightened religious fervour may be explained in large part by political necessity.”104 This pattern has three main implications. First, Jerusalem will never be more than a secondary city for Muslims; “belief in the sanctity of Jerusalem,” Sivan rightly concludes, “cannot be said to have been widely diffused nor deeply rooted in Islam.”105 Second, the Muslim interest lies not so much in controlling Jerusalem as it does in denying control over the city to anyone else. Third, the Islamic connection to the city is weaker than the Jewish one because it arises as much from transitory and mundane considerations as from the immutable claims of faith.

Mecca, by contrast, is the eternal city of Islam, the place from which non-Muslims are strictly forbidden. Very roughly speaking, what Jerusalem is to Jews, Mecca is to Muslims – a point made in the Qur’an itself (2:145) in recognizing that Muslims have one qibla and “the people of the Book” another one. The parallel was noted by medieval Muslims; the geographer Yaqut (1179-1229) wrote, for example, that “Mecca is holy to Muslims and Jerusalem to the Jews.”106 In modern times, some scholars have come to the same conclusion: “Jerusalem plays for the Jewish people the same role that Mecca has for Muslims,” writes Abdul Hadi Palazzi, director of the Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community.107

The similarities are striking. Jews pray thrice to Jerusalem, Muslims five times daily to Mecca. Muslims see Mecca as the navel of the world, just as Jews see Jerusalem. Whereas Jews believe Abraham nearly sacrificed Ishmael’s brother Isaac in Jerusalem, Muslims believe this episode took place in Mecca. The Ka‘ba in Mecca has similar functions for Muslims as the Temple in Jerusalem for Jews (such as serving as a destination for pilgrimage). The Temple and Ka‘ba are both said to be inimitable structures. The supplicant takes off his shoes and goes barefoot in both their precincts. Solomon’s Temple was inaugurated on Yom Kippur, the tenth day of the year, and the Ka‘ba receives its new cover also on the tenth day of each year.108 If Jerusalem is for Jews a place so holy that not just its soil but even its air is deemed sacred, Mecca is the place whose “very mention reverberates awe in Muslims’ hearts,” according to Abad Ahmad of the Islamic Society of Central Jersey.109

This parallelism of Mecca and Jerusalem offers the basis of a solution, as Sheikh Palazzi wisely writes:

separation in directions of prayer is a mean to decrease possible rivalries in management of Holy Places. For those who receive from Allah the gift of equilibrium and the attitude to reconciliation, it should not be difficult to conclude that, as no one is willing to deny Muslims a complete sovereignty over Mecca, from an Islamic point of view -notwithstanding opposite, groundless propagandistic claims – there is not any sound theological reason to deny an equal right of Jews over Jerusalem.110

To back up this view, Palazzi notes several striking and oft-neglected passages in the Qur’an . One of them (5:22-23) quotes Moses instructing the Jews to “enter the Holy Land (al-ard al-muqaddisa) which God has assigned unto you.” Another verse (17:104) has God Himself making the same point: “We said to the Children of Israel: ‘Dwell securely in the Land.’” Qur’an 2:145 states that the Jews “would not follow your qibla; nor are you going to follow their qibla,” indicating a recognition of the Temple Mount as the Jews’ direction of prayer. “God himself is saying that Jerusalem is as important to Jews as Mecca is to Moslems,”111 Palazzi concludes.

His analysis has a clear and sensible implication: just as Muslims rule an undivided Mecca, Jews should rule an undivided Jerusalem.”

http://www.meforum.org/490/the-muslim-claim-to-Jerusalem

Part 2: The Temple Mount is to Judaism as Mecca is to Islam (Originally published by Ezequiel Doiny in Arutz 7)

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/15915#.V0a4BElwWbF

Last week Haaretz published a document that listed the EUs red lines for Israel among which is a warning not to “harm the status-quo at Temple Mount”. The fact that the EU chose to include the Temple Mount in the list of red-lines shows that they will likely support Palestinian demands for sovereignty over the site.

The Europeans claim that Temple Mount has to be in ‘Palestine’ because the Jewish Temple is no longer there while the Al-Aqsa Mosque is there now. This argument is wrong for three reasons:

1. There are more Muslims in Israel than in the ‘West Bank’, Israeli Arabs have the same claim to Al-Aqsa as ‘West Bank’ Arabs.

2. Israel preserves Muslim Holy sites while Arabs destroy Jewish Holy sites if given a chance. Israel has not destroyed Al-Aqsa or the Dome of the Rock from 1967 till now, 2014, under Israeli sovereignty. The Palestinians destroyed Joseph’s Tomb and illegally excavated and destroyed Jewish Archaeological remains from Solomon’s Temple and would destroy much more if given sovereignty.

3. The area of the Temple Mount is the holiest site for Judaism even without the Temple there.

The Temple Mount was the site where the two Jewish Temples were located. King David blessed the Temple Mount before King Solomon built the First Temple in 957 BCE. The First Temple was destroyed in 586 BCE by the Babylonians. The Second Temple was built in 538 BCE and destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans. The Al Aqsa mosque was built on top of the ruins of the Jewish Temple after the Arab conquest of Jerusalem in 709 CE.

In Case You Missed It:  Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego caught LYING about her secret efforts to BAN meat and dairy

This is an excerpt from Mark Twain’s “The Innocents Abroad” describing his visit to the Mosque of Omar and the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem in 1867:

“Everywhere about the Mosque of Omar are portions of pillars, curiously wrought altars, and fragments of elegantly carved marble – the precious remains of Solomon’s Temple…see the costly marbles that once adorned the inner Temple…the designs wrought upon these fragments are all quaint and peculiar…one meets with these venerable scraps at every turn, specially in the neighboring mosque Al Aqsa, into whose inner walls a very large number of them are carefully built for preservation. These pieces of stone, stained and dusty with age, dimly hint at a grandeur we have all been taught to regard as the princeliest ever seen on earth; and they call up pictures of a pageant that is familiar to all imaginations – camels laden with spices and treasure – beautiful slaves, presents for Solomon’s harem – a long cavalcade of richly caparisoned beasts and warriors – and Sheba’s Queen in the van of this prison of Oriental Magnificence. These elegant fragments bear a richer interest than the solemn vastness of the stones the Jews kiss in the place of wailing can ever have for the heedless sinner.

“Down in the hollow ground, underneath the olives and oranges trees that flourish in the court of the great mosque , is a wilderness of pillars – remains of the ancient Temple, they supported it. There are ponderous archways down there…we never dreamed we might see portions of the actual Temple of Solomon…”

Deliberate Destruction by the Waqf

The Jewish Temple was not only destroyed by the Romans 2000 years ago, it continues being destroyed by the Arabs today. If the Palestinians assume responsibility over the site they will have freedom to destroy much more.

Journalist Ilan Ben Zion reported in December 2012: “The Muslim authority managing the Temple Mount on Sunday dumped tons of unexamined earth and stones excavated from the holy site into a municipal dump, in violation of a High Court injunction, Maariv (Hebrew Daily, ed.) reported on Monday.”

Israel’s top court in September 2004 prohibited removal of earth from the Temple Mount and ruled that, should it be necessary [to do so], the Antiquities Authority must be notified a month in advance so it may examine the earth for artifacts.

Jews regard the Temple Mount as their holiest site, where the First and Second Temple were located. Muslims call it the Noble Sanctuary and regard it as their third holiest site after Mecca and Medina. According to the existing arrangement, the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, or trust, administers the Temple Mount complex.

Despite the High Court of Justice’s ruling, the Waqf has reportedly removed large piles of dirt from the Temple Mount in recent years and dumped them in the valley east of the Old City walls, provoking an outcry from biblical archaeologists and Jewish groups.

Tzachi Dvira, the archaeologist managing the team that sifts through soil excavated from the Temple Mount, told Maariv that mounds of earth containing historic relics were carted off and dumped on Sunday without notification and before archaeologists could investigate them.

Police claimed the removal of the soil was coordinated in advance. Dvira, however, said there were no Antiquities Authority officials on site, and the one police officer monitoring the operation had no idea of its significance.

Dvira claimed Waqf workers exploited a permit for removing construction waste from renovations done at the al-Aqsa Mosque on the site, which also contains the Dome of the Rock, in order to cart off artifact-laden earth from the Temple Mount.

He stated that official oversight of earth removal from the Temple Mount has grown lax in recent years, and said that “the fact that no one has succeeded in stopping the Waqf’s destructive actions raises many doubts about the role of the government in this matter.”

Soil from the Temple Mount that had been removed by the Waqf to the Kidron Valley in recent years has yielded “tens of thousands of finds, including signet rings from the First Temple era, painted floor tiles from the Second Temple era, ancient gold coins, and horseshoe nails and arrowheads belonging to the Knights Templar, who stabled their horses in Solomon’s Stables,” Dvira said.

Suzanne Singer, a contributing editor to the Biblical Archeological Review reported about Palestinian destruction of Jewish Archaeological remains in Temple Mount in September 2000: “Large-scale illegal construction on the Temple Mount and wholesale dumping of earth in the nearby Kidron Valley resumed this spring…”

“… The Temple Mount is, of course, sacred to three great Western faiths and is part of the world’s cultural patrimony. Here may lie remnants from the time of the First Temple of Solomon, the Second Temple built by Herod, the Byzantine period and the early Islamic eras. Israeli excavations around the exterior of the Temple Mount since 1967 have found remains from all these periods, but the Mount itself has been terra incognita, protected by an understanding between Israel and the Waqf that says no construction will take place there…

” …Last November, we reported that the Waqf, in the dead of night, had dumped hundreds of truckloads of earth from the Temple Mount into the Kidron Valley and municipal garbage dumps. About 6,000 tons of earth were removed …Despite the flagrant disregard by the Waqf of the requirement for IAA supervision, there was no serious response by Israeli authorities. Today the dumped earth is unprotected and is being covered with garbage, making it unlikely that the IAA will ever act on its announced intention to salvage artifacts by sifting through the piles.”

“…This spring and early summer, trucks and tractors returned to the Temple Mount, bringing building materials in and carting earth away through the Lions’ Gate, just north of the Temple Mount. For 200 yards along the inside of the Temple Mount’s eastern wall, from the al-Marawani Mosque’s new entrance to somewhat south of the Golden Gate, lie stacks of paving stones, scaffolding, wood and iron materials, along with large architectural fragments, such as pieces of ancient columns…

” …The construction on the Temple Mount is only the latest, albeit perhaps the most egregious, example of the Waqf’s disregard for the protection of antiquities. In 1993 Israel’s Supreme Court found that the Waqf had violated the country’s antiquities laws no less than 35 times, with many of the violations causing the irreversible destruction of archaeological remains.

” …Due to Prime Minister Barak’s concern for negotiations with the Palestinians, no effective archaeological oversight is taking place on the Temple Mount. No one halts the work so that potential damage can be assessed and prevented; as a result, heavy equipment is free to move about the Mount for projects that are neither approved nor supervised. The frequently heard view is that a tough stance by Israel will enflame the Palestinians and set back the peace talks…”

While Israel preserves Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock, Arabs have proven that they cannot be trusted to respect Jewish Holy sites. In 2000 the Palestinians destroyed Joseph’s tomb.

Sidney Brounstein wrote for the Los Angeles Times “Oct. 8:  Where is the outrage? Imagine what would have happened if Jewish police stood by and allowed a Jewish mob to destroy a Muslim holy place!  Does the destruction of a Jewish holy place by an Arab mob while Palestinian police stand by (after promising to protect it) deserve no more than inclusion in a list of other damage done by rioters? Is this an acceptance of attacks on Jews and things Jewish as a normal part of life?”

“It makes a mockery of any thought of giving Arabs any control of Jewish holy places. The destruction of dozens of such places in the Old City of Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967, along with the exclusion of Jews entirely from their most holy site, the Western Wall, was clearly of a piece with the current destruction.”
The Temple Mount Area Has Always Been Holy to Jews

The Temple Mount was holy to the Jews even before the Temples existed because there is a special connection with God at the site:
?According to the Torah (Bereshit [Genesis] 22:1-14), God told Abraham to bring his son, Isaac, and offer him as a sacrifice there.
?It was also at Temple Mount that Ya’akov (Jacob) had his famous dream where he saw angels going and coming from heaven on a ladder.

“Ya’akov was fleeing from his brother Esau. Ya’akov left Be’er Sheva and went towards Charan. He came across the place and spent the night there because the sun had set. He took some of the stones of the place and placed them around his head, and he lay down to sleep in that place.

“He dreamt, and – look! – a ladder was wedged in the ground and its top reached to heaven, and – look!- angels of God were going up and down on it.

“Suddenly, God was standing over him, and He said, “I am God, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac. I will give to you and to your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be as the dust of the earth, and you will be strong to the west, to the east, to the north, to the south. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants. Look, I am with you, and I will guard you wherever you go. I will bring you back to this land, for I will not abandon you until I have carried out what I have spoken for you.””

“Ya’akov woke up from his sleep and he said. ‘God is truly in this place, and I didn’t realize.’
He felt frightened. He said, ‘How awesome this place is! This is none other than the house of God, this is the Gate of Heaven.

“Ya’akov arose early in the morning. He took the stone that he had placed at his head, set it up as a monument, and poured oil on top of it… Ya’akov made a vow saying ‘If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then God shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house’.” (Bereshit 28:20-22)
?While the Jewish Temples existed it was believed that the Schechina (God’s Presence) rested in the Holy of Holies, the part of the Temple where the Holy Ark (with Moses’ tablets) was. Now that the Temple is no longer in place, even with the Mosque there, Temple Mount continues being the Holiest Site for Judaism, a place where God’s presence is closer.

The Europeans believe that because the Jewish Temple was destroyed and there is a Mosque on the Temple Mount, the Palestinians have a stronger claim to the site: This shows a great ignorance about Judaism. Jews around the world face the Temple Mount when they pray. Muslims face Mecca even when they pray on or near the Temple Mount.

Even without the Temple, the Temple Mount is the Holiest Site for Judaism. The Holiest site for Islam is the Ka’ba in Mecca. Taking away Temple Mount from the Jews would be like taking the Ka’ba in Mecca from the Arabs.

One of Maimonides 13 principles of the Jewish faith, for which Jews pray three times a day, is the belief in the resurrection of the death and the coming of Messiah, the descendant of King David. When Messiah comes, the Temple will be rebuilt – on the Temple Mount.”

Part 3: The Colonist Crimes of Islam – Muslims have the same claim to Temple Mount as the Spanish Conquistadors had of Mayan Pyramids (First published by Ezequiel Doiny Arutz 7)

Islam is a colonizing power. While there is only one Jewish State smaller than New Jersey with a population of about 7 million Jews, Islam has expanded from Saudi Arabia to the 57 countries member states of the Organization for  for Islamic Cooperation with an estimated population of 1.6 billion Muslims.

Lyn Julius comments about George Bensoussan’ book Juifs en pays arabes: le grand deracinement 1850 – 1975:

“…Bensoussan, threatens to stand the notion of ”Jewish colonialism” on its head: it is the Jews who lived under Muslim rule who were the true victims of colonialism…By the time the Arab conquerors had swept over the Middle East and North Africa, the Jews had been living in the region for 1,000 years…Under Islam, according to the eighth-century Pact of Omar, indigenous Jews and Christians were permitted to practise as long as they acquiesced to the ”dhimmi” condition of inferiority and institutionalised humiliation…”

“… Bensoussan observes that the Islamic order was built on a ”colonial” notion – submission. The Muslim submits to Allah, the Muslim woman submits to her husband, the non-Muslim dhimmi submits to the Muslim. At the very bottom of the pile is the slave… He produces incontrovertible evidence that, 100 years before Israel was established, most Jews in Arab and Muslim lands lived in misery and fear….Jews were regularly mobbed, robbed, their possessions looted, beaten up on the slightest pretext, or false charge brought by a jealous neighbour. Jews were feminised in the Muslim imagination – cowardly, submissive, unable to stand up for themselves.

“…Bensoussan”s great achievement is not just to blow out of the water the myth of Arab-Jewish coexistence predating the creation of Israel, but unfashionably to place the colonial boot on the Arab foot…A sovereign Jewish state in the land of Israel begins to look like the liberation of a colonised, indigenous people from 14 centuries of subjugation…”

Through its history of conquest, Islamic armies invaded many nations. In their process of colonization, Islam  erased native cultures and converted holy places into Mosques. Holy Sites stolen by Islamic Armies in the past continue to be occupied today.

It is time for modern, moderate Muslim regimes to repent for Islam’s violent past.

The same way that today Germany apologizes for the crimes of the Nazis, the same way that today Spain apologizes for the Inquisition, the Muslims today must apologize for the crimes of Islam and return stolen holy sites to whom they belong.

Below is a list of non-Muslim Holy Sites, sites stolen by Islamic armies:

1. Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Holiest site for Judaism. Site of the two Jewish Temples. The Muslims built two mosques there, adding the legend that Mohammed tied his horse to a post there.

2. Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron. The Jewish Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are undeniably buried there. The Muslims built a mosque there.

3. There are 2000 Hindu Temples in India that were converted to mosques. During the reign of Aurangzeb, tens of thousands of temples were desecrated: their facades and interiors were defaced and their divine images looted. In many cases, temples were destroyed entirely; in numerous instances mosques were built on their foundations, sometimes using the same stones. Among the temples Aurangzeb destroyed were two that are most sacred to Hindus, in Varanasi and Mathura. In both cases, he had large mosques built on the sites.

4. The Babri Mosque in Ayodhya (North India) was built on the site of a Hindu Temple. In 1992 a mob of 150,000 Hindus razed the mosque. Nobel Laureate writer V. S. Naipaul has praised the act for “reclaiming India’s Hindu heritage”.

5. The great temple of Keshava Rai at Mathura was one of the most magnificent hindu temples ever built in India. The Temple was demolished in 1670 and on its site a mosque was built.

6. The Somnath Temple in India: destroyed by Muslim invaders and converted into a mosque. In AD 1025, Mahmud destroyed and looted the temple, killing over 50,000 people who tried to defend it.  After independence, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel pledged on November 13, 1947, that the temple would be reconstructed. The mosque was not destroyed but carefully relocated. In 1951 Dr. Rajendra Prasad performed the consecration ceremony. The temple construction was completed on December 1, 1995. The then President of India, Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma, dedicated it to the nation.”

7. Kashi or Varanasi is the most sacred site in Hinduism and the worship of Lord Shiva as Vishveshvara goes back to ancient times. The temple was demolished several times by Muslim invaders, and was reconstructed again and again by Hindu kings. A mosque was built which still stands.

8. A surge in church-mosque conversion followed the 1974 Turkish Invasion of Cyprus. Many of the Orthodox churches in Northern Cyprus have been converted to mosques.

9. Hundreds of Greek Orthodox churches in Turkey were converted into mosques. Hagia Sophia, the seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, was converted into a mosque, and then, in order not to return it to the Christians, into a museum where until today Christians are forbidden to pray.

hagia sophia

10. The Assyrian International News Agency published a list of Christian Institutions converted into mosques or destroyed by ISIS in Mosul, Iraq in 2014.

“Since taking over Mosul on June 10, ISIS has destroyed, occupied, converted to mosques, converted to ISIS headquarters or shuttered all 45 Christian institutions in Mosul. The following is the complete list of the Christian institutions in Mosul, grouped by denomination.

Syriac Catholic Church:

1.Syrian Catholic Diocese – Maidan Neighborhood, Mosul

2.The Old Church of the Immaculate – Maidan Neighborhood, Mosul (The church goes back to the eighth century AD)

3.The New Church of the Immaculate – Maidan Neighborhood

4.Church of Mar (Saint) Toma – Khazraj Neighborhood

5.Museum of Mar (Saint) Toma – Khazraj Neighborhood

6.Church of Our Lady of the Annunciation – Muhandiseen Neighborhood

7.Church of the Virgin of Fatima – Faisaliah Neighborhood

8.Our Lady of Deliverance Chapel – Shifaa Neighborhood

9.The House of the Young Sisters of Jesus – Ras Al-Kour Neighborhood

10.Archbishop’s Palace Chapel – Dawasa Neighborhood

Syriac Orthodox Church:

1.Syrian Orthodox Archdiocese – Shurta Neighborhood

2.The Antiquarian Church of Saint Ahodeeni – Bab AlJadeed Neighborhood

3.Mar (Saint) Toma Church and cemetery, (the old Bishopric) – Khazraj Neighborhood

4.Church of The Immaculate (Castle) – Maidan Neighborhood

5.Church of The Immaculate – Shifaa Neighborhood

6.Mar (Saint) Aprim Church – Shurta Neighborhood

7.St. Joseph Church – The New Mosul Neighborhood

Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East:

1.Diocese of the Assyrian Church of the East – Noor Neighborhood

2.Assyrian Church of the East, Dawasa Neighborhood

3.Church of the Virgin Mary (old rite) – Wihda Neighborhood

Chaldean Church of Babylon:

1.Chaldean Diocese – Shurta Neighborhood

2.Miskinta Church – Mayassa Neighborhood

3.The Antiquarian Church of Shimon alSafa – Mayassa Neighborhood

4.Church of Mar (Saint) Buthyoon – Shahar AlSouq Neighborhood

5.Church of St. Ephrem, Wady AlAin Neighborhood

6.Church of St. Paul – Majmooaa AlThaqafiya District

7.The Old Church of the Immaculate (with the bombed archdiocese)- Shifaa Neighborhood

8.Church of the Holy Spirit – Bakir Neighborhood

9.Church of the Virgin Mary – Drakziliya Neighborhood

10.Ancient Church of Saint Isaiah and Cemetery – Ras AlKour Neighborhood

11.Mother of Aid Church – Dawasa Neighborhood

12.The Antiquarian Church of St. George- Khazraj Neighborhood

13.St. George Monastery with Cemetery – Arab Neighborhood

14.Monastery of AlNasir (Victory) – Arab Neighborhood

15.Convent of the Chaldean Nuns – Mayassa Neighborhood

16.Monastery of St. Michael – Hawi Church Neighborhood

17.The Antiquarian Monastery of St. Elijah – Ghazlany Neighborhood

Armenian Orthodox Church:

1.Armenian Church – Maidan Neighborhood

2.The New Armenian Church – Wihda Neighborhood

Evangelical Presbyterian Church:

1.Evangelical Presbyterian Church – Mayassa Neighborhood

Latin Church:

1.Latin Church and Monastery of the Dominican Fathers and Convent of Katrina Siena Nuns – Sa’a Neighborhood

2.Convent of the Dominican Sisters, – Mosul AlJadeed Neighborhood

3.Convent of the Dominican Sisters (AlKilma Monastery) – Majmooaa AlThaqafiya District

4.House of Qasada AlRasouliya (Apostolic Aim) (Institute of St. John the Beloved)

And the world asks Israel to preserve the “status quo” on the Temple Mount?
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/16050#.V0dsIElwWbF

Posted in Freedoms.