The Al-Aqsa Mosque (Arabic: Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa, commonly refers to the southern part of the complex of religious buildings in Jerusalem known as either Al-Haram al-Qudsi al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary) to Arabs and Muslims, although in reality the whole area of the Noble Sanctuary is considered Al-Aqsa Mosque and the entire precincts inviolable according to Islamic law. It is known as Har ha-Bayit (the Temple Mount) to Jews and some Christians. It is located in East Jerusalem, a disputed territory governed as part of Israel since its annexation in 1967 but claimed by the Palestinian Authority as part of a future State of Palestine. The largest mosque in Jerusalem, its congregation building can accommodate about 5,000 people worshipping inside it, while the whole Al-Aqsa Mosque compound area may accomodate hundreds of thousands. The government of Israel has granted a Muslim Council, Waqf, full administration of the site. Since the beginning of Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000, non-Muslims are barred from entering the site.
The congregation building of Al-Aqsa Mosque is sometimes referred to as Jami al-Masjid al-Aqsa or al-Masjid al-Qibli. The term al-Masjid Al-Aqsa proper is the general and oldest name for the precinct of al-Haram al-Qudsi al-Sharif. The name al-Haram al-Qudsi al-Sharif was coined later by the Mamluks.
Origin of the Mosque
The name "Al-Aqsa Mosque" translates to "the farthest mosque" ("the remote mosque" according to some translations, such as that of Muhammad Asad), and is associated with the Isra and Mi'raj, a journey made around 621 by the Islamic Prophet Muhammad (c. 570-632) on the winged steed Buraq, which was brought to him by the Archangel Gabriel. This is often referred to in English as Muhammad's "night journey". According to Qur'anic verse, Muhammad took the journey in a single night from "the sacred mosque" (in Mecca) to "the farthest mosque" (al-Masjid al-Aqsa). From a rock there, Muhammad ascended to heaven, accompanied by Gabriel, touring heaven and receiving the commandments, including the five daily prayers, before returning to Earth and back to Mecca to communicate them to the faithful.
The hadith narrator Imam Muslim reports that the Prophet's companion Anas ibn Malik mentions that the Prophet said:
I came to the Buraq, I rode it until we arrived at Bayt al-Maqdis. I tied it to where the Prophets tie, then I entered the masjid I prayed two Rakaah, and then ascended to the heavens.
This story was to become the raison d'etre for Islam's two most important shrines in Jerusalem, the Al Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock, and the driving force behind Muslim ambitions to rule the city to this day.
In this regard, the leading muslim scholar Ibn Taymiyah reports:
al-Masjid al-Aqsa is a name that refers to the whole area of the masjid that was built by Suleiman Peace Be Upon him. Some people today use the term to refer to the prayer house built by Umar bin al-Khattab at the front of this area... When Umar asked Kaab: Where to buid a prayer house for the muslims. Kaab replied: behind the Rock. Umar said: No, but I will build it in front of the Rock because we always pray at the front of mosques. Therefore, Imams usually if they enter the masjid area, they gather people and stand to lead the prayers in the house built by Umar.
The muslims scholar al Tabari reports in Tarikh al-Tabari:
Umar Ibn al-Khattab asked Kaab: Where should we pray? He said: towards the Rock. Umar replied: Oh, Kaab! You are glorifying Judaism. But I will make the Qibla of this masjid at its front just like the Prophet of Allah made the Qibla of all our masajid at its front.
Regarding the name, other sources mention the following:
"Originally the term al-Masjid al-Aqsa was used to refer to the whole area of al-Haram al-Qudsi al-Sharif awith all what it holds from establishments including the Dome of the Rock built by Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan in 72 Hijri/691 A.D., which is considered among the most notable Islamic structures. Today, the term al-Masjid al-Aqsa is also used to refer to the large Mosque in the southern part of al-Haram al-Qudsi."[2] ... "The Dome of the Rock structure resides at the heart of al-Masjid al-Aqsa, in the southeaster part of the Old City of Jerusalem, which is wide rectangular area extending 480 meters from the north to the south, and from the east to the west about 300 meters. This area constituites what is almost fifth of the Old City."[3]
Islamic Background
According to the teachings of Islam, God in the the Qur'an used the word Mosque when referring to the sites established by Abraham and his children as houses of worship to God centuries before the revelation of the Qur'an. The first of these spots is al-Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and the second is al-Masjid al-Aqsa in Jerusalem. Before Mecca and Jerusalem came under muslim control in 630 A.D. and 638 A.D., the site of al-Masjid al-Haram had the Kaabah which was established by Abraham and Ishmael but at the time of Muhammad was used by pagans. In Jerusalem the site of al-Masjid al-Aqsa, which was under Roman control, was an abandoned and abused area by the Romans but on which a house of worship established originally by the prophet Jacob forty years after his grandfather Abraham established the Kaabah and was used by succeeding prophets like David, Solomon, and Zacharia.
The story of Abraham and Ishmael is mentioned in Qur'an as follows:
22:26 For, when We assigned unto Abraham the site of this House, [We said unto him:] "Do not ascribe divinity to aught beside Me!" and: "Purify My House for those who will walk around it, and those who will stand before it [in meditation], and those who will bow down and prostrate themselves [in prayer]."
Waith bawwana liibraheema makana albayti an la tushrik bee shayan watahhir baytiya lilttaifeena waalqaimeena waalrrukkaAAi alssujoodi
2:127 And remember Abraham and Isma'il raised the foundations of the House (With this prayer): "Our Lord! Accept (this service) from us: For Thou art the All-Hearing, the All-knowing.
Waith yarfaAAu ibraheemu alqawaAAida mina albayti waismaAAeelu rabbana taqabbal minna innaka anta alssameeAAu alAAaleemu
Abu Dharr [ra] is quoted as saying, I asked the beloved Prophet Muhammad [peace be upon him] which was the first mosque on earth? "The Sacred Mosque (in Makkah)," he said. And then which, I asked? 'Masjid al Aqsa,' he said. I further asked, what was the time span between the two? 'Forty years,' the Prophet [peace be upon him] replied. (Imam Muslim)
Al-Aqsa mosque or the Holy Temple is mentioned explicitly in one verse of the Koran and alluded several others. Some of the verses are shown here in the order in which they appear in the Quran rather than the order in which they were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad:
3:37 And thereupon her Sustainer accepted the girl-child with goodly acceptance, and caused her to grow up in goodly growth, and placed her in the care of Zachariah. Whenever Zachariah visited her in the sanctuary [of the Mosque], he found her provided with food. He would ask: "O Mary, whence came this unto thee?" She would answer: "It is from God; behold, God grants sustenance unto whom He wills, beyond all reckoning."
Fataqabbalaha rabbuha biqaboolin hasanin waanbataha nabatan hasanan wakaffalaha zakariyya kullama dakhala AAalayha zakariyya almihraba wajada AAindaha rizqan qala ya maryamu anna laki hatha qalat huwa min AAindi Allahi inna Allaha yarzuqu man yashao bighayri hisabin
3:39 Thereupon, as he stood praying in the sanctuary [of the Mosque], the angels called out unto him: "God sends thee the glad tiding of [the birth of] John, who shall confirm the truth of a word from God, and [shall be] outstanding among men, and utterly chaste, and a prophet from among the righteous."
Fanadathu almalaikatu wahuwa qaimun yusallee fee almihrabi anna Allaha yubashshiruka biyahya musaddiqan bikalimatin mina Allahi wasayyidan wahasooran wanabiyyan mina alssaliheena
17:1 LIMITLESS in His glory is He who transported His servant by night from the Inviolable House of Worship [at Mecca] to the Remote House of Worship [,at Jerusalem] - the environs of which We had blessed -so that We might show him some of Our symbols: for, verily, He alone is all-hearing, all-seeing.
Subhana allathee asra biAAabdihi laylan mina almasjidi alharami ila almasjidi alaqsa allathee barakna hawlahu linuriyahu min ayatina innahu huwa alssameeAAu albaseeru
17:7 [And We said:] "If you persevere in doing good, you will but be doing good to yourselves; and if you do evil, it will be [done] to yourselves." And so, when the prediction of the second [period of your iniquity] came true, [We raised new enemies against you, and allowed them] to disgrace you utterly, and to enter the Mosque [Temple] as [their forerunners] had entered it once before, and to destroy with utter destruction all that they had conquered.
In ahsantum ahsantum lianfusikum wain asatum falaha faitha jaa waAAdu alakhirati liyasoooo wujoohakum waliyadkhuloo almasjida kama dakhaloohu awwala marratin waliyutabbiroo ma AAalaw tatbeeran
19:11 Thereupon he came out of the sanctuary unto his people and signified to them [by gestures]: "Extol His limitless glory by day and by night!"
Fakharaja AAala qawmihi mina almihrabi faawha ilayhim an sabbihoo bukratan waAAashiyyan
38:21 AND YET, has the story of the litigants come within thy ken - [the story of the two] who surmounted the walls of the sanctuary [in which David prayed]?
Wahal ataka nabao alkhasmi ith tasawwaroo almihraba
Restoration of the Mosque site by Omar
Before Jerusalem came under the control of muslims in 638 A.D., it was widely understood that al-Aqsa mosque is the same as David's sanctuary. When Omar bin al-Khattab was given the key to the city by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius, he signed with him a treaty that is known as the "Covenant of Omar" and he later asked the Patriarch of Jerusalem to show him what Omar spelled out as 'Masjid Dawood' (Mosque of David). This was called David's sanctuary or prayer niche (mihrab Dawud), in the Qur'an (38:21). David chose the site on which Solomon built his temple. It was an abandoned place and abused by the Romans and the Church at the time. The Patriarch took him to the door of the sanctuary which was almost blocked due to the trash that was placed at the door. Omar looked left and right and said: "Allah is Great, I swear by the one who hold my soul in his hand that this is the Mosque of David which the prophet of Allah described to us after his night journey.' The Caliph Omar started cleaning up the place. He asked Kaab al-Ahbar, who was a Jewish Rabbi that has converted to Islam and came with Omar from Medina, to guide him to the place of the Rock. Omar used his cloths to remove the trash covering the Rock, and other muslims did what Omar was doing. After cleaning up the place, Omar went to the al-Mihrab (a chamber inside the Mosque where the Imam usually stands) and started praying and reading Surat Sad from Quran
Construction of the Congregational Mosque
Since part of the mosque's extended surrounding wall is the Western Wall venerated by Jews, this relatively small spot in Jerusalem is a source of friction. There have been times when Muslims worshipping at the mosque threw rocks downward at the Jews below at the Western Wall. A group of Jews known as the Temple Mount Faithful have expressed a desire to rebuild the ancient Jewish Temple in that area.
The historical significance of Al-Aqsa Mosque is further emphasised by the fact that Muslims used to turn towards Al-Haram al-Sharif when they prayed.
For this reason Al-Haram al-Sharif, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque, is known to Muslims as the "First of the Two Qiblas".
Masjid-al-Aqsa is one of the holiest site in Islam because it belongs to the history of Islam since Abraham until now. It is where, according to Muslims, Abraham (the patriarch of the Abrahamic faiths) established his covenant with God and spread the teaching of monotheism. Muslims respect all the Prophets revered by Judaism and Christianity and their venerated places are also central to the ethos of Islam. Solomon was a prophet and revered by Muslims.
Judaism belief in the Temple of Solomon (Haykal Sulaiman) as the Noble Sanctuary is coherent with the Islam believe in Masjid al-Aqsa because the literal meaning of masjid does not mean a building or any specific place. The word Masjid derived from the root word "Saa" "Jaa" "Daa" in arabic which means (to prostrate) (act of worship). In this case not only the Mosque of Umar is considered as Masjid al-Aqsa but the entire precinct too. Muslims belief that the Temple of Solomon meant by the Jews was a Masjid and not a temple because Islam believe that all prophet conveyed the same messege and prostrated to God during prayers.
It was the site where Muhammad ascended to heaven during Isra and Mi'raj. (The main place, however, where Muhammad received most revelations, including the first, was in the cave of Hira where he meditated frequently during the first forty years of his life.)
The Mosque of Umar reminds all about the atrocity and devestation suffered by the inhabitant of Jerusalem during the Roman occupation. It also signifies freedom of religion achieved by Jews, Christians and Muslims a long time before.
It was the first qibla, the second house of God after Kaabah in Mecca, and the third holiest site in Islam.
Imam Muslim quotes Abu Dharr as saying:
The Sahih Bukhari quotes Abu al-Dardaa as saying: "the Prophet of Allah Muhammad said a prayer in the Sacred Mosque (in Mecca) is worth 100,000 prayers; a prayer in my mosque (in Medina) is worth 1,000 prayers; and a prayer in al-Masjid al-Aqsa is worth 500 prayers more than in an any other mosque.
The "farthest mosque" in verse 17:1 of the Qur'an is traditionally interpreted by Muslims as referring to the site at the Noble Sanctuary in Jerusalem on which the mosque of that name now stands. According to this tradition, the term used for mosque, "masjid", literally means "place of prostration", and includes monotheistic places of worship such as Solomon's Temple, which in verse 17:7 (in the same sura) is described as a "masjid". Many Western historians regard this as the originally intended interpretation, for instance Heribert Busse [7] and Neal Robinson [8]
Even over a century later, Islamic scholars continued to locate the "farthest mosque" with a site inside Arabia, such as al-Waqidi who in his 9th-century book Kitab al-Tarikh wa al-Maghazi (Book of History and Campaigns) preserved the tradition locating it in Jirana
A passage from the biography of Umar ibn al-Khattab states:
The Patriarch of Jerusalem handed over the keys of the city of Jerusalem to Umar. The Muslims were now the masters of Jerusalem. As Umar entered the city he was greeted by the citizens with great enthusiasm. Umar said that he wanted to be led to some place where he could offer thanksgiving prayer to God. He was led to a church but refused to pray there on the ground that that would set a precedent for the Muslims of the following generations to forcibly convert churches into mosques... Umar stayed in Jerusalem for a few days.he founded a mosque at an elevated place in the city. This mosque came to be known as Umar's Mosque.
The above passage informs us that there was no mosque in Jerusalem to pray in when Umar entered the city. He laid the foundation of the first ever mosque in Jerusalem.
The Koranic inscriptions that make up a 240-meter mosaic frieze inside the Dome of the Rock do not include Sura 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. This is a strange omission since Muslims claim that the Dome of the Rock was erected in commemoration of this alleged event. The inscriptions that do mention the Night Journey are later additions made by Abdul Hamid II in 1876, nearly eleven centuries later.
Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiya (638-700), a close relative of 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."[11]
Thus he asserts Muhammad never acended to heaven from the Rock in Jerusalem and that another location was indeed meant by the "farthest mosque".
When Muslims finally did conquer and occupy Jerusalem, they are not known to have identified the Temple Mount with "the farthest mosque" until 715. According to A.L. Tibawi, a Palestinian historian, in 715 the Umayyads built a new mosque on the Temple Mount; they named this Mosque al-masjid al-aqsa, or "farthest mosque" in order to "give reality to the figurative name used in the Koran."
When Abed al-Malik ibn Marwan became caliph and his rival Ibn al-Zubayr held control of Hejaz, he feared that the people would be inclined towards him [Ibn al-Zubayr] when they made pilgrimage [to Mecca], because the only way they could enter Mecca and Medina was with Ibn al- Zubayr's permission and under his control... Therefore, Abd al-Malik prevented people from making pilgrimage until [Ibn al-Zubayr was defeated and] the war ended. He began to build a large mosque in Jerusalem... It is from this point in time that some transmitters of traditions started to promote the religious significance of this mosque and turn it into the 'third to the two holy mosques' [of Mecca and Medina].
The article written by Egyptian columnist Ahmed Arafeh rejects the established Islamic doctrine that Muhammad's celebrated night journey took him from Mecca to Jerusalem. He argues that the journey mentioned in the Koran's Surat al-Isra does not refer to a miraculous journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, but to the prophet's emigration from Mecca to Medina.[14]
There is an opinion among some Muslim scholars that "the farthest mosque" in Qur'an actually points to the Temple of Solomon and not Masjid Al-Aqsa, which was built by Omer Bin Khattab (c. 581-644), the Muslim caliph who conquered Jerusalem in 637. However this had been destroyed many centuries earlier. [15]
Even if Jerusalem was indeed intended, it was nevertheless a miraculous occurrence, raising doubts whether Muhammed had ever physically set foot in Jerusalem at all. This could be supported by the hadith which states:
The Prophet said, "When the Quraish disbelieved me (concerning my night journey), I stood up in Al-Hijr (the unroofed portion of the Ka'ba) and Allah displayed Bait-ul-Maqdis (Jerusalem) before me, and I started to inform them (Quraish) about its signs while looking at it." 6:60:233
Not only was it proving problematic for Muhammad himself to convince the masses of his journey, but had he indeed visited Jerusalem he should have been able to rely on his memory to describe Jerusalem, not on Allah "displaying it before him".
It is widely believed amongst Muslims that the Night Journey was a physical journey of Muhammad, but some Islamic scholars consider it as a dream. They point to a verse in Qur'an: ...and We did not make the vision which We showed you but a trial for men... 17:60 and a hadith regarding the Night Journey in Sahih Bukhari: ...Allah's Apostle said, "O Moses! By Allah, I feel shy of returning too many times to my Lord." On that Gabriel said, "Descend in Allah's Name." The Prophet then woke while he was in the Sacred Mosque (at Mecca). 9:93:608. They argue that it was a mode of revelation for the Prophet in symbolic form for the guidance of the Muslim nation. This event also foretold Muslims that God would now raise Muslims up as a superpower and Jerusalem would soon fall into their hands, which happened indeed within less than three decades of this event.[16][17]
Regarding "The Three Virtuous Mosques in Islam", the authentic Islamic creed regarding the 'holiness' of any place is mentioned by the Prophet Muhammad himself in many hadiths. Al-Bukhari reported in his authentic Collection of hadiths (i.e. Sahih al-Bukhari) that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said, "The rihaal must not be fixed (i.e. to go any where) [rihaal means 'luggage and provision a traveler usually takes with him in a long journey] except to three mosques: al-Masjid al-Haram (in Makkah), the Messenger's mosque (in Madinah) and al-Aqsa mosque (in Jerusalem). " (No.1189)
