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Is Jerusalem Sacred for Muslims?

(Hudson Institute New York) Hagai Mazuz and Harold Rhode - Muslims were initially commanded to pray toward Jerusalem. But when the Jews refused to convert to Islam, Muhammad changed the prayer direction toward Mecca. Islamic sources from the first 50 years after Muhammad's death make clear that Jerusalem had absolutely no holy status for Muslims. Some centuries later, Muslim cleric Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328) wrote extensively about Jerusalem, and how there were only two holy cities in Islam - Mecca and Medina. He eventually became the intellectual godfather of Wahhabism, the dominant Islamic doctrine of the Saudi government. Ibn Taymiyya went to great lengths to explain that the veneration of Jerusalem is nothing more than the "Judaization" of Islam and that Muslims must rid themselves of all non-Muslim innovations and return to the early Islam of Muhammad. He wrote that after the second caliph 'Umar conquered Jerusalem in 637, he and his aide Ka'b al-Ahobar [a Jewish convert to Islam] went up to view the Temple Mount. 'Umar decided to build the place to pray on the southern part of the Temple Mount - the place today known as the Aqsa Mosque. 'Umar's choice of location meant that the Muslims bowed down only to Mecca and that their backs (rear ends) were facing the Rock on the Temple Mount. Ibn Taymiyya wondered how Muslim clerics could have accepted Ka'b's attempts to incorporate Jewish traditions into Islam, because Ka'b did not cite any of Muhammad's companions as the source of his claim. Ibn Taymiyya also accused Ka'b of fabricating Muslim traditions and incorporating Jewish writings, i.e., the Bible, Talmud, etc., into Islam. So how did Jerusalem become holy in Islam? In the 680s, a civil war erupted among the Muslims. The caliph who ruled from Damascus wanted to put down a revolt by the people who controlled Mecca. In order to weaken them, he chose to build a dome over the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and to encourage people to make pilgrimages there instead of to Mecca. So in essence, Jerusalem's sanctity to Muslims stems from a local revolt which occurred some 50-plus years after Muhammad's death.
2010-10-21 09:21:41
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