Reference.com

Al-Aqsa Mosque

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source

For the nearby structure, see Dome of the Rock

Al-Aqsa Mosque (The Farthest Mosque) (Arabic: المسجد الاقصى, [IPA /æl'mæsdʒɪd æl'ɑqsˁɑ/, ), commonly refers to the southern congregational mosque located in Jerusalem, though according to Islamic law the entire complex known today as Al-Haram al-Qudsi al-Sharif (The Noble Sanctuary) to Muslims, including the Dome of the Rock, is considered part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. It is located in East Jerusalem.

The Mosque's congregation building can accommodate about 5,000 people worshipping inside it, while the whole Al-Aqsa Mosque compound area may accommodate hundreds of thousands.

Non-Muslims were barred from entering the site in 2000 but the restriction was lifted in 2003. During times of increased security only Muslims of a certain age are permitted to access the mosque. The government of Israel has granted a Muslim Council, Waqf, full administration of the site.

Construction

The site of the Mosque originally contained the Chanuyot storehouse for the Temple in Jerusalem. The Chanuyot was destroyed along with the Temple by Roman Emperor (then General) Titus in 70 CE. Unlike the Temple, which was completely destroyed, a significant portion of the Chanuyot may have survived the destruction as the current mosque includes rows of ancient Corinthian columns that appear to predate the Islamic architecture, as visible in the photo to the right. Emperor Justinian built a Christian church on the site in the 530s and consecrated to the Virgin Mary by the name of Church of Our Lady.. The church was later destroyed by the Persians in the early 7th century and left in ruins.

When Jerusalem came under the control of Muslims in 638, Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattāb (580-644) was given the key to the city by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius. He later asked the Patriarch to show him what Umar spelled out as "Masjid Dawud" (Mosque of David) and what was called "Mihrab Dawud" (David's sanctuary or prayer niche) in the Qur'an (38:21). David chose the site on which Solomon built his temple. The Patriarch took him to the door of the sanctuary which was almost blocked due to the trash that was placed at the door. Umar looked left and right and said: “Allah is Great, I swear by the one who holds my soul in his hand that this is the Mosque of David which the prophet of Allah described to us after his night journey.”

Umar started cleaning up the place, using his clothes to remove the rubble and other Muslims imitated him in this. After cleaning up the place, Umar entered the building and started praying, reciting the Quranic sura Sad.. Thereby Umar converted the building into a mosque, an Islamic place of prayer which did not infringe on nearby Christian and Jewish sites of worship.

Umar also asked Ka'ab al-Ahbar, a Jewish Rabbi who had converted to Islam and came with Umar from Medina, to guide him to the place of the Rock.

The building currently in existence is a result of different stages of construction and renovations. It is usually agreed upon that 'Abd al-Malik (685-705), the Umayyad Caliph who was the patron of the Dome of the Rock, started to reconstruct the mosque at the southern end of the precinct. This work was continued by his son and successor al-Walid I (709-715), who renovated and expanded the building and at this time called it Al-Aqsa Mosque, which means "the farthest mosque".

Further history

The building suffered from several major earthquakes and was renovated and reconstructed during the Abbasid period by Caliph al-Mahdi (775-785) and possibly by Caliph al-Mansur (754-775). A further reconstruction was executed during the Fatimid period in the 11th century.

Crusades

After Jerusalem was captured in 1099 as part of the First Crusade, the Kingdom of Jerusalem was established, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque was used as the royal palace of the Kings of Jerusalem. The Crusaders believed it to be built on top of the ruins of the King Solomon's Temple, and referred to the building as the Templum Salomonis, while the Dome of the Rock was called Templum Domini (The Temple of the Lord).

Around 1119, King Baldwin II of Jerusalem also granted space in one wing to the a new order, which after this centre was called of the Knights Templar. The Templars used the building as their headquarters until Saladin conquered the city in 1187, at which point the Templars moved their headquarters to the northern coastal city of Acre, which they held for the next 100 years, and then the island of Cyprus after that.

After the crusades

Several major restorations took place during the 14th and 20th century.

Damage from earthquakes in 1927 and 1936 necessitated an almost complete rebuilding of the mosque, in the process of which ancient sections of the original mosque were brought to light.

It has been modified several times to protect it from earthquakes, which sometimes occur in the area, and to adapt to the changing needs of the local population. The form of the present structure has remained essentially the same since it was reconstructed by the Khalif Al-Dhahir in 1033 AD. It is said that he did not alter it from the previous architecture except to narrow it on each side

Modern history

The Al-Aqsa Intifada is named after the mosque (due to Ariel Sharon's highly controversial visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000 with hundreds of riot police, which provoked that intifada), as are the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group loosely aligned with the Palestinian Fatah faction.

Some Jewish groups such as the Temple Mount Faithful have also expressed a desire to rebuild the ancient Jewish Temple somewhere on the Temple Mount on which the Al Aqsa Mosque is standing. Israeli authorities have foiled the plans of the Gush Emunim Underground, a group of right-wing Jews, to blow up the al-Aqsa Mosque.

In the morning of August 21, 1969, a fire at Masjid al-Aqsa gutted the southeastern wing of the mosque. The fire destroyed a priceless one-thousand-year-old wood and ivory pulpit (minbar) that had been sent from Aleppo by Saladin. The "twin" of this minbar (Saladin had them both made at the same time) is still extant in the mosque at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

Michael Dennis Rohan, a tourist from Australia, was arrested for the arson attack on August 23, 1969. Rohan was a Protestant follower of an evangelical sect known as the Church of God. By his own admission, Rohan hoped to hasten the coming of the Messiah by burning down the al-Aqsa Mosque. Rohan told the court that he acted as "the Lord's emissary" on divine instructions, in accordance with the Book of Zechariah, and that he had tried to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque in order to rebuild the Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount. He was hospitalized in a mental institution, found to be insane and was later deported from Israel.

There has recently been much potentially dangerous bulging of the southern supporting wall of the Temple Mount. Some have accused Israel of weakening the walls of the mosque during alleged archaeological excavations that began in 1967 (and long since discontinued). Others claim that the irresponsible excavations performed by the Waqf which are destroying Temple Relics and other historical artefacts are also causing the problems with the supporting walls. In response to concerns about the structure's stability, renovations are being carried out by the Islamic Waqf Foundation.

The Muslim Waqf is in charge of the Al Aqsa mosque, along with most of the important Muslim shrines in Israel.

The mosque consists today of a seven bay hypostyle hall with several additional small halls to the west and east of the southern section of the building. Unlike most hypostyle-style mosques, the building does not have a clearly delineated courtyard unless one considers the whole Haram as its court. It was, until a few years ago, capped with a silver dome, but today is made of lead sheets, which together with the golden dome of the Dome of the Rock, formulate the icon of the Haram in Jerusalem.

Name

The name "Al-Aqsa Mosque" translates to "the farthest mosque" ("the remote mosque" according to some translations, such as that of Muhammad Asad), or 'The End' and is associated with the Isra and Mi'raj, a journey, Muslims believe was 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 companion of Muhammad Anas ibn Malik mentions that Muhammad said:

This story was to become the raison d'être for Islam's two most important shrines in Jerusalem, 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 Muslim scholar Ibn Taymiyah reports:

The muslims scholar al Tabari reports in Tarikh al-Tabari:

Regarding the name, other sources mention the following:

Location of the “farthest 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.This is also confirmed by a number of hadith in which the farthest mosque is explicitly mentioned as being in Jerusalem. 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 and Neal Robinson

It has been also mentioned explicitly by Muhammad himself that his night Journey was toward Bayt al-Maqdis as narrated in this hadith:

However some disagree, arguing that at the time this verse of the Qur'an was recited (traditionally at around the year 621), many Muslims understood the phrase "furthest mosque" as a poetic phrase for either a mosque established as an exclusively Muslim place of worship - in existence during Muhammad’s lifetime - (such as Medina , Jirana, or Kufa ), or a mosque in Heaven, or as a metaphor.

A number of factors are enumerated why they find it unlikely that this verse referred to a location in Jerusalem :

  • There were already two places that Muslim tradition of that time period called "the farthest mosque"; one was the mosque in Medina and the other was the mosque in the town of Jirana, which Muhammed is said to have visited in 630.

  • Even over a century later, Islamic scholars continued to locate the "farthest mosque" with a site inside Arabia. For example, al-Waqidi in his 9th century book Kitab al-Tarikh wa al-Maghazi (Book of History and Campaigns) preserved the tradition locating it in Jirana, which Muhammad visited in 630, about ten miles from Mecca.

  • No mosque existed in Jerusalem during Muhammad's lifetime. It was 6 years after Muhammad’s death that the Muslims conquered Jerusalem. Only then were the foundations of the mosque laid by the Second Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattāb while he was in Jerusalem. The actual Mosque was completed by Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan and his son Al-Walid I, 68 years after Muhammad’s death.

  • A passage from the biography of Umar ibn al-Khattāb 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 Allah. 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.

Actually the above passage informs us that there was no known (by the people) mosque in Jerusalem to pray in when Umar entered the city. So, he laid the foundation of a mosque in Jerusalem as above mentioned that the door to the mosque was covered with trash.

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

Thus he asserts Muhammad never ascended 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 which they named al-masjid al-aqsa, or "farthest mosque".

  • In October 2003 an Egyptian government-owned weekly questioned the sanctity of Jerusalem to Muslims, pointing out that the Muhammad never made the miraculous "night journey " to the city. According to Al-Qahira, which is published by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, the two mosques on the Temple Mount were built only to divert the pilgrimage from Mecca in the context of political rivalry between Muslim leaders:

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 Quran's Surat al-Isra does not refer to a miraculous journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, but to Muhammad's emigration from Mecca to Medina.

  • 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 638. However this had been destroyed many centuries earlier.

  • 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."

  • 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... 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." Muhammad then woke while he was in the Sacred Mosque (at Mecca). . They argue that it was a mode of revelation for Muhammad in symbolic form for the guidance of the Muslim nation. This event also foretold Muslims that Allah 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.

Significance in Islam

First qibla

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.

As it was the place at which Muhammad performed the first commanded prayer after Isra and Mi'raj, it became the qibla (direction) that Muslims faced during prayer and continued to be so for sixteen or seventeen months, . After a revelation recorded in the Qur'an the qibla was then turned towards Mecca:

For this reason Al-Haram al-Sharif, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque, is known to Muslims as the "First of the Two Qiblas". Historians find the reason for the move to be the reluctance of the Jews of Medina to convert to his religion.

The altering of the qibla was precisely the reason Caliph Umar, despite identifying the Rock upon his arrival at the Temple Mount in 638 neither prayed facing it nor built any structure upon it. This was because the significance of that particular spot on the Temple Mount was over in Islamic jurisprudence after the change of qibla event in Islamic ideology.

However, because of the holiness of Temple Mount itself, Caliph Umar did make a small mosque in the southern corner of its platform which initially was called "Mosque of Umar" and today is known as "Masjid Al-Aqsa", taking caution to avoid the Rock to come between the mosque and the direction of Kaaba so that Muslims would face only Mecca when they prayed.

In another illustration of how significance of the “first qibla” was diminished in Islam, the following hadith states:

The importance of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Islam

  1. Masjid-al-Aqsa is one of the holiest sites in Islam because, it is where, according to Muslims, Abraham (the patriarch of the Abrahamic faiths) established his covenant with Allah 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.
  2. 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 believes that all prophets conveyed the same message and prostrated to Allah during prayers.
  3. 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.)
  4. The Mosque of Umar reminds all about the atrocity and devastation suffered by the inhabitant of Jerusalem during the Roman occupation. It also signifies freedom of religion achieved by Jews which was granted to them by the Muslims after a long time.
  5. It was the first qibla, the second house (of worship) of Allah after Kaabah in Mecca, and the third holiest site in Islam.

Second house of prayer established on Earth

Imam Muslim quotes Abu Dharr as saying:

"I asked the beloved Prophet Muhammad which was the first "mosque" [i.e. house of prayer] on Earth?"
"The Sacred House of Prayer (Masjid al-Haram), i.e. Kaaba)," he said.
"'And then which', I asked?"
"The Furthest House of Prayer (Masjid al Aqsa, i.e. Holy Temple)", he said.
"I further asked, 'what was the time span between the two'?"
"Forty years," Muhammad replied.

Third holiest site

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.

As part of another tradition, on the authority of Maimunah bint Sa’d, it is reported that, upon being asked about a person who is unable to travel to the Al-Aqsa Mosque he replied: "The Messenger of Allah (Muhammed) said, ‘He should make a gift of oil to be burnt therein, for he who gives a gift to the Al-Aqsa Mosque will be like one who has prayed Salaah (five daily ritual prayers of Islam) therein.’

Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem are recognized as the three most important sites in Islam according to interpretations of scriptures in the Qur'an and hadith. Based on scriptural references, al-Aqsa Mosque is widely recognized as the third holiest site in Islam. References to Jerusalem and events in it have been made more than seventy times in the Qur'an, in various states of ambiguity, and many times in the hadith. The Temple Mount precinct is considered the holiest site in Judaism and thus this site is arguably the most contested religious site in the world. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, whose raison d'être is to "liberate Al Aqsa from the Zionist occupation", refers to the Al-Aqsa Mosque (in a resolution condemning Israeli actions in the city) as the third holiest site in Islam, others believe that the use of the term "Third Holiest" is driven by political motives and that Al-Aqsa mosque is not the third holiest site. Rather its selection is based more on politics or the rise and expansion of a certain type of literary genre, known as al-Fadhail (history of cities) than religious theory.

Islamic Background

According to the teachings of Islam, Allah in the Qur'an used the word Masjid when referring to the sites established by Abraham and his progeny as houses of worship to Allah centuries before the revelation of the Qur'an. The first of these spots is Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and the second is Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Before Mecca and Jerusalem came under Muslim control in 630 to 638, the site of the Kaaba, which, according to the Qur'an was established by Abraham and Ishmael but at the time of Muhammad was used by pagans. In Jerusalem the site of Al-Aqsa Mosque, which was under Roman Empire, was an abandoned and abused area by the Romans but on which a house of worship established originally by Jacob forty years after his grandfather Abraham established the Kaaba and was used by succeeding prophets like David, Solomon, and Zacharias.

In the Qur'an

In Hadith

See also

External links

References and footnotes



Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia © 2001-2006 Wikipedia contributors (Disclaimer)
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Tuesday March 11, 2008 at 12:32:40 PDT (GMT -0700)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation