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The Temple Mount (Hebrew: הַר הַבַּיִת, Har haBáyit). Known as Al-Haram al-Qudsi al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary) to Arabs and Muslims, or as Har ha-Bayit (the Temple Mount) to Jews and some Christians. It is a religious site in the Old City of Jerusalem. It was the site of the first (c.10th Century BCE, destroyed c. 587 BCE) and second (c.515 BCE, destroyed in 70 CE) Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and according to Judaism is to be the site of the third and final Temple to be rebuilt with the coming of the Messiah. It is also the site of two major Muslim religious shrines, the Dome of the Rock (c. 690) and Al-Aqsa Mosque (c. 710). It is the holiest site in Judaism and the third holiest site in Islam. It is thus one of the most contested religious sites in the world. Under Jordanian rule of Eastern Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967, Israelis were forbidden from entering the Old City. Currently, as territory of Israel, the government of Israel has granted a Muslim Council full administration of the site. Jews and Christians are barred from conducting services there. Current features of the site
History and traditions of the site
Controversy over location of site In 1999 Dr. Ernest L. Martin published a controversial book called The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot based upon the idea of Ory Mazar, son of Professor Benjamin Mazar of Hebrew University. In 1995 Dr. Martin wrote a draft report to support this theory. He wrote: "I was then under the impression that Simon the Hasmonean (along with Herod a century later) moved the Temple from the Ophel mound to the Dome of the Rock area." However, after studying the words of Josephus concerning the Temple of Herod, which was reported to be in the same general area of the former Temples, he then read the account of Eleazar who led the final contingent of Jewish resistance to the Romans at Masada which stated that the Roman fortress was the only structure left by 73 C.E. "With this key in mind, I came to the conclusion in 1997 that all the Temples were indeed located on the Ophel mound over the area of the Gihon Spring". This theory implied that Judaism was fighting to preserve the wrong location, which in turn sparked reactions from Muslims. The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot by Dr. Martin was made even more controversial due to the fact that he had previously spent five years engaged in excavations near the Western Wall in a joint project between Hebrew University and Ambassador College, publisher of The Plain Truth magazine edited by Herbert W. Armstrong. Jewish religious law concerning entry to the site Most Orthodox rabbis, both those belonging to the Religious Zionist and the Haredi Orthodox streams of, have issued prohibitions against entering the Temple Mount because of the danger of entering the area of the Temple courtyard and the difficulty of fulfilling the ritual requirement of cleansing oneself with the ashes of a red heifer (see Numbers 19), and declared it punishable with karet, death by heavenly decree *. The boundaries of the areas which are completely forbidden, while having large portions in common, are delineated differently by various rabbinic authorities. Some rabbis, primarily belonging to right-wing Religious Zionism, disagree with the majority position and maintain that it is permitted and even commendable to visit those parts of the Temple Mount which according to most rabbinic authorities do not lead to any controversy. Those who forbid Jews from entering the Temple Mount In August 1967, the Chief Rabbis of Israel, Isser Yehuda Unterman and Yitzhak Nissim, in concert with other leading rabbis, asserted that "For generations we have warned against and refrained from entering any part of the Temple Mount." When in January 2005 a large group of leading rabbis from the national-religious (Zionist) stream of Orthodox Judaism signed a declaration confirming that the 1967 decision of Chief Rabbis Unterman and Nissim was still valid, declaring that it is absolutely forbidden for Jews to ascend on the Temple Mount until Moshiach, the Jewish Messiah comes, the Temple Institute responded furiously. Rabbis who signed on to the declaration were*: Sources conflict regarding the opinion held by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Rabbi Schneerson once wrote that Jews should visit the Temple Mount, but at another time he instructed people not to go there out of fear that others would follow them without conforming to the strict requirements mentioned below. The general opinion amongst Lubavitcher Hasidim in Israel is that it is forbidden to go up to the Temple Mount. Those who permit Jews to enter the Temple Mount
1969 Al-Aqsa arson and aftermath On August 21, 1969, an Australian, Michael Dennis Rohan, set the Al-Aqsa mosque on fire. Rohan was a reader of The Plain Truth magazine published by the Worldwide Church of God headed by Herbert W. Armstrong, which was best known for its radio and television programs called The World Tomorrow featuring his son Garner Ted Armstrong. Rohan had read an editorial in the June 1967 edition by Herbert W. Armstrong, concerning rebuilding of the Temple on Temple Mount. The article implied that the present structures would have to be removed and then when a new Temple had been built a series of events would take place resulting in the return of Jesus as the Messiah. This interpretation of prophetic events is now common within Fundamentalist Christianity, but was almost exclusive to the Worldwide Church of God at that time. Herbert W. Armstrong claimed that Rohan was not a member of the church, only a subscriber to the magazine. The incident made worldwide news and The Daily Telegraph newspaper in London pictured Rohan on its front page with a folded copy of The Plain Truth sticking out of his outside jacket pocket. The Arab world and the USSR (see role of the Soviet Union) blamed Israel for the incident and Yassar Arafat constantly used it as the foundation of his attacks on Israel. Several Arab and Islamic media agencies, including the Jordanian News Agency*, IslamOnline*, and Palestine Chronicle*, incorrectly reported that Rohan was Jewish. However, Herbert W. Armstrong was not a stranger to King Hussein and he had been working with Jordanian government to put his daily radio program called The World Tomorrow on their AM and shortwave stations that broadcast from the Jordanian West Bank. That contract had been negated due to the Six Day War and the sudden capture of the Jordanian radio stations by Israel. Israeli sources claim that Israeli firemen attempting to extinguish the blaze were hampered by Arabs who mistakenly believed that the fire hoses contained petrol rather than water*; Shaykh Ekrima Sa'id Sabri claims that Palestinian efforts to put out the fire were obstructed by Israel*. On February 1, 1981, an article "Islam Reborn" written by Don A. Schanche appeared in the Opinion section of The Los Angeles Times. It related the following information: The Islamic conference, for example, was born in a worldwide surge of Muslim outrage over the August, 1969, burning of Jerusalem's Al Aksa mosque, third holiest shrine in Islam after Mecca and Medina, by a deranged Australian Jew, who many Muslims believed was a pawn in a Zionist plot. The call to gather in Rabat, Morocco, to unify and do something to redress the outrage drew only 25 of the more than 40 nations in the world with Muslim majorities. With only one cause to unite them, the kings and presidents talked for only a day and issued a call for the restoration of Arab sovereignty over Jerusalem and other territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Then they adjourned. The meeting and the newly founded organization were all but ignored by the rest of the world.... Last week, with its membership now grown to 42, but attendance weakened by the suspension of Egypt and Soviet-occupied Afghanistan and the pointed absence of Iran and Libya, the Islamic conference went a long way toward achieving its long-sought goal of power in unity. On April 11, 1981, an American-born Israeli Jewish soldier named Alan Harry Goodman entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque and started firing randomly, killing two Palestinians. In recent years many complaints have been voiced by Israelis about Muslim construction and excavation on and underneath the Temple Mount, and by Muslims about Israeli excavations, two under the Temple Mount, the rest around it*. Ironically, for a time Ambassador College - the liberal arts educational institution of the Worldwide Church of God - regularly provided students and money during summer breaks to assist with these excavations. Some claim that this will lead to the destabilization of the retaining walls of the Temple Mount, of which the Western Wall is one, and/or the al-Aqsa Mosque, and allege that one side is doing so deliberately to cause the collapse of the sacred sites of the other. Israelis allege that Palestinians are deliberately removing significant amounts of archaeological evidence about the Jewish past of the site and claim to have found significant artifacts in the fill removed by bulldozers and trucks from the Temple Mount. Muslims allege that the Israelis are deliberately damaging the remains of Islamic-era buildings found in their excavations*. See below for details. Since the Waqf is granted almost full autonomy on the Islamic holy sites, Israeli archaeologists have been prevented from inspecting the area; they have, however, conducted several excavations under and around the Temple Mount. Damage to existing structures In 1968-69, Israeli archeologists carried out excavations at the foot of the Temple Mount, immediately south of the al-Aqsa mosque and opened two ancient Second Temple period tunnels there that penetrate beneath Al-Aqsa Mosque in the area of the Hulda and Single gates, penetrating five meters into one and 30 meters into another. "At the Temple Mount's south wall digging took place to uncover the Arabic Umayyad palaces and Crusader remains." * Over the period 1970-1988, the Israeli authorities excavated a tunnel passing immediately to the west of the Temple Mount, northwards from the Western Wall, that became known as the Western Wall Tunnel. They sometimes used mechanical excavators under the supervision of archeologists. Palestinians claim that both of these have caused cracks and structural weakening of the buildings in the Muslim Quarter of the city above. Israelis confirmed this danger: "The Moslem authorities were concerned about the ministry tunnel along the Temple Mount wall, and not without cause. Two incidents during the Mazar dig along the southern wall had sounded alarm bells. Technion engineers had already measured a slight movement in part of the southern wall during the excavations...There was no penetration of the Mount itself or danger to holy places, but midway in the tunnel's progress large cracks appeared in one of the residential buildings in the Moslem Quarter, 12 meters above the excavation. The dig was halted until steel buttresses secured the building." - Abraham Rabinovitch, The Jerusalem Post, September 27, 1996* In 1982, Yehuda Meir Getz, rabbi of the Western Wall, had workmen open the ancient Warren's Gate, accessing the innards of the Temple Mount itself from the Western Wall Tunnel. Arabs on the Mount heard excavation noises from one of the more than two dozen cisterns on the Mount. Israeli Government officials, upon being notified of the unauthorized tunneling, immediately ordered the Warren's Gate resealed. The 2000-year-old stone gate was filled with cement, and remains cement-shut today. In 1996, Israel opened up an exit to the tunnel, which led to riots. Archeologist Leon Pressouyre, a UNESCO envoy who visited the site in 1998 and claims to have been prevented from meeting Israeli officials (in his own words, "Mr Avi Shoket, Israel's permanent delegate to UNESCO, had repeatedly opposed my mission and, when I expressed the wish to meet with his successor, Uri Gabay, I was denied an appointment"*), accuses the Israeli government of culpably neglecting to protect the Islamic period buildings uncovered in Israeli excavations. More recently, Prof. Oleg Grabar of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University has replaced Leon Pressouyre as the UNESCO envoy to investigate the Israeli allegations that antiquities are being destroyed by the Waqf on the Temple Mount.* Initially, Grabar was denied access to the buildings by Israel for over a year, allegedly due to the threat of violence resulting from the al-Aqsa Intifada. His eventual conclusion was that the monuments are deteriorating largely because of conflicts over who is responsible for them, the Jordanian government, the local Palestinian Authority or the Israeli government. In autumn 2002, a bulge of about 700 mm was reported in the southern retaining wall part of the Temple Mount. It was feared that that part of the wall might seriously deteriorate or even collapse. The Waqf would not permit detailed Israeli inspection but came to an agreement with Israel that led to a team of Jordanian engineers inspecting the wall in October. They recommended repair work that involved replacing or resetting most of the stones in the affected area which covers 2,000 square feet (200 m²) and is located 25 feet (8 m) from the top of the wall. * Repairs were completed before January 2004. The restoration of 250 square meters of wall cost 100,000 Jordanian dinars ($140,000).* On February 11, 2004, the eastern wall of the Temple Mount was damaged by an earthquake. The damage threatens to topple sections of the wall into the area known as Solomon's Stables. * On February 16, 2004, a portion of a stone retaining wall supporting the ramp that leads from the Western Wall plaza to the Gate of the Moors (Arabic Bab al-Maghariba, Hebrew Sha'ar HaMughrabim) and on the Temple Mount collapsed. * Damage to adjoining areas In 1967, Israel razed the Moroccan Quarter (Harat al-Magharbah) of the Old City, immediately adjacent to the Temple Mount. Before the demolition the only way to access the Western Wall was through a blind alley in the quarter. This had long been an area of tension between the residents of the neighborhood and the Jewish Pilgrims. A plaza in front of the Western Wall and a yeshiva were built in its place. Damage to antiquities In 1996 the Waqf began construction in the structures known since Crusader times as Solomon's Stables, and in the Eastern Hulda Gate passageway, allowed the area to be (re)opened as a mosque called the Marwani Musalla (claimed by Israel to be new, by Palestinians to be restored from pre-Crusader times, having been built by a calif named Marwani, and the Crusaders having turned it into stables) capable of accommodating 7,000 individuals. Many Israelis regard this as a radical change of the status quo under which the site had been administered since the Six-Day War which should not have been undertaken without consulting the Israeli government; Palestinians regard these objections as irrelevant. Though the building was built at the same time as the Al-Aqsa Mosque, whether the building had been a mosque before Crusader times or not is open to discussion. In 1997, the Western Hulda Gate passageway was converted into another mosque. In November 1999, a buried Crusader-era door was reopened as an emergency exit for the Mosque located within the Solomon's Stables area, opening an excavation claimed by Israel to be 18,000 square feet (1,700 m²) in size and up to 36 feet (11 m) deep. According to The New York Times, an emergency exit had been urged upon the Waqf by the Israeli police, and its necessity was acknowledged by the Israel Antiquities Authority*. In early 2001, Israeli police said they observed bulldozers destroying an ancient arched structure located adjacent to the eastern wall of the Temple Mount in the course of construction during which 6,000 square meters of the Temple Mount were dug up by tractors, paved, and declared to be open air mosques, which is assumed to have intermixed the underlying strata. Some of the earth and rubble removed was dumped in the El-Azaria and in the Kidron Valleys, and some of it (as of September 2004) remained in mounds on the site. The excavation and removal of earth with minimal archaeological supervision became an issue of controversy, with some scholars such as Jon Seligman, Hershel Shanks and Eilat Mazar claiming that valuable history material is being destroyed and others, such as Dan Bahat and Meir Ben-Dov, disputing this assessment. The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) inspected the material and declared it of no archaeological value, but a group called the Committee for the Prevention of Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount campaigned against this position and in September 2004 obtained a temporary injunction against the IAA and the Muslim Waqf preventing them from removing the material which still lies in mounds on the site. Both sides accuse the other of having political motivation. Vandalism to the southern wall On March 30, 2005, the southern wall of the Temple Mount was found to have been the target of vandals. The word "Allah" in approximately a foot tall Arabic script was found newly carved into the ancient stones. The vandalism was attributed to a team of Jordanian engineers and Palestinian laborers in charge of strengthening that section of the wall. The discovery caused outrage among Israeli archaeologists and many Jews were angered by the “graffiti” at Judaism’s holiest site. * Management of the site A Muslim Waqf has managed the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif continuously since the Muslim reconquest of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Since taking control of the area in the Six-Day War, Israel has not changed this state of affairs. Under this arrangement, Jews are generally permitted to visit the site in small numbers, but are not allowed to pray on the Temple Mount. In fact, an official of the Waqf usually accompanies such Jewish visits and forbids Christians also from praying or reading the Bible upon the Temple Mount (A House of Prayer for All Peoples?). On 7 June 1967, immediately after the fighting had died down in Jerusalem, the then Prime Minister, Levi Eshkol, convened the spiritual leaders of all the communities in Jerusalem and assured them that "no harm whatsoever shall come to the places sacred to all religions", and that contacts should be maintained in order to make certain that spiritual activities of the religious leaders in the Old City may continue. He also mentioned that upon his request the Minister of Religious Affairs had issued instructions according to which arrangements in connection with the Western Wall, Muslim Holy Places and Christian Holy Places should be determined by the Chief Rabbis of Israel, a council of Muslim clerics and a council of Christian clergy respectively. Together with the extension of Israeli jurisdiction and administration over east Jerusalem, the Knesset passed the Preservation of the Holy Places Law, 1967, * ensuring protection of the Holy Places against desecration, as well as freedom of access thereto.—Jerusalem–The Legal and Political Background Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Israel * According to a posthumously-published interview with Haaretz, General Uzi Narkiss reported that on June 7, 1967, a few hours after East Jerusalem fell into Israeli hands, Rabbi Shlomo Goren had told him "Now is the time to put 100 kilograms of explosives into the Mosque of Omar so that we may rid ourselves of it once and for all." His request was denied; according to Goren's aide Menahem Hacohen, he had not suggested blowing up the mosque, but had merely stated that "if, during the course of the war a bomb had fallen on the mosque and it would have - you know - disappeared - that would have been a good thing." Later that year, in a speech to a military convention, he added: "Certainly we should have blown it up. It is a tragedy for generations that we did not do so. ... I myself would have gone up there and wiped it off the ground completely so that there was no trace that there was ever a Mosque of Omar there."* Shlomo Goren also entered the Dome of the Rock with a Torah book and the shofar. * Plans for a synagogue During the Sukkot festival in 2006 Uri Ariel, a member of the knesset from the National Union party ascended to the mount, * and said that he's preparing a plan where a synagogue will be built on the mount. His suggested synagogue won't be built instead of the mosques but in a separate area in accordance with rulings of the prominent Rabbis. He said he believed that this will be correcting an historical injustice and that it's an opportunity for the Muslim world to prove that it's tolerant to all faiths. Plans for a new minaret October 14 2006, it was reported in The Times that there are plans to build a new minaret, the first of its kind for 600 years, on the Temple Mount. King Abdullah II of Jordan announced a competition to design a fifth minaret for the walls of the Temple Mount complex, imprinting his Hashemite dynasty on the site. The new addition would, the King said, “reflect the Islamic significance and sanctity of the mosque”. The scheme is likely to cost £200,000. The plans are for a seven-sided tower — after the seven-pointed Hashemite star — and at 42 metres (130ft), it would be 3.5 metres (11ft) taller than the next-largest minaret. The minaret will be constructed on the eastern wall of the Temple Mount near the Golden Gate. Although Israel has not objected and plans are on track for construction to begin early next year , a leading Israeli archeologist lambasted the plan. "I am against any change in the status quo on the Temple Mount", said Bar-Ilan University's Dr. Gabi Barkai, a member of the Committee for the Prevention of Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount. "If the status quo is being changed, then it should not just be the addition of Muslim structures at the site”. The existing four minarets include three near the Western Wall and one near the northern wall. The first minaret was constructed on the southwest corner of the Temple Mount in 1278. The second was built in 1297 by order of a Mameluke king, the third by a governor of Jerusalem in 1329, and the last in 1367. Muslim claims of exclusivity Jewish claims of exclusivity See also: Location of the “Furthest Mosque” Jewish As Jews do not consider the Qur'an sacred, their tradition ideologically refutes Muhammed's status as a prophet and his journey to Jerusalem. Some Jews (and others) hold that the Qur'an's discussion of the night trip never involved Jerusalem or the Temple Mount (as the place of the event is not specified and neither is mentioned by name anywhere in the Qur'an), but rather that this was a later Muslim reinterpretation of the verse, made for political reasons. * * * * * * See the discussion of this topic at Isra and Mi'raj. However, the Government of Israel and most Jews recognize that Muslims regard the site as holy based upon their beliefs, and respect the rights of Muslims to hold such beliefs and to pray there in their fashion. The State of Israel allows Muslims access to the site since capturing it in the Six-Day War, and they are the only ones who are permitted to pray on the site *; however, Palestinians under the age of 45 have been barred from entry during past periods of conflict. *, Palestinians were restricted due to Israeli-claims of architectural integrity *, and, further, Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are often currently unable to reach the site due to restrictions on their movements *. Recent controversy has developed when Israeli authorities allowed non-Muslims to enter the mosque compound, against the wishes of the Waqf who administers the site *. Muslim "The site is one of the oldest in the world. Its sanctity dates from the earliest (perhaps from pre-historic) times. Its identity with the site of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute. This, too, is the spot, according to universal belief, on which David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings." A footnote refers the reader to 2 Samuel 26:25. More recent examples include a fatwa issued by the Saudi Sheikh M. S. al-Munajjid, quoted on IslamOnline, 18 March 2001, stating that: Al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) was the first of the two qiblahs (prayer direction), and is one of the three mosques to which people may travel for the purpose of worship. And it was said that it was built by Sulayman (Solomon), as stated in Sunan an-Nasa’i and classed as authentic by al-Albani. * Since the beginning of Islam, this has been the orthodox position. Starting in the 1990s, however, some people, including the PA-appointed Sheikh Ekrima Sa'id Sabri, chairperson of the Palestinian Higher Islamic Commission and Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, have denied that the site is connected with Solomon, and that it had any history involving the Jews * ...They would not follow thy direction of prayer (qibla), nor art thou to follow their direction of prayer; nor indeed will they follow each other's direction of prayer... (Koran 2:145) All Koranic commentators explain that "thy qibla" (direction of prayer for Muslims) is clearly the Kaba of Mecca, while "their qibla" (direction of prayer for Jews) refers to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. To quote only one of the most important Muslim commentators, we read in Qadn Baydawn's commentary: "Verily, in their prayers Jews orientate themselves toward the Rock (sakhrah), while Christians orientate themselves eastwards..." The Farthest Mosque must refer to the site of the Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem on the hill of Moriah, at or near which stands the Dome of the Rock… it was a sacred place to both Jews and Christians… The chief dates in connection with the Temple in Jerusalem are: It was finished by Solomon about 1004 BCE; destroyed by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar about 586 BCE; rebuilt under Ezra and Nehemiah about 515 BCE; turned into a heathen idol temple by one of Alexander the Great's successors, Antiochus Epiphanes, 167 BCE; restored by Herod, 17 BCE to 29; and completely razed to the ground by the Emperor Titus in 70. These ups and downs are among the greater signs in religious history. See also Archeological controversy | |||||||||||||
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