The Temple Mount (), also known as the Noble Sanctuary (

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

: الحرم الشريف, 'Haram al-Sharif'), and sometimes as Jerusalem's holy esplanade, is a hill in the Old City of

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

that has been venerated as a holy site for thousands of years, including in

Judaism Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

and

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

. The present site is a flat plaza surrounded by

retaining wall Retaining walls are relatively rigid walls used for supporting soil laterally so that it can be retained at different levels on the two sides. Retaining walls are structures designed to restrain soil to a slope that it would not naturally keep to ...

s (including the Western Wall), which were originally built by King Herod in the first century BCE for an expansion of the Second Jewish Temple. The plaza is dominated by two monumental structures originally built during the

Rashidun The Rashidun () are the first four caliphs () who led the Muslim community following the death of Muhammad: Abu Bakr (), Umar (), Uthman (), and Ali (). The reign of these caliphs, called the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), is considered i ...

and early

Umayyad The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire (, ; ) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty. Uthman ibn Affan, the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a membe ...

caliphates after the city's capture in 637 CE:Nicolle, David (1994). ''Yarmuk AD 636: The Muslim Conquest of Syria''. Osprey Publishing. the main praying hall of al-Aqsa Mosque and the

Dome of the Rock The Dome of the Rock () is an Islamic shrine at the center of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound on the Temple Mount in the Old City (Jerusalem), Old City of Jerusalem. It is the world's oldest surviving work of Islamic architecture, the List_of_the_ol ...

, near the center of the hill, which was completed in 692 CE, making it one of the oldest extant Islamic structures in the world. The

Herodian Herodian or Herodianus () of Syria, sometimes referred to as "Herodian of Antioch" (c. 170 – c. 240), was a minor Roman civil servant who wrote a colourful history in Greek titled ''History of the Empire from the Death of Marcus'' (τῆς με ...

walls and gates, with additions from the late

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

, early Muslim, Mamluk, and Ottoman periods, flank the site, which can be reached through eleven gates, ten reserved for Muslims and one for non-Muslims, with guard posts of the Israel Police in the vicinity of each. The courtyard is surrounded on the north and west by two Mamluk-era porticos ('' riwaq'') and four minarets. The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism, and where two Jewish temples once stood. According to Jewish tradition and scripture,. the First Temple was built by King

Solomon Solomon (), also called Jedidiah, was the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Kingdom of Israel and Judah, according to the Hebrew Bible. The successor of his father David, he is described as having been the penultimate ...

, the son of King

David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...

, in 957 BCE, and was destroyed by the

Neo-Babylonian Empire The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to ancient Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC a ...

, together with Jerusalem, in 587 BCE. No archaeological evidence has been found to verify the existence of the First Temple, and scientific excavations have been limited due to religious sensitivities. The Second Temple, constructed under

Zerubbabel Zerubbabel ( from ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, a governor of the Achaemenid Empire's province of Yehud Medinata and the grandson of Jeconiah, penultimate king of Judah. He is not documented in extra-biblical documents, and is considered ...

in 516 BCE, was later renovated by King Herod and was ultimately destroyed by the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

in 70 CE. Orthodox Jewish tradition maintains it is here that the third and final Temple will be built when the

Messiah In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; , ; , ; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of '' mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach ...

comes.Baker, Eric W.. The Eschatological Role of the Jerusalem Temple: An Examination of the Jewish Writings Dating from 586 BCE to 70 CE. Germany: Anchor Academic Publishing, 2015, pp. 361–62 The Temple Mount is the place Jews turn towards during prayer. Jewish attitudes towards entering the site vary. Due to its extreme sanctity, many Jews will not walk on the Mount itself, to avoid unintentionally entering the area where the

Holy of Holies The Holy of Holies ( or ''Kodesh HaKodashim''; also ''hadDəḇīr'', 'the Sanctuary') is a term in the Hebrew Bible that refers to the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle, where the Shekhinah (God in Judaism, God's presence) appeared. According ...

stood, since, according to rabbinical law, there is still some aspect of the

divine presence Divine presence, presence of God, Inner God, or simply presence is a concept in religion, spirituality, and theology that deals with the ability of a deity to be "present" with human beings, sometimes associated with omnipresence. Conceptualiza ...

at the site.

Maimonides Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (, ) and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam (), was a Sephardic rabbi and Jewish philosophy, philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah schola ...

, '' Mishneh Torah'', Avoda, Beit haBechira, 6:14. Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi,

Bernard Avishai Bernard Avishai () is an adjunct professor of Business at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He lives in Jerusalem and the United States. He has taught at Duke University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Dartmouth College, and ...

'Jews Don’t Have a ‘Holiest’ Site,'

Haaretz ''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an List of newspapers in Israel, Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew lan ...

13 May :’The point is, this kind of recklessness not only offended secular democrats, it vulgarized what “holy” has meant for most observant Jews, too. Not coincidentally, more than 85 percent of Israel’s Haredi Jews oppose prayer on the Mount, for reasons having to do with purity and impurity that cannot be resolved in “our time.” Advocates of such prayer and sacrifice tend to be, like Goren, Orthodox-nationalist zealots educated in local yeshivas and identified with the neo-Zionist settlement project. They are, like Islamists, fanatics warped by violence and nationalist fantasy – “Jewists,” not Jews.‘Sam Sokol
Should Jews Be Allowed to Pray on the Temple Mount? Many Israelis Think So, Poll Shows,'

3 May 2022: '86.5 percent of ultra-Orthodox Jews opposed prayer for reasons of halakha, while national religious (51 percent), traditional religious (54.5 percent) and traditional non-religious respondents (49 percent) supported worship on the mount for nationalist reasons. Many rabbis, and almost all ultra-Orthodox ones, prohibit their followers from ascending the Temple Mount due to concerns over ritual purity.' The Al-Aqsa mosque compound, atop the site, is the second oldest mosque in Islam, and one of the three Sacred Mosques, the

holiest sites in Islam The holiest sites in Islam are located in the Middle East. While the significance of most places typically varies depending on the Islamic schools and branches, Islamic sect, there is a consensus across all mainstream branches of the religion tha ...

; it is revered as "the Noble Sanctuary".* * '' Where Heaven and Earth Meet'', p. 13: "Nowadays, while oral usage of the term Haram persists, Palestinians tend to use in formal texts the name Masjid al-Aqsa, habitually rendered into English as 'the Aqsa Mosque'". * * . * . *

PEF Survey of Palestine The PEF Survey of Palestine was a series of surveys carried out by the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) between 1872 and 1877 for the completed Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) and in 1880 for the soon abandoned Survey of Eastern Palestine. The ...

, 1883, volume III Jerusalem, p. 119: "The Jamia el Aksa, or 'distant mosque' (that is, distant from Mecca), is on the south, reaching to the outer wall. The whole enclosure of the Haram is called by Moslem writers Masjid el Aksa, 'praying-place of the Aksa,' from this mosque." * Yitzhak Reiter: "This article deals with the employment of religious symbols for national identities and national narratives by using the sacred compound in Jerusalem (The Temple Mount/al-Aqsa) as a case study. The narrative of The Holy Land involves three concentric circles, each encompassing the other, with each side having its own names for each circle. These are: Palestine/Eretz Israel (i.e., the Land of Israel); Jerusalem/al-Quds and finally The Temple Mount/al-Aqsa compound...Within the struggle over public awareness of Jerusalem's importance, one particular site is at the eye of the stormthe Temple Mount and its Western Wallthe Jewish Kotelor, in Muslim terminology, the al-Aqsa compound (alternatively: al-Haram al-Sharif) including the al-Buraq Wall... "Al-Aqsa" for the Palestinian-Arab-Muslim side is not merely a mosque mentioned in the Quran within the context of the Prophet Muhammad's miraculous Night Journey to al-Aqsa which, according to tradition, concluded with his ascension to heaven (and prayer with all of the prophets and the Jewish and Christian religious figures who preceded him); rather, it also constitutes a unique symbol of identity, one around which various political objectives may be formulated, plans of action drawn up and masses mobilized for their realization"
"Narratives of Jerusalem and its Sacred Compound"
''Israel Studies'' 18(2): 115–32 (July 2013). * Annika Björkdahl and Susanne Buckley-Zistel: "The site is known in Arabic as Haram al-Sharifthe Noble Sanctuaryand colloquially as the Haram or the al-Aqsa compound; while in Hebrew, it is called Har HaBeitthe Temple Mount." * Mahdi Abdul Hadi: "Al-Aqsa Mosque, also referred to as Al-Haram Ash-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary), comprises the entire area within the compound walls (a total area of 144,000 m2)including all the mosques, prayer rooms, buildings, platforms and open courtyards located above or under the groundsand exceeds 200 historical monuments pertaining to various Islamic eras. According to Islamic creed and jurisprudence, all these buildings and courtyards enjoy the same degree of sacredness since they are built on Al-Aqsa's holy grounds. This sacredness is not exclusive to the physical structures allocated for prayer, like the Dome of the Rock or Al-Qibly Mosque (the mosque with the large silver dome
Mahdi Abdul Hadi
Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs; Tim Marshall: "Many people believe that the mosque depicted is called the Al-Aqsa; however, a visit to one of Palestine's most eminent intellectuals, Mahdi F. Abdul Hadi, clarified the issue. Hadi is chairman of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, based in East Jerusalem. His offices are a treasure trove of old photographs, documents, and symbols. He was kind enough to spend several hours with me. He spread out maps of Jerusalem's Old City on a huge desk and homed in on the Al-Aqsa compound, which sits above the Western Wall. "The mosque in the Al-Aqsa rigadesflag is the Dome of the Rock. Everyone takes it for granted that it is the Al-Aqsa mosque, but no, the whole compound is Al-Aqsa, and on it are two mosques, the Qibla mosque and the Dome of the Rock, and on the flags of both Al-Aqsa Brigades and the Qassam Brigades, it is the Dome of the Rock shown," he said. * ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth in 1980 and launched on September 14, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headq ...

'': "A view of the Al-Aqsa compound (Temple Mount) in Jerusalem's Old City

* Al Jazeera Arabic, Al Jazeera: "Israeli Deputy Minister Tzipi Hotovely referred to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound as 'the centre of Israeli sovereignty, the capital of Israel'... In response, Netanyahu's office later that night put out a statement saying that 'non-Muslims visit the Temple Mount l-Aqsa compound but are not permitted to pray there

/ref> Its courtyard ('' sahn'') can host more than 400,000 worshippers, making it one of the largest mosques in the world. For

Sunni Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Mu ...

and Shia Muslims alike, it ranks as the third holiest site in Islam. The plaza includes the location regarded as where the Islamic prophet

Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...

ascended to heaven, and served as the first "''

qibla The qibla () is the direction towards the Kaaba in the Great Mosque of Mecca, Sacred Mosque in Mecca, which is used by Muslims in various religious contexts, particularly the direction of prayer for the salah. In Islam, the Kaaba is believed to ...

''", the direction Muslims turn towards when praying. As in Judaism, Muslims also associate the site with

and other prophets who are also venerated in Islam., . The site, and the term "al-Aqsa", in relation to the whole plaza, is also a central identity symbol for

Palestinians Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenou ...

, including Palestinian Christians. Since the

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding t ...

, the Muslim community of Jerusalem has managed the site through the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf. The site, along with the whole of East Jerusalem (which includes the Old City), was controlled by

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

from 1948 until 1967 and has been occupied by Israel since the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...

of 1967. Shortly after capturing the site, Israel handed its administration back to the Waqf under the Jordanian Hashemite custodianship, while maintaining Israeli security control. The Israeli government enforces a ban on prayer by non-Muslims as part of an arrangement usually referred to as the "status quo". The site remains a major focal point of the

Israeli–Palestinian conflict The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about Territory, land and self-determination within the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation ...

Terminology

The name of the site is disputed, primarily between Muslims and Jews, in the context of the ongoing

. Some Arab-Muslim commentators and scholars attempt to deny Jewish connection with the Temple Mount, while some Jewish commentators and scholars attempt to belittle the importance of the site in Islam. During a 2016 dispute over the name of the site,

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

Director-General Irina Bokova stated: "Different peoples worship the same places, sometimes under different names. The recognition, use of and respect for these names is paramount."

Temple Mount

The term ''Har haBayīt'' – commonly translated as "Temple Mount" in English – was first used in the books of Micah (4:1) and

Jeremiah Jeremiah ( – ), also called Jeremias, was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition, Jeremiah authored the Book of Jeremiah, book that bears his name, the Books of Kings, and the Book of Lamentations, with t ...

(26:18), literally as "Mount of the House", a literary variation of the longer phrase "Mountain of the House of the Lord". The abbreviation was not used again in the later books of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

. The term remained in use throughout the

Second Temple period The Second Temple period or post-exilic period in Jewish history denotes the approximately 600 years (516 BCE – 70 CE) during which the Second Temple stood in the city of Jerusalem. It began with the return to Zion and subsequent reconstructio ...

, although the term “Mount Zion”, which today refers to the eastern hill of ancient Jerusalem, was used more frequently. Both terms are in use in the Book of Maccabees. The term ''Har haBayīt'' is used throughout the

Mishnah The Mishnah or the Mishna (; , from the verb ''šānā'', "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. Having been collected in the 3rd century CE, it is ...

and later Talmudic texts. The exact moment when the concept of the Mount as a topographical feature separate from the Temple or the city itself first came into existence is a matter of debate among scholars. According to Eliav, it was during the first century CE, after the destruction of the Second Temple. Shahar and Shatzman reached different conclusions. In the

Books of Chronicles The Book of Chronicles ( , "words of the days") is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Chronicles) in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third section of the Jewish Ta ...

, edited at the end of the Persian period, the mountain is already referred to as a distinct entity. In 2 Chronicles, Solomon's Temple was constructed on Mount Moriah (3:1), and Manasseh's atonement for his sins is associated with the Mountain of the House of the Lord (33:15). The conception of the Temple as being located on a holy mountain possessing special qualities is found repeatedly in Psalms, with the surrounding area being considered an integral part of the Temple itself. The governmental organization which administers the site, the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf (part of the Jordanian government), have stated that the name "The Temple Mount" is a "strange and alien name" and a "newly-created Judaization term". In 2014, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) issued a press release urging journalists not to use the term "Temple Mount" when referring to the site. In 2017, it was reported that Waqf officials harassed archeologists such as Gabriel Barkay and tour guides who used the term at the site. According to Jan Turek and John Carman, in modern usage, the term Temple Mount can potentially imply support for Israeli control of the site.

Other Hebrew terms

2 Chronicles 3:1. refers to the Temple Mount in the time before the construction of the temple as Mount Moriah (, ). Several passages in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' The

Mount Zion Mount Zion (, ''Har Ṣīyyōn''; , ''Jabal Sahyoun'') is a hill in Jerusalem, located just outside the walls of the Old City (Jerusalem), Old City to the south. The term Mount Zion has been used in the Hebrew Bible first for the City of David ( ...

mentioned in the later parts of the

Book of Isaiah The Book of Isaiah ( ) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah ben Amo ...

(Isaiah 60:14), in the

Book of Psalms The Book of Psalms ( , ; ; ; ; , in Islam also called Zabur, ), also known as the Psalter, is the first book of the third section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) called ('Writings'), and a book of the Old Testament. The book is an anthology of ...

, and the First Book of Maccabees () seems to refer to the top of the hill, generally known as the Temple Mount. According to the Book of Samuel, Mount Zion was the site of the Jebusite fortress called the "stronghold of Zion", but once the First Temple was erected, according to the Bible, at the top of the Eastern Hill ("Temple Mount"), the name "Mount Zion" migrated there too. The name later migrated for a last time, this time to Jerusalem's Western Hill.

Al-Aqsa Mosque

The English term "al-Aqsa Mosque" is a translation of either ''al-Masjid al-'Aqṣā'' () or ''al-Jâmi' al-Aqṣā'' ().

Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...

's '' Surah 17'' ("The Night Journey") which writes that

travelled from Mecca to the mosque, from where he subsequently ascended to

Heaven Heaven, or the Heavens, is a common Religious cosmology, religious cosmological or supernatural place where beings such as deity, deities, angels, souls, saints, or Veneration of the dead, venerated ancestors are said to originate, be throne, ...

. Arabic and Persian writers such as 10th-century geographer Al-Maqdisi, 11th-century scholar Nasir Khusraw, 12th-century geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi and 15th-century Islamic scholar

Mujir al-Din Mujīr al-Dīn al-ʿUlaymī (; 1456–1522), often simply Mujir al-Din, was a Jerusalemite '' qadi'' and historian whose principal work chronicled the history of Jerusalem and Hebron in the Middle Ages.Little, 1995, p. 237.van Donzel, 1994, p. ...

, and also as well as 19th century American and British Orientalists Edward Robinson, Guy Le Strange and Edward Henry Palmer explained that the term Masjid al-Aqsa refers to the entire esplanade plaza which is the subject of this article – the entire area including the

, the fountains, the gates, and the four minarets – because none of these buildings existed at the time the Quran was written. ''Al-Jâmi' al-Aqṣá'' refers to the specific site of the silver-domed congregational mosque building, also referred to as Qibli Mosque or Qibli Chapel (''al-Jami' al-Aqsa'' or ''al-Qibli'', or ''Masjid al-Jumah'' or ''al-Mughata''), in reference to its location on the southern end of the compound as a result of the Islamic

being moved from Jerusalem to Mecca. The two different Arabic terms, translated as "mosque" in English, parallel the two different Greek terms translated as "temple" in the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

: (equivalent to Masjid) and (equivalent to Jami'a), and use of the term "mosque" for the whole compound follows the usage of the same term for other early Islamic sites with large courtyards such as the Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo, the

Umayyad Mosque The Umayyad Mosque (; ), also known as the Great Mosque of Damascus, located in the old city of Damascus, the capital of Syria, is one of the largest and oldest mosques in the world. Its religious importance stems from the eschatological reports ...

in Damascus and the Great Mosque of Kairouan. Other sources and maps have used the term ''al-Masjid al-'Aqṣā'' to refer to the congregational mosque itself. The term "al-Aqsa" as a symbol and brand-name has become popular and prevalent in the region. For example, the Al-Aqsa Intifada (the uprising of September 2000), the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (a coalition of Palestinian nationalist militias in the West Bank), al-Aqsa TV (the official Hamas-run television channel), al-Aqsa University (Palestinian university established in 1991 in the Gaza Strip),

Jund al-Aqsa Jund al-Aqsa ( ''Jund al-‘Aqṣā'', "Soldiers of al-Aqsa"), known as Liwa al-Aqsa after 7 February 2017, was a Salafist jihadist organization that was active during the Syrian Civil War. Formerly known as Sarayat al-Quds, the group was founde ...

(a Salafist jihadist organization that was active during the Syrian Civil War), the Jordanian military periodical published since the early 1970s, and the associations of both the southern and northern branches of the Islamic Movement in Israel are all named Al-Aqsa after this site.

Haram al-Sharif

During the period of Mamluk (1260–1517) and Ottoman rule (1517–1917), the wider compound of the Temple Mount began to also be popularly known as the Haram al-Sharif, or ''al-Ḥaram ash-Sharīf'' (), which translates as the "Noble Sanctuary". It mirrors the terminology of the

Masjid al-Haram Masjid al-Haram (), also known as the Sacred Mosque or the Great Mosque of Mecca, is considered to be the most significant mosque in Islam. It encloses the vicinity of the Kaaba in Mecca, in the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia. It is among the ...

Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...

; This term elevated the compound to the status of

Haram ''Haram'' (; ) is an Arabic term meaning 'taboo'. This may refer to either something sacred to which access is not allowed to the people who are not in a state of purity or who are not initiated into the sacred knowledge; or, in direct cont ...

, which had previously been reserved for the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi in

Medina Medina, officially al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (, ), also known as Taybah () and known in pre-Islamic times as Yathrib (), is the capital of Medina Province (Saudi Arabia), Medina Province in the Hejaz region of western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ...

. Other Islamic figures disputed the haram status of the site. Usage of the name Haram al-Sharif by local Palestinians has waned in recent decades, in favor of the traditional name of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Jerusalem's sacred esplanade

Some scholars have used the terms Sacred Esplanade or Holy Esplanade as a "strictly neutral term" for the site. A notable example of this usage is the 2009 work '' Where Heaven and Earth Meet: Jerusalem's Sacred Esplanade'', written as a joint undertaking by 21 Jewish, Muslim and Christian scholars.

Jerusalem's Holy Esplanade

In recent years, the term "Holy Esplanade" has been used by the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

, by its

Secretary-General Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, Power (social and political), power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the org ...

and by the UN's subsidiary organs.

Location and dimensions

The Temple Mount forms the northern portion of a narrow spur of hill that slopes sharply downward from north to south. Rising above the Kidron Valley to the east and Tyropoeon Valley to the west, its peak reaches a height of above sea level. Lundquist (2007), p. 103. In around 19 BCE,

Herod the Great Herod I or Herod the Great () was a History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, Roman Jewish client king of the Herodian kingdom of Judea. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea. Among these works are the rebuilding of the ...

extended the Mount's natural

plateau In geology and physical geography, a plateau (; ; : plateaus or plateaux), also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side. ...

by enclosing the area with four massive retaining walls and filling the voids. This artificial expansion resulted in a large flat expanse which today forms the eastern section of the Old City of Jerusalem. The trapezium shaped platform measures along the west, along the east, along the north and along the south, giving a total area of approximately . Finkelstein, Horbury, Davies & Sturdy (1999), p. 43. The northern wall of the Mount, together with the northern section of the western wall, is hidden behind residential buildings. The southern section of the western flank is revealed and contains what is known as the Western Wall. The retaining walls on these two sides descend many meters below ground level. A northern portion of the western wall may be seen from within the Western Wall Tunnel, which was excavated through buildings adjacent to the platform. On the southern and eastern sides, the walls are visible almost to their full height. The platform itself is separated from the rest of the Old City by the Tyropoeon Valley, though this once deep valley is now largely hidden beneath later deposits and is imperceptible in places. The platform can be reached via Gate of the Chain Street – a street in the Muslim Quarter at the level of the platform, actually sitting on a monumental bridge; the bridge is no longer externally visible due to the change in ground level, but it can be seen from beneath via the Western Wall Tunnel.

Heritage site

In 1980,

proposed that the Old City be listed as a

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

and it was added to the List in 1981. In 1982, it was added to the

List of World Heritage in Danger The List of World Heritage in Danger is compiled by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) through the World Heritage Committee according to Article 11.4 of the World Heritage Convention,Full title: ''Conv ...

. On 26 October 2016, UNESCO passed the Occupied Palestine Resolution that condemned what it described as "escalating Israeli aggressions" and illegal measures against the waqf, called for the restoration of Muslim access and demanded that Israel respect the historical status quo and also criticized Israel for its continuous "refusal to let the body's experts access Jerusalem's holy sites to determine their conservation status". While the text acknowledged the "importance of the Old City of Jerusalem and its walls for the three monotheistic religions", it referred to the sacred hilltop compound in Jerusalem's Old City only by its Muslim name Al-Haram al-Sharif. In response, Israel denounced the UNESCO resolution for its omission of the words "Temple Mount" or "Har HaBayit", stating that it denied Jewish ties to the site. Israel froze all ties with UNESCO. In October 2017, Israel and the United States announced they would withdraw from UNESCO, citing anti-Israel bias. On 6 April 2022, UNESCO unanimously adopted a resolution reiterating all 21 previous resolutions concerned with Jerusalem.

Religious significance

The Temple Mount has historical and religious significance for all three of the major

Abrahamic religions The term Abrahamic religions is used to group together monotheistic religions revering the Biblical figure Abraham, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The religions share doctrinal, historical, and geographic overlap that contrasts them wit ...

: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It has particular religious significance for Judaism and Islam.

Judaism

The Temple Mount is considered the holiest site in Judaism. According to Jewish tradition, both Temples stood at the Temple Mount. Jewish tradition further places the Temple Mount as the location for a number of important events which occurred in the Bible, including the Binding of Isaac, Jacob's dream, and the prayer of Isaac and Rebekah. According to the Talmud, the Foundation Stone is the place from where the world was created and expanded into its current form. Orthodox Jewish tradition maintains it is here that the third and final Temple will be built when the

comes.Baker, Eric W. ''The Eschatological Role of the Jerusalem Temple: An Examination of the Jewish Writings Dating from 586 BCE to 70 CE''. Germany: Anchor Academic Publishing, 2015, pp. 361–62. The Temple Mount is the place Jews turn towards during prayer. Jewish attitudes towards entering the site vary. Due to its extreme sanctity, many Jews will not walk on the Mount itself, to avoid unintentionally entering the area where the

stood, since, according to rabbinical law, there is still some aspect of the

at the site. Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi,

'Jews Don’t Have a ‘Holiest’ Site,'

13 May:’The point is, this kind of recklessness not only offended secular democrats, it vulgarized what “holy” has meant for most observant Jews, too. Not coincidentally, more than 85 percent of Israel’s Haredi Jews oppose prayer on the Mount, for reasons having to do with purity and impurity that cannot be resolved in “our time.” Advocates of such prayer and sacrifice tend to be, like Goren, Orthodox-nationalist zealots educated in local yeshivas and identified with the neo-Zionist settlement project. They are, like Islamists, fanatics warped by violence and nationalist fantasy – “Jewists,” not Jews.‘

The Temple

According to the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' threshing-floor owned by Araunah, a Jebusite. The Bible narrates how

united the twelve Israelite tribes, conquered Jerusalem and brought the

Israelites Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

' central artifact, the

Ark of the Covenant The Ark of the Covenant, also known as the Ark of the Testimony or the Ark of God, was a religious storage chest and relic held to be the most sacred object by the Israelites. Religious tradition describes it as a wooden storage chest decorat ...

, into the city. When a great plague struck Israel, a destroying angel appeared on Araunah's threshing floor. The prophet Gad then suggested the area to David as a fitting place for the erection of an altar to Yawheh. David bought the property from Araunah, for fifty pieces of silver, and erected the altar. God answered his prayers and stopped the plague. David subsequently chose the site for a future temple to replace the

Tabernacle According to the Hebrew Bible, the tabernacle (), also known as the Tent of the Congregation (, also Tent of Meeting), was the portable earthly dwelling of God used by the Israelites from the Exodus until the conquest of Canaan. Moses was instru ...

and house the Ark of the Covenant;

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

forbade him from building it, however, because he had "shed much blood". The First Temple was instead constructed under David's son

, who became an ambitious builder of public works in ancient Israel: Solomon placed the Ark in the Holy of Holies – the windowless innermost sanctuary and most sacred area of the temple in which God's presence rested; entry into the Holy of Holies was heavily restricted, and only the High Priest of Israel entered the sanctuary once per year on Yom Kippur, carrying the blood of a sacrificial lamb and burning

incense Incense is an aromatic biotic material that releases fragrant smoke when burnt. The term is used for either the material or the aroma. Incense is used for aesthetic reasons, religious worship, aromatherapy, meditation, and ceremonial reasons. It ...

. According to the Bible, the site functioned as the center of all national life – a governmental, judicial and religious center. The

Genesis Rabba Genesis Rabbah (, also known as Bereshit Rabbah and abbreviated as GenR) is a religious text from Judaism's classical period, probably written between 300 and 500 CE with some later additions. It is an expository midrash comprising a collection of ...

, which was probably written between 300 and 500 CE, states that this site is one of three about which the nations of the world cannot taunt Israel and say, "you have stolen them," since it was purchased "for its full price" by David. The First Temple was destroyed in 587/586 BCE by the

under the second Babylonian king,

Nebuchadnezzar II Nebuchadnezzar II, also Nebuchadrezzar II, meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir", was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Often titled Nebuchadnezzar ...

, who subsequently exiled the Judeans to Babylon following the fall of the

Kingdom of Judah The Kingdom of Judah was an Israelites, Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Centered in the highlands to the west of the Dead Sea, the kingdom's capital was Jerusalem. It was ruled by the Davidic line for four centuries ...

and its annexation as a Babylonian province. The Jews who had been deported in the aftermath of the Babylonian conquest of Judah were eventually allowed to return following a proclamation by the Persian king

Cyrus the Great Cyrus II of Persia ( ; 530 BC), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Achaemenid dynasty (i. The clan and dynasty) Hailing from Persis, he brought the Achaemenid dynasty to power by defeating the Media ...

that was issued after the

fall of Babylon Autumn, also known as fall (especially in US & Canada), is one of the four temperate seasons on Earth. Outside the tropics, autumn marks the transition from summer to winter, in September (Northern Hemisphere) or March (Southern Hemisphere ...

to the

Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian peoples, Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, i ...

. In 516 BCE, the returned Jewish population in Judah, under Persian provincial governance, rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem under the auspices of

, producing what is known as the

Second Temple The Second Temple () was the Temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC), Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It was constructed around 516 BCE and later enhanced by Herod ...

. During the

Second Temple Period The Second Temple period or post-exilic period in Jewish history denotes the approximately 600 years (516 BCE – 70 CE) during which the Second Temple stood in the city of Jerusalem. It began with the return to Zion and subsequent reconstructio ...

, Jerusalem was the center of religious and national life for Jews, including those in the

Diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of birth, place of origin. The word is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently resi ...

. The Second Temple is believed to have attracted tens and maybe hundreds of thousands during the Three Pilgrimage Festivals. The holiday of

Hanukkah Hanukkah (, ; ''Ḥănukkā'' ) is a Jewish holidays, Jewish festival commemorating the recovery of Jerusalem and subsequent rededication of the Second Temple at the beginning of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd ce ...

commemorates the rededication of the Temple at the beginning of the Maccabean revolt in the 2nd century BCE. During the first century BCE, the Temple was renovated by Herod. It was destroyed by the

at the height of the First Jewish-Roman War in 70 CE. Tisha B'Av, an annual fast day in

, marks the destruction of the First and Second Temples, which according to Jewish tradition, occurred on the same day on the

Hebrew calendar The Hebrew calendar (), also called the Jewish calendar, is a lunisolar calendar used today for Jewish religious observance and as an official calendar of Israel. It determines the dates of Jewish holidays and other rituals, such as '' yahrze ...

In prophecy

The

foretells the international importance of the Temple Mount:

Binding of Isaac

In Jewish tradition, the Temple Mount is also believed to be the location of Abraham's binding of Isaac. 2 Chronicles 3:1 refers to the Temple Mount in the time before the construction of the temple as Mount Moriah (, ). The " land of Moriah" (, ) is the name given by Genesis to the location of the binding of Isaac.Carol Delaney, ''Abraham on Trial: The Social Legacy of Biblical Myth,'' Princeton University Press, 2000, p. 120. Since at least the first century CE, the two sites have been identified with one another in Judaism, this identification being subsequently perpetuated by

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

and

Christian tradition Christian tradition is a collection of traditions consisting of practices or beliefs associated with Christianity. Many churches have traditional practices, such as particular patterns of worship or rites, that developed over time. Deviations from ...

. Modern scholarship tends to regard them as distinct (see Moriah).

Creation of the world

The rock of the Dome of the Rock Corrected

According to the rabbinic sages whose debates produced the

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

, the Foundation Stone, which sits below the

, was the spot from where the world was created and expanded into its current form,

Babylonian Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewi ...

Yoma, 54b. and where God gathered the dust used to create the first human,

Adam Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems (including Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism and Islam). According to Christianity, Adam ...

Third Temple

Jewish texts predict that the Mount will be the site of a Third and final Temple, which will be rebuilt with the coming of the

. The rebuilding of the Temple remained a recurring theme among generations, particularly in thrice daily

Amidah The ''Amidah'' (, ''Tefilat HaAmidah'', 'The Standing Prayer'), also called the ''Shemoneh Esreh'' ( 'eighteen'), is the central prayer of Jewish liturgy. Observant Jews recite the ''Amidah'' during each of the three services prayed on week ...

(Standing prayer), central prayer of the Jewish liturgy, which contains a plea for the building of a Third Temple and the restoration of sacrificial services. A number of vocal Jewish groups now advocate building the Third Temple without delay in order to bring to pass God's "end-time prophetic plans for Israel and the entire world."

Christianity

The Temple was of central importance in Jewish worship in the

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. ''

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

). In the

, Herod's Temple was the site of several events in the life of

Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

, and Christian loyalty to the site as a focal point remained long after his death. After the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, which came to be regarded by early Christians, as it was by

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

and the sages of the

Jerusalem Talmud The Jerusalem Talmud (, often for short) or Palestinian Talmud, also known as the Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century Jewish oral tradition known as the Mishnah. Naming this version of the Talm ...

, to be a divine act of punishment for the sins of the Jewish people, the Temple Mount lost its significance for Christian worship with the Christians considering it a fulfillment of Christ's prophecy at, for example, Matthew 23:38 and Matthew 24:2. It was to this end, proof of a biblical prophecy fulfilled and of Christianity's

victory The term victory (from ) originally applied to warfare, and denotes success achieved in personal duel, combat, after military operations in general or, by extension, in any competition. Success in a military campaign constitutes a strategic vi ...

over Judaism with the

New Covenant The New Covenant () is a biblical interpretation which was originally derived from a Book of Jeremiah#Sections of the Book, phrase which is contained in the Book of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31–34), in the Hebrew Bible (or the Old Testament of the ...

,Andrew Marsham, 'The Architecture of Allegiance in Early Islamic Late Antiquity,' in Alexander Beihammer, Stavroula Constantinou, Maria G. Parani (eds.)
''Court Ceremonies and Rituals of Power in Byzantium and the Medieval Mediterranean: Comparative Perspectives''
Brill, 2013, pp. 87–114 06 that early Christian pilgrims also visited the site. Byzantine Christians, despite some signs of constructive work on the esplanade, generally neglected the Temple Mount, especially when a Jewish attempt to rebuild the Temple was destroyed by the earthquake of 363.Robert Shick, 'A Christian City with a Major Muslim Shrine: Jerusalem in the Umayyad Period,' in Arietta Papaconstantinou (ed.)
''Conversion in Late Antiquity: Christianity, Islam, and Beyond: Papers from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar'', University of Oxford, 2009–2010 pp. 299–317, 300
Routledge 2016. It became a desolate local rubbish dump, perhaps outside the city limits, as Christian worship in Jerusalem shifted to the

Church of the Holy Sepulchre The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also known as the Church of the Resurrection, is a fourth-century church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, Old City of Jerusalem. The church is the seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchat ...

, and Jerusalem's centrality was replaced by Rome. During the

era, Jerusalem was primarily Christian and pilgrims came by the tens of thousands to experience the places where Jesus walked. After the Persian invasion in 614 many churches were razed, and the site was turned into a dump. The Arabs

conquered Conquest involves the annexation or control of another entity's territory through war or coercion. Historically, conquests occurred frequently in the international system, and there were limited normative or legal prohibitions against conquest ...

the city from the Byzantine Empire which had retaken it in 629. The Byzantine ban on the Jews was lifted and they were allowed to live inside the city and visit the places of worship. Christian pilgrims were able to come and experience the Temple Mount area. The war between Seljuqs and Byzantine Empire and increasing Muslim violence against Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem instigated the

. The Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099 and the Dome of the Rock was given to the

Augustinians Augustinians are members of several religious orders that follow the Rule of Saint Augustine, written about 400 A.D. by Augustine of Hippo. There are two distinct types of Augustinians in Catholic religious orders dating back to the 12th–13 ...

, who turned it into a church, and al-Aqsa Mosque became the royal palace of Baldwin I of Jerusalem in 1104. The

Knights Templar The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a Military order (religious society), military order of the Catholic Church, Catholic faith, and one of the most important military ord ...

, who believed the Dome of the Rock was the site of Solomon's Temple, gave it the name " Templum Domini" and set up their headquarters in al-Aqsa Mosque adjacent to the Dome for much of the 12th century. In

Christian art Christian art is sacred art which uses subjects, themes, and imagery from Christianity. Most Christian groups use or have used art to some extent, including early Christian art and architecture and Christian media. Images of Jesus and narrative ...

, the

circumcision of Jesus The circumcision of Jesus is an event from the life of Jesus, according to the Gospel of Luke Luke 2, chapter 2, which states: And when eight days were fulfilled to circumcision, circumcise the child, his name was called Jesus, the name called by ...

was conventionally depicted as taking place at the Temple, even though European artists until recently had no way of knowing what the Temple looked like and the Gospels do not state that the event took place at the Temple. Though some Christians believe that the Temple will be reconstructed before, or concurrent with, the

Second Coming The Second Coming (sometimes called the Second Advent or the Parousia) is the Christianity, Christian and Islam, Islamic belief that Jesus, Jesus Christ will return to Earth after his Ascension of Jesus, ascension to Heaven (Christianity), Heav ...

of Jesus (also see dispensationalism), pilgrimage to the Temple Mount is not viewed as important in the beliefs and worship of most Christians. The New Testament recounts a story of a Samaritan woman asking Jesus about the appropriate place to worship, Jerusalem (as it was for the Jews) or

Mount Gerizim Mount Gerizim ( ; ; ; , or ) is one of two mountains in the immediate vicinity of the State of Palestine, Palestinian city of Nablus and the biblical city of Shechem. It forms the southern side of the valley in which Nablus is situated, the nor ...

(as it was for the

Samaritans Samaritans (; ; ; ), are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Hebrews and Israelites of the ancient Near East. They are indigenous to Samaria, a historical region of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah that ...

), to which Jesus replies: This has been construed to mean that Jesus dispensed with physical location for worship, which was a matter rather of spirit and truth.

Islam

Among both

and Shia Muslims, the entire plaza, known as the al-Aqsa Mosque, also known as Haram al-Sharif or "the Noble Sanctuary", is considered the third holiest site in Islam. According to Islamic tradition, the plaza is the location of

's ascension to heaven from Jerusalem, and served as the first "''

''", the direction Muslims turn towards when praying. As in Judaism, Muslims also associate the site with

Abraham Abraham (originally Abram) is the common Hebrews, Hebrew Patriarchs (Bible), patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father who began the Covenant (biblical), covenanta ...

, and other prophets who are also venerated in Islam. Muslims view the site as being one of the earliest and most noteworthy places of worship of

. They preferred to use the esplanade as the heart for the Muslim quarter, since it had been abandoned by Christians, to avoid disturbing the Christian quarters of Jerusalem. Umayyad Caliphs commissioned the construction of al-Aqsa Mosque on the site, including the shrine known as the "

". The Dome was completed in 692 CE, making it one of the oldest extant Islamic structures in the world. The

Al-Aqsa Mosque The Aqsa Mosque, also known as the Qibli Mosque or Qibli Chapel is the main congregational mosque or Musalla, prayer hall in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in the Old City (Jerusalem), Old City of Jerusalem. In some sources the building is also n ...

, sometimes known as the Qibli Mosque, rest on the far southern side of the Mount, facing

In early Islam

Early Islam regarded the Foundation Stone as the location of Solomon's Temple, and the first architectural initiatives on the Temple Mount sought to glorify Jerusalem by presenting Islam as a continuation of Judaism and Christianity. Almost immediately after the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in 638 CE, Caliph 'Omar ibn al Khatab, reportedly disgusted by the filth covering the site, had it thoroughly cleaned, and granted Jews access to the site. According to early Quranic interpreters and what is generally accepted as Islamic tradition, in 638 CE Umar, upon entering a conquered Jerusalem, consulted with Ka'ab al-Ahbar – a Jewish convert to Islam who came with him from

– as to where the best spot would be to build a mosque. Al-Ahbar suggested to him that it should be behind the Rock "... so that all of Jerusalem would be before you." Umar replied, "You correspond to Judaism!" Immediately after this conversation, Umar began to clean up the site – which was filled with trash and debris – with his cloak, and other Muslim followers imitated him until the site was clean. Umar then prayed at the spot where it was believed that Muhammad had prayed before his night journey, reciting the Quranic ''sura'' '' Sad''.Mosaad, Mohamed
Bayt al-Maqdis: An Islamic Perspective
pp. 3–8 Thus, according to this tradition, Umar thereby reconsecrated the site as a mosque. Muslim interpretations of the Quran agree that the Mount is the site of the Temple originally built by

, considered a prophet in Islam, that was later destroyed.Khalek, N. (2011). "Jerusalem in Medieval Islamic Tradition". ''Religion Compass'', 5(10), pp. 624–30, . "One of the most pressing issues in both medieval and contemporary scholarship related to Jerusalem is whether the city is explicitly referenced in the text of the Qur'an. Sura 17, verse 1, which reads ..has been variously interpreted as referring to the miraculous Night Journey and Ascension of Muhammad, events recorded in medieval sources and known as the isra and miraj. As we will see, this association is a rather late and even a contested one. ..The earliest Muslim work on the Religious Merits of Jerusalem was the Fada'il Bayt al-Maqdis by al-Walid ibn Hammad al-Ramli (d. 912 CE), a text which is recoverable from later works. ..He relates the significance of Jerusalem vis-a-vis the Jewish Temple, conflating 'a collage of biblical narratives' and comments pilgrimage to Jerusalem, a practice which was controversial in later Muslim periods." After the construction, Muslims believe, the temple was used for the worship of the one God by many prophets of Islam, including Jesus. Other Muslim scholars have used the Torah (called in Arabic) to expand on the details of the temple. The term ''Bayt al-Maqdis'' (or ''Bayt al-Muqaddas''), which frequently appears as a name of Jerusalem in early Islamic sources, is a cognate of the Hebrew term ''bēt ha-miqdāsh'' (בית המקדש), the Temple in Jerusalem.

, a 15th-century Jerusalemite chronicler, mentions an earlier tradition related by al-Wasti, according which "after David built many cities and the situation of the children of Israel was improved, he wanted to construct Bayt al-Maqdis and build a dome over the rock in the place that

Allah Allah ( ; , ) is an Arabic term for God, specifically the God in Abrahamic religions, God of Abraham. Outside of the Middle East, it is principally associated with God in Islam, Islam (in which it is also considered the proper name), althoug ...

sanctified in Aelia."

Isra and Mi'raj

According to the

Qur'an The Quran, also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation directly from God ('' Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which consist of individual verses ('). Besides ...

was transported to a site named Al-Aqsa Mosque – "the furthest place of prayer" (''al-Masjid al-'Aqṣā'') during his Night Journey ('' Isra and Mi'raj''). The Qur'an describes how Muhammad was taken by the miraculous steed Buraq from the Great Mosque of Mecca to al-Aqsa Mosque where he prayed. After Muhammad finished his prayers, the angel Jibril (

Gabriel In the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), Gabriel ( ) is an archangel with the power to announce God's will to mankind, as the messenger of God. He is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Quran. Many Chris ...

) traveled with him to heaven, where he met several other prophets and led them in prayer: The Qur'an does not mention the exact location of "the furthest place of prayer", and the city of Jerusalem is not mentioned by any of its names in the Qur'an. According to the

Encyclopaedia of Islam The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'' (''EI'') is a reference work that facilitates the Islamic studies, academic study of Islam. It is published by Brill Publishers, Brill and provides information on various aspects of Islam and the Muslim world, Isl ...

, the phrase was originally understood as a reference to a site in the heavens. A group of Islamic scholars understood the story of Muhammad's ascension from al-Aqsa Mosque as relating to the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Another group disagreed with this identification and preferred the meaning of the term as referring to heaven. Al-Bukhari and

Al-Tabari Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr ibn Yazīd al-Ṭabarī (; 839–923 CE / 224–310 AH), commonly known as al-Ṭabarī (), was a Sunni Muslim scholar, polymath, historian, exegete, jurist, and theologian from Amol, Tabaristan, present- ...

, for example, are believed to have rejected the identification with Jerusalem. Eventually, a consensus emerged around the identification of the "furthest place of prayer" with Jerusalem, and by implication the Temple Mount. Later ''

hadith Hadith is the Arabic word for a 'report' or an 'account f an event and refers to the Islamic oral tradition of anecdotes containing the purported words, actions, and the silent approvals of the Islamic prophet Muhammad or his immediate circle ...

s'' referred to Jerusalem as the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque: Miraj_by_Sultan_Muhammad

Some scholars point to the political motives of the Umayyad dynasty which led to the sanctification of Jerusalem in Islam. According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the Night Journey was associated with Jerusalem by the Umayyads as a political means to advance the glory of Jerusalem to compete with the glory of the sanctuary in Mecca then controlled by

Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam (; May 624October/November 692) was the leader of a caliphate based in Mecca that rivaled the Umayyads from 683 until his death. The son of al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam and Asma bint Abi Bakr, and grandson of ...

. The construction of the Dome of the Rock was interpreted by Ya'qubi, a 9th-century

Abbasid The Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire (; ) was the third caliphate to succeed the prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 C ...

historian, as an Umayyad attempt to redirect the

Hajj Hajj (; ; also spelled Hadj, Haj or Haji) is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for capable Muslims that must be carried out at least once in their lifetim ...

from Mecca to Jerusalem by creating a rival to the Ka'aba. Other academics attribute the holiness of Jerusalem to the rise and expansion of a certain type of literary genre, known as ''al-Fadhail'' or history of cities. The Fadhail of Jerusalem inspired Muslims, especially during the Umayyad period, to embellish the sanctity of the city beyond its status in the holy texts. Based on the writings of the eighth century historians Al-Waqidi and al-Azraqi, some scholars have suggested that al-Aqsa Mosque mentioned in the Qur'an is not in Jerusalem but in the village of al-Ju'ranah, 18 miles northeast of Mecca. Later medieval scripts, as well as modern-day political tracts, tend to classify al-Aqsa Mosque as the third holiest site in Islam.

First qibla

The historical significance of al-Aqsa Mosque in Islam is further emphasized by the fact that Muslims turned towards al-Aqsa when they prayed for a period of 16 or 17 months after

migration Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...

in 624; it thus became the ''

'' ("direction") that Muslims faced for prayer. Muhammad later prayed towards the

Kaaba The Kaaba (), also spelled Kaba, Kabah or Kabah, sometimes referred to as al-Kaba al-Musharrafa (), is a stone building at the center of Islam's most important mosque and Holiest sites in Islam, holiest site, the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Sa ...

after receiving a revelation during a prayer session in the Masjid al-Qiblatayn. The ''qibla'' was relocated to the Kaaba where Muslims have been directed to pray ever since.

Religious status

The

Organisation of Islamic Cooperation The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC; ; ), formerly the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, is an intergovernmental organisation founded in 1969. It consists of Member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, 57 member s ...

refers to al-Aqsa Mosque as the third holiest site in Islam (and calls for Arab sovereignty over it).

History

Pre-Israelite

The hill is believed to have been inhabited since the 4th millennium BCE. An amulet bearing the cartouche of Thutmose III (r. 1479–1425 BCE) was discovered by the Temple Mount Sifting Project at the site in 2012.

Israelite period

According to archeologists, the Temple Mount served as the center of the religious life of biblical Jerusalem as well as the royal acropolis of the

.David Ussishkin (2003). The Temple Mount in Jerusalem during the First Temple Period: An Archaeologist's View. In: A.G. Vaughn and A.E. Killebrew (eds.), ''Jerusalem in Bible and Archaeology; The First Temple Period'', Atlanta, Georgia, 2003, pp. 103–15. The First Temple is believed to have once been a part of a much larger royal complex. The Bible also mentions several other buildings constructed by Solomon at the site, including the royal palace, the "House of the Lebanon Forest", the "Hall of Pillars", the "Hall of Throne" and the "House of Pharaoh's Daughter". Some scholars believe that, in accordance with biblical accounts, the royal and religious compound on the Temple Mount was built by Solomon during the 10th century BCE as a separate entity, which was later incorporated into the city. Knauf argued that the Temple Mount already served as the cultic and governmental center of Jerusalem as early as in the Late Bronze Age. Alternatively, Na'aman suggested that Solomon built the Temple on a much smaller scale than the one described in the Bible, which was enlarged or rebuilt during the 8th century BCE. In 2014, Finkelstein, Koch and Lipschits proposed that the tell of ancient Jerusalem lies beneath the modern-day compound, rather than the nearby archeological site known as the City of David, as mainstream archaeology believes; however, this proposal was rejected by other scholars of the subject. Imer_bulla

All scholars agree that the Iron Age Temple Mount was smaller than the Herodian compound still visible today. Some scholars, such as Kenyon and Ritmeyer, argued that the walls of the First Temple compound extended eastward as far as the Eastern Wall. Ritmeyer identifies specific courses of visible ashlars located to the north and south of the

Golden Gate The Golden Gate is a strait on the west coast of North America that connects San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. It is defined by the headlands of the San Francisco Peninsula and the Marin Peninsula, and, since 1937, has been spanned by ...

as Judean Iron Age in style, dating them to the construction of this wall by Hezekiah. More such stones are supposed to survive underground.Leen Ritmeyer, Kathleen Ritmeyer, ''Jerusalem; The Temple Mount,'' Carta, Jerusalem, 2015, . Ritmeyer has also suggested that one of the steps leading to the Dome of the Rock is actually the top of a remaining stone course of the western wall of the Iron Age compound. The First Temple was destroyed in 587/586 BCE by the

under

Persian, Hellenistic and Hasmonean periods

Construction of the

began under

Cyrus Cyrus () is a Persian-language masculine given name. It is historically best known as the name of several List of monarchs of Iran, Persian kings, most notably including Cyrus the Great, who founded the Achaemenid Empire in 550 BC. It remains wid ...

in around 538 BCE and was completed in 516 BCE. It was built at the original site of Solomon's Temple. According to Patrich and Edelcopp, the ideal area of the complex, described in Ezekiel as 50x50 cubits, was attained by the Hasmoneans, perhaps under

John Hyrcanus John Hyrcanus (; ; ) was a Hasmonean (Maccabee, Maccabean) leader and Jewish High Priest of Israel of the 2nd century BCE (born 164 BCE, reigned from 134 BCE until he died in 104 BCE). In rabbinic literature he is often referred to as ''Yoḥana ...

; this is the same size later mentioned by the

. Evidence of a Hasmonean expansion of the Temple Mount has been recovered by archaeologist Leen Ritmeyer. In 67 BCE a quarrel broke out between

Aristobulus II Aristobulus II (, ''Aristóboulos'') was the Jewish High Priest and King of Judea, 66 BCE to 63 BCE, from the Hasmonean dynasty. Family Aristobulus was the younger son of Alexander Jannaeus, King and High Priest, and Salome Alexandra. After ...

and Hyrcanus II on the Hasmonean throne. Roman general

Pompey Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (; 29 September 106 BC – 28 September 48 BC), known in English as Pompey ( ) or Pompey the Great, was a Roman general and statesman who was prominent in the last decades of the Roman Republic. ...

, who had been invited to intervene in the conflict, sided with Hyrcanus; Aristobulus and his followers barricaded themselves inside the Temple Mount and destroyed the bridge linking it to the city. When the Roman Army arrived in Jerusalem, Pompey ordered the moat defending the Temple Mount from the north to be filled in. To accomplish this, Pompey waited for

Sabbath In Abrahamic religions, the Sabbath () or Shabbat (from Hebrew ) is a day set aside for rest and worship. According to the Book of Exodus, the Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day, Ten Commandments, commanded by God to be kept as a Holid ...

s, so the defenders would not disrupt the work. After a three-month siege, the Romans were able to topple one of the guard towers and storm the Temple Mount. Pompey himself entered the

, but did not harm the Temple, and allowed the priests to continue their work as usual.

Herodian and early Roman periods

Around 19 BCE,

further expanded the Temple Mount and rebuilt the temple. The ambitious project, which involved the employment of 10,000 workers, more than doubled the size of the Temple Mount to approximately . Herod leveled the area by cutting away rock on the northwest side and raising the sloping ground to the south. He achieved this by constructing huge buttress walls and vaults and filling the necessary sections with earth and rubble. Negev (2005), p. 265. The result was the largest temenos in the ancient world. The main entrances to the Herodian Temple Mount were two sets of gates built into the southern wall, together with four other gates reachable from the western side by stairs and bridges. Grand stoas encircled the platform on three sides, and on its southern side stood a magnificent basilica

referred to as the Royal Stoa. The Royal Stoa served as a center for the city's commercial and legal transactions, and was provided with separate access to the city below via the Robinson's Arch overpass. The Temple itself and its courts were located on an elevated platform in the middle of the larger compound. In addition to the restoration of the Temple, its courtyards and porticoes, Herod also built the

Antonia Fortress The Antonia Fortress (Aramaic: קצטרא דאנטוניה) was a citadel built by Herod the Great and named for Herod's patron Mark Antony, as a fortress whose chief function was to protect the Second Temple. It was built in Jerusalem at the easte ...

, which dominated the northwestern corner of the Temple Mount, and a rainwater reservoir, Birket Israel, in the northeast. A monumental street, today referred to as the " Stepped Street", took pilgrims from the city's southern gate via the Tyropoeon Valley to the western side of the Temple Mount. It has been proposed in 2019 that

Pontius Pilate Pontius Pilate (; ) was the Roman administration of Judaea (AD 6–135), fifth governor of the Judaea (Roman province), Roman province of Judaea, serving under Emperor Tiberius from 26/27 to 36/37 AD. He is best known for being the official wh ...

constructed the road during the 30s. During the early phases of the First Jewish-Roman War (66–70 CE), the Temple Mount became a center of fighting for various Jewish factions struggling for control of the city, with different factions holding the area during the conflict. In April 70, the Roman army under Titus reached Jerusalem and began besieging the city. It took the Romans four months to defeat the Temple Mount's defenders and take the site. The Romans completely destroyed the Temple and all the other structures on the platform. Massive stone collapses from the upper walls were discovered laying over the Herodian street that runs along the southern part of the Western Wall, with some of the stones burned at temperatures reaching 800 °C (1472 °F). The Trumpeting Place inscription, a monumental Hebrew inscription which was thrown down by Roman legionnaires, was found in one of these stone piles. NinthAvStonesWesternWall

Middle Roman period

The city of Aelia Capitolina was built in 130 CE by the Roman emperor

Hadrian Hadrian ( ; ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. Hadrian was born in Italica, close to modern Seville in Spain, an Italic peoples, Italic settlement in Hispania Baetica; his branch of the Aelia gens, Aelia '' ...

and occupied by a

Roman colony A Roman (: ) was originally a settlement of Roman citizens, establishing a Roman outpost in federated or conquered territory, for the purpose of securing it. Eventually, however, the term came to denote the highest status of a Roman city. It ...

on the site of Jerusalem, which was still in ruins from the First Jewish Revolt in 70 CE. ''Aelia'' came from Hadrian's ''

nomen gentile The (; or simply ) was a hereditary name borne by the peoples of Roman Italy and later by the citizens of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. It was originally the name of one's (family or clan) by patrilineal descent. However, as Rome expa ...

'', '' Aelius'', while ''Capitolina'' meant that the new city was dedicated to Jupiter Capitolinus, to whom a temple was built overlapping the site of the former second Jewish temple, the Temple Mount. Hadrian had intended the construction of the new city as a gift to the Jews, but since he had constructed a giant statue of himself in front of the Temple of Jupiter and the Temple of Jupiter had a huge statue of Jupiter inside it, there were on the Temple Mount now two enormous graven images, which Jews considered idolatrous. It was also customary in Roman rites to sacrifice a pig in land purification ceremonies. After the Third Jewish Revolt, all Jews were forbidden on pain of death from entering the city or the surrounding territory around the city.

Late Roman period

From the first through the seventh centuries Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, gradually became the predominant religion of Palestine and under the Byzantines Jerusalem itself was almost completely Christian, with most of the population being Jacobite Christians of the Syrian rite. Emperor

Constantine I Constantine I (27 February 27222 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was a Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337 and the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. He played a Constantine the Great and Christianity, pivotal ro ...

promoted the Christianization of Roman society, giving it precedence over pagan cults. One consequence was that Hadrian's Temple to

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

on the Temple Mount was demolished immediately following the First Council of Nicea in 325 CE on orders of Constantine. The Bordeaux Pilgrim, who visited Jerusalem in 333–334, during the reign of Emperor Constantine I, wrote that "There are two statues of Hadrian, and, not far from them, a pierced stone to which the Jews come every year and anoint. They mourn and rend their garments, and then depart." The occasion is assumed to have been Tisha b'Av, since decades later

Jerome Jerome (; ; ; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was an early Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome. He is best known ...

related that that was the only day on which Jews were permitted to enter Jerusalem. Constantine's nephew Emperor Julian granted permission in the year 363 for the Jews to rebuild the Temple. In a letter attributed to Julian he wrote to the Jews that "This you ought to do, in order that, when I have successfully concluded the war in Persia, I may rebuild by my own efforts the sacred city of Jerusalem, which for so many years you have longed to see inhabited, and may bring settlers there, and, together with you, may glorify the Most High God therein." Julian saw the Jewish God as a fitting member of the pantheon of gods he believed in, and he was also a strong opponent of Christianity. Church historians wrote that the Jews began to clear away the structures and rubble on the Temple Mount but were thwarted, first by a great earthquake, and then by miracles that included fire springing from the earth. However, no contemporary Jewish sources mention this episode directly.

Byzantine period

During his excavations in the 1930s, Robert Hamilton uncovered portions of a multicolor mosaic floor with geometric patterns, but did not publish them.Baruch et al. (2018). pp. 13-14. The date of the mosaic is disputed: Zachi Dvira considers that they are from the pre-Islamic Byzantine period, while Baruch, Reich and Sandhaus favor a much later

origin on account of their similarity to a mosaic from an Umayyad palace excavated adjacent to the Temple Mount's southern wall. By comparing the photographs to Hamilton's excavation report, Di Cesare determined that they belong to the second phase of mosque construction in the Umayyad period. Moreover, the mosaic designs were common in Islamic, Jewish and Christian buildings from the 2nd to the 8th century. Di Cesare suggested that Hamilton didn't include the mosaics in his book because they were destroyed to explore beneath them.

Sassanid period

In 610, the

Sassanid Empire The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranians"), was an Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, the length of the Sasanian dynasty's reign ...

drove the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

out of the Middle East, giving the Jews control of Jerusalem for the first time in centuries. The Jews in Palestine were allowed to set up a vassal state under the Sassanid Empire called the ''Sassanid Jewish Commonwealth'' which lasted for five years. Jewish rabbis ordered the restart of animal sacrifice for the first time since the time of Second Temple and started to reconstruct the Jewish Temple. Shortly before the Byzantines took the area back five years later in 615, the

Persians Persians ( ), or the Persian people (), are an Iranian ethnic group from West Asia that came from an earlier group called the Proto-Iranians, which likely split from the Indo-Iranians in 1800 BCE from either Afghanistan or Central Asia. They ...

gave control to the Christian population, who tore down the partially built Jewish Temple edifice and turned it into a garbage dump, which is what it was when the

Caliph A caliphate ( ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with Khalifa, the title of caliph (; , ), a person considered a political–religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of ...

Umar Umar ibn al-Khattab (; ), also spelled Omar, was the second Rashidun caliph, ruling from August 634 until his assassination in 644. He succeeded Abu Bakr () and is regarded as a senior companion and father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Mu ...

took the city in 637.

Early Muslim period

In 637, Arabs besieged and captured the city from the Byzantine Empire, which had defeated the Persian forces and their allies, and reconquered the city. There are no contemporary records, but many traditions, about the origin of the main Islamic buildings on the mount. A popular account from later centuries is that the

was led to the place reluctantly by the Christian patriarch Sophronius. He found it covered with rubbish, but the sacred Rock was found with the help of a converted Jew, Ka'b al-Ahbar. Al-Ahbar advised Umar to build a mosque to the north of the rock, so that worshippers would face both the rock and Mecca, but instead Umar chose to build it to the south of the rock. It became known as al-Aqsa Mosque. According to Muslim sources, Jews participated in the construction of the haram, laying the groundwork for both al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock mosques. The first known eyewitness testimony is that of the pilgrim Arculf who visited about 670. According to Arculf's account as recorded by

Adomnán Adomnán or Adamnán of Iona (; , ''Adomnanus''; 624 – 704), also known as Eunan ( ; from ), was an abbot of Iona Abbey ( 679–704), hagiographer, statesman, canon jurist, and Christian saint, saint. He was the author of the ''Life ...

, he saw a rectangular wooden house of prayer built over some ruins, large enough to hold 3,000 people. In 691, an octagonal Islamic building topped by a dome was built by the Caliph Abd al-Malik around the rock, for a myriad of political, dynastic and religious reasons, built on local and Quranic traditions articulating the site's holiness, a process in which textual and architectural narratives reinforced one another. The shrine became known as the

(, '' Qubbat as-Sakhra''). (The dome itself was covered in gold in 1920.) In 715, the Umayyads, led by the Caliph al-Walid I, built al-Aqsa Mosque (, ''al-Masjid al-'Aqṣā'', "Furthest Mosque"), corresponding to the Islamic belief of Muhammad's miraculous nocturnal journey as recounted in the

and

. The term "Noble Sanctuary" or "Haram al-Sharif", as it was called later by the Mamluks and

Ottomans Ottoman may refer to: * Osman I, historically known in English as "Ottoman I", founder of the Ottoman Empire * Osman II, historically known in English as "Ottoman II" * Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empir ...

, refers to the entirer area that surrounds that Rock.

Crusader and Ayyubid period

The Crusader period began in 1099 with the

First Crusade The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the Middle Ages. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Muslim conquest ...

's capture of Jerusalem. After the city's conquest, the Crusading order known as the

was granted use of Al-Aqsa Mosque to use as their headquarters. This was probably by Baldwin II of Jerusalem and Warmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem at the Council of Nablus in January 1120. The Temple Mount had a mystique because it was above what were believed to be the ruins of the Temple of Solomon. The History Channel, ''Decoding the Past: The Templar Code'', 7 November 2005, video documentary written by Marcy Marzuni. The Crusaders therefore referred to al-Aqsa Mosque as Solomon's Temple, and it was from this location that the new Order took the name of "Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon", or "Templar" knights. In 1187, once he retook Jerusalem,

Saladin Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...

removed all traces of Christian worship from the Temple Mount, returning the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque to their Muslim purposes. It remained in Muslim hands thereafter, even during the relatively short periods of Crusader rule following the

Sixth Crusade The Sixth Crusade (1228–1229), also known as the Crusade of Frederick II, was a military expedition to recapture Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land. It began seven years after the failure of the Fifth Crusade and involved very little actua ...

Mamluk period

There are several Mamluk buildings on and around the Haram esplanade, such as the late 15th-century al-Ashrafiyya Madrasa and Sabil (fountain) of Qaytbay. The Mamluks also raised the level of Jerusalem's Central or Tyropoean Valley bordering the Temple Mount from the west by constructing huge substructures, on which they then built on a large scale. The Mamluk-period substructures and over-ground buildings are thus covering much of the Herodian western wall of the Temple Mount.

Ottoman period

Following the Ottoman conquest of Palestine in 1516, the Ottoman authorities continued the policy of prohibiting non-Muslims from setting foot on the Temple Mount until the early 19th century, when non-Muslims were again permitted to visit the site. In 1867, a team from the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is the engineering arm of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces ...

, led by Lieutenant Charles Warren and financed by the

Palestine Exploration Fund The Palestine Exploration Fund is a British society based in London. It was founded in 1865, shortly after the completion of the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem by Royal Engineers of the War Department. The Fund is the oldest known organization i ...

(P.E.F.), discovered a series of tunnels near the Temple Mount. Warren secretly excavated some tunnels near the Temple Mount walls and was the first one to document their lower courses. Warren also conducted some small-scale excavations inside the Temple Mount, by removing rubble that blocked passages leading from the Double Gate chamber.

British Mandatory period

Between 1922 and 1924, the Dome of the Rock was restored by the Islamic Higher Council. The Zionist movement at the time was strongly opposed to any notion that the Temple itself might be rebuilt. Indeed, its armed wing, the Haganah militia, assassinated a Jewish man when his plan to blow up the Islamic sites on the Haram came to their attention in 1931. Renovations were also conducted at the

from 1938–1942, following an earthquake in the summer of 1937.

Jordanian period

King Hussein flying over Temple Mount when it was under Jordanian control

Jordan undertook two renovations of the Dome of the Rock, replacing the leaking, wooden inner dome with an aluminum dome in 1952, and, when the new dome leaked, carrying out a second restoration between 1959 and 1964."Hashemite Restorations of the Islamic Holy Places in Jerusalem"
, Jordanian government website. Neither Israeli Arabs nor Israeli Jews could visit their holy places in the Jordanian territories during this period.Martin Gilbert, Jerusalem in the Twentieth Century (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996), p. 254.

Israeli period

On 7 June 1967, during the

, Israeli forces advanced beyond the 1949 Armistice Agreement Line into

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

territories, taking control of the Old City of Jerusalem, inclusive of the Temple Mount. The Chief Rabbi of the Israeli Defense Forces, Shlomo Goren, led the soldiers in religious celebrations on the Temple Mount and at the Western Wall. The Israeli Chief Rabbinate also declared a religious holiday on the anniversary, called " Yom Yerushalayim" (Jerusalem Day), which became a national holiday to commemorate the reunification of Jerusalem. Many saw the capture of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount as a miraculous liberation of biblical-messianic proportions. A few days after the war over 200,000 Jews flocked to the Western Wall in the first mass Jewish pilgrimage near the Mount since the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. Islamic authorities did not disturb Goren when he went to pray on the Mount until, on the Ninth Day of Av, he brought 50 followers and introduced both a shofar, and a portable ark to pray, an innovation which alarmed the Waqf authorities and led to a deterioration of relations between the Muslim authorities and the Israeli government. In June 1969, an Australian set fire to the Jami'a al-Aqsa. On April 11, 1982, a Jew hid in the Dome of the Rock and sprayed gunfire, killing 2 Palestinians and wounding 44; in 1974, 1977 and 1983 groups led by Yoel Lerner conspired to blow up both the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa. On 26 January 1984 Waqf guards detected members of B'nei Yehuda, a messianic cult of former gangsters turned mystics based in Lifta, trying to infiltrate the area to blow it up. On 15 January 1988, during the

First Intifada The First Intifada (), also known as the First Palestinian Intifada, was a sustained series of Nonviolent resistance, non-violent protests, acts of civil disobedience, Riot, riots, and Terrorism, terrorist attacks carried out by Palestinians ...

, Israeli troops fired rubber bullets and

tear gas Tear gas, also known as a lachrymatory agent or lachrymator (), sometimes colloquially known as "mace" after the Mace (spray), early commercial self-defense spray, is a chemical weapon that stimulates the nerves of the lacrimal gland in the ey ...

at protesters outside the mosque, wounding 40 worshipers. On October 8, 1990, Israeli forces patrolling the site blocked worshippers from reaching it. A tear gas canister was set off among the female worshippers, which caused events to escalate. On 12 October 1990 Palestinian Muslims protested violently the intention of some extremist Jews to lay a cornerstone on the site for a New Temple as a prelude to the destruction of the Muslim mosques. The attempt was blocked by Israeli authorities but demonstrators were widely reported as having stoned Jews at the Western Wall. According to Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi, investigative journalism has shown this allegation to be false. Rocks were eventually thrown, while security forces fired rounds that killed 21 people and injuring 150 more. An Israeli inquiry found Israeli forces at fault, but it also concluded that charges could not be brought against any particular individuals. On 8 October 1990, 22 Palestinians were killed and over 100 others injured by Israeli Border Police during protests that were triggered by the announcement of the Temple Mount Faithful, a group of religious Jews, that they were going to lay the cornerstone of the Third Temple.Amayreh, Khaled
Catalogue of provocations: Israel's encroachments upon the Al-Aqsa Mosque have not been sporadic, but, rather, a systematic endeavor
'' Al-Ahram Weekly''. February 2007. Between 1992 and 1994, the Jordanian government undertook the unprecedented step of gilding the dome of the Dome of the Rock, covering it with 5000 gold plates, and restoring and reinforcing the structure. Saladin's minbar was also reconstructed. The project was paid for by King Hussein personally, at a cost of $8 million. The Temple Mount remains, under the terms of the 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty, under Jordanian custodianship. In December 1997, Israeli security services preempted an attempt by Jewish extremists to throw a pig's head wrapped in the pages of the Quran into the area, in order to spark a riot and embarrass the government. On 28 September 2000, then-opposition leader of Israel

Ariel Sharon Ariel Sharon ( ; also known by his diminutive Arik, ; 26 February 192811 January 2014) was an Israeli general and politician who served as the prime minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006. Born in Kfar Malal in Mandatory Palestin ...

and members of the Likud Party, along with 1,000 armed guards, visited the al-Aqsa compound. The visit was seen as a provocative gesture by many Palestinians, who gathered around the site. After Sharon and the Likud Party members left, a demonstration erupted and Palestinians on the grounds of the Haram al-Sharif began

throwing stones "Throwing Stones" is a song by the Grateful Dead. It appears on their 1987 album '' In the Dark''. It was also released as a single, with a B-side of "When Push Comes to Shove". The song is based loosely on the nursery rhyme Ring Around the R ...

and other projectiles at Israeli riot police. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the crowd, injuring 24 people. The visit sparked a five-year uprising by the Palestinians, commonly referred to as the al-Aqsa Intifada, though some commentators, citing subsequent speeches by Palestinian Authority officials, particularly Imad Falouji and Yasar Arafat, claim that the Intifada had been planned months in advance, as early as July upon Arafat's return from Camp David talks in the United States. On 29 September, the Israeli government deployed 2,000 riot police to the mosque. When a group of Palestinians left the mosque after Friday prayers (''Jumu'ah,'') they hurled stones at the police. The police then stormed the mosque compound, firing both live ammunition and rubber bullets at the group of Palestinians, killing four and wounding about 200. On 3 January 2023, Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the Temple Mount in

, sparking protests by

and the condemnation of several Arab countries.

Status quo

Under Muslim control

Jews were not allowed to visit for approximately one thousand years.

British Mandate

In the first ten years of British rule in Palestine, all were allowed entry to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif complex. Sometimes violence broke out at the entrance between Jews and Muslims. During the 1929 Palestine riots, Jews were accused of violating the status quo. Following the riots, the Supreme Muslim Council and the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf prohibited Jews from entering the site's gates. During the mandate period, Jewish leaders celebrated ancient religious practices at the Western Wall. The ban on visitors continued until 1948

Jordanian control

Although the 1949 Armistice Agreement called for "resumption of the normal functioning of the cultural and humanitarian institutions on Mount Scopus and free access thereto; free access to the Holy Places and cultural institutions and use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives", in practice, wire and concrete barriers were the reality. Cultural and religious sites in both sides of the city were destroyed and neglected and the Jewish community barred from its sacred places.

Under Israeli control

A few days after the

, on June 17, 1967, a meeting was held at the al-Aqsa mosque between

Moshe Dayan Moshe Dayan (; May 20, 1915 – October 16, 1981) was an Israeli military leader and politician. As commander of the Jerusalem front in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Chief of General Staff (Israel), Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defe ...

and Muslim religious authorities of Jerusalem reformulating the status quo. Jews were given the right to visit the Temple Mount unobstructed and free of charge if they respected Muslims' religious feelings and acted decently, but they were not allowed to pray. The Western Wall was to remain the Jewish place of prayer. 'Religious sovereignty' was to remain with the Muslims while 'overall sovereignty' became Israeli. The Muslims objected to Dayan's offer, as they completely rejected the Israeli conquest of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Some Jews, led by Shlomo Goren, then the military chief rabbi, had objected as well, claiming the decision handed over the complex to the Muslims, since the Western Wall's holiness is derived from the Mount and symbolizes exile, while praying on the Mount symbolizes freedom and the return of the Jewish people to their homeland. The President of the High Court of Justice, Aharon Barak, in response to an appeal in 1976 against police interference with an individual's putative right to prayer on the site, expressed the view that, while Jews had a right to prayer there, it was not absolute but subject to the public interest and the rights of other groups. Israel's courts have considered the issue as one beyond their remit, and, given the delicacy of the matter, under political jurisdiction. Barak wrote: Police continued to forbid Jews to pray on the Temple Mount. Subsequently, several prime ministers also made attempts to change the status quo but failed. In October 1986, an agreement between the Temple Mount Faithful, the Supreme Muslim Council and police, which would allow short visits in small groups, was exercised once and never repeated, after 2,000 Muslims armed with stones and bottles attacked the group and stoned worshipers at the Western Wall. During the 1990s, additional attempts were made for Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, which were stopped by Israeli police. Until 2000, non-Muslim visitors could enter the Dome of the Rock, al-Aqsa Mosque and the Islamic Museum by getting a ticket from the . This procedure ended when the

Second Intifada The Second Intifada (; ), also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was a major uprising by Palestinians against Israel and its Israeli-occupied territories, occupation from 2000. Starting as a civilian uprising in Jerusalem and October 2000 prot ...

erupted. Fifteen years later, negotiation between Israel and Jordan might result in reopening of those sites once again. In the 2010s, fear arose among Palestinians that Israel planned to change the status quo and permit Jewish prayers or that al-Aqsa mosque might be damaged or destroyed by Israel. Al-Aqsa was used as a base for attacks on visitors and the police from which stones, firebombs and fireworks were thrown. The Israeli police had never entered al-Aqsa Mosque until November 5, 2014, when dialog with the leaders of the and the rioters failed. This resulted in imposing strict limitations on entry of visitors to the Temple Mount. Israeli leadership repeatedly stated that the status quo would not change. According to then Jerusalem police commissioner Yohanan Danino, the place is at the center of a "holy war" and "anyone who wants to change the status quo on the Temple Mount should not be allowed up there", citing an "extreme right-wing agenda to change the status quo on the Temple Mount"; Hamas and Islamic Jihad continued to erroneously assert that the Israeli government planned to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque, resulting in chronic terrorist attacks and rioting. There have been several changes to the status quo: # Jewish visits are often prevented or considerably restricted. # Jews and other non-Islamic visitors can only visit from Sunday to Thursday, for four hours each day. # Visits inside the mosques are not allowed. # Jews with religious appearance must visit in groups monitored by guards and policemen. Many Palestinians believe the status quo is threatened since right-wing Israelis have been challenging it with more force and frequency, asserting a religious right to pray there. Until Israel banned them, members of Murabitat, a group of women, cried 'Allah Akbar' at groups of Jewish visitors to remind them the Temple Mount was still in Muslim hands. In October 2021, a Jewish man, Aryeh Lippo, who was banned by Israeli police from the Temple Mount for fifteen days after being caught quietly praying, had his ban overturned by an Israeli court on the grounds that his behavior had not violated police instructions. Hamas called the ruling "a clear declaration of war". A higher Israel court quickly reversed the lower court's ruling.

Management and access

An Islamic Waqf has managed the Temple Mount continuously since the Muslim reconquest of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1187. On June 7, 1967, soon after Israel had taken control of the area during the

, Prime Minister

Levi Eshkol Levi Eshkol ( ;‎ 25 October 1895 – 26 February 1969), born Levi Yitzhak Shkolnik (), was the prime minister of Israel from 1963 until his death from a heart attack in 1969. A founder of the Israeli Labor Party, he served in numerous seni ...

assured that "no harm whatsoever shall come to the places sacred to all religions". Together with the extension of Israeli jurisdiction and administration over east Jerusalem, the

Knesset The Knesset ( , ) is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Israel. The Knesset passes all laws, elects the President of Israel, president and Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister, approves the Cabinet of Israel, cabinet, and supe ...

passed the Preservation of the Holy Places Law, ensuring protection of the Holy Places against desecration, as well as freedom of access thereto. The site remains within the area controlled by the

State of Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

, with administration of the site remaining in the hands of the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf. Although freedom of access was enshrined in the law, as a security measure, the Israeli government now enforces a ban on non-Muslim prayer on the site. Non-Muslims who are observed praying on the site are subject to expulsion by the police. At various times, when there is fear of Arab rioting upon the mount resulting in

from above towards the Western Wall Plaza, Israel has prevented Muslim men under 45 from praying in the compound, citing these concerns. Sometimes such restrictions have coincided with Friday prayers during the Islamic holy month of

Ramadan Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. It is observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting (''Fasting in Islam, sawm''), communal prayer (salah), reflection, and community. It is also the month in which the Quran is believed ...

. Normally, West Bank Palestinians are allowed access to Jerusalem only during Islamic holidays, with access usually restricted to men over 35 and women of any age eligible for permits to enter the city. Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, which because of Israel's annexation of Jerusalem, hold Israeli permanent residency cards, and Israeli Arabs, are permitted unrestricted access to the Temple Mount. The Mughrabi Gate is the only entrance to the Temple Mount accessible to non-Muslims.

Jewish attitudes towards entering the site

Due to religious restrictions on entering the most sacred areas of the Temple Mount (see following section), the Western Wall, a retaining wall for the Temple Mount and remnant of the

structure, is considered by some rabbinical authorities to be the holiest accessible site for Jews to pray. A 2013

committee hearing considered allowing Jews to pray at the site, amidst heated debate. Arab-Israeli MPs were ejected for disrupting the hearing, after shouting at the chairman, calling her a "pyromaniac". Religious Affairs Minister Eli Ben-Dahan of Jewish Home said his ministry was seeking legal ways to enable Jews to pray at the site.

Jewish religious law concerning entry to the site

During Temple times, entry to the Mount was limited by a complex set of purity laws. Persons suffering from corpse uncleanness were not allowed to enter the inner court. Non-Jews were also prohibited from entering the inner court of the Temple. A hewn stone measuring and engraved with Greek uncials was discovered in 1871 near a court on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in which it outlined this prohibition: Translation: "Let no foreigner enter within the parapet and the partition which surrounds the Temple precincts. Anyone caught iolatingwill be held accountable for his ensuing death." Today, the stone is preserved in Istanbul's Museum of Antiquities.

wrote that it was only permitted to enter the site to fulfill a religious precept. After the destruction of the Temple there was discussion as to whether the site, bereft of the Temple, still maintained its holiness. Jewish codifiers accepted the opinion of Maimonides who ruled that the holiness of the Temple sanctified the site for eternity and consequently the restrictions on entry to the site remain in force. While secular Jews ascend freely, the question of whether ascending is permitted is a matter of some debate among religious authorities, with a majority holding that it is permitted to ascend to the Temple Mount, but not to step on the site of the inner courtyards of the ancient Temple. The question then becomes whether the site can be ascertained accurately. There is debate over whether reports that

himself ascended the Mount are reliable. One such report claims that he did so on Thursday, October 21, 1165, during the Crusader period. Some early scholars however, claim that entry onto certain areas of the Mount is permitted. It appears that Radbaz also entered the Mount and advised others how to do this. He permits entry from all the gates into the 135 x 135 cubits of the Women's Courtyard in the east, since the biblical prohibition only applies to the 187 x 135 cubits of the Temple in the west. There are also Christian and Islamic sources which indicate that Jews visited the site, but these visits may have been made under duress. Those persons who suffered a

nocturnal emission A wet dream, sex dream, or sleep orgasm, is a spontaneous occurrence of sexual arousal during sleep that includes ejaculation (nocturnal emission) and orgasm for a male, and vaginal lubrication and/or orgasm for a female. Context Nocturnal e ...

and who have not yet immersed themselves in a ritual bath were permitted to enter the Court of the Israelites, but were prohibited from entering the Court of the Levites and the Court of the Priests until they had immersed. Entrance into the areas of the other two courts was strictly forbidden to those who had not immersed themselves and who had been defiled by corpse uncleanness and who had not yet been purified. Since the latter state of impurity is pervasive, and since there is an inability to be purified from its effects, many rabbis forbid entrance into the Temple Mount altogether as a safeguard.

Opinions of contemporary rabbis concerning entry to the site

A few hours after the Temple Mount came under Israeli control during the Six-Day War, a message from the Chief Rabbis of Israel, Isser Yehuda Unterman and Yitzhak Nissim was broadcast, warning that Jews were not permitted to enter the site. This warning was reiterated by the Council of the Chief Rabbinate a few days later, which issued an explanation written by Rabbi Bezalel Jolti (Zolti) that "Since the sanctity of the site has never ended, it is forbidden to enter the Temple Mount until the Temple is built." The signatures of more than 300 prominent rabbis were later obtained. A major critic of the decision of the Chief Rabbinate was Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the chief rabbi of the IDF. According to General Uzi Narkiss, who led the Israeli force that conquered the Temple Mount, Goren proposed to him that the Dome of the Rock be immediately blown up. After Narkiss refused, Goren unsuccessfully petitioned the government to close off the Mount to Jews and non-Jews alike. Later he established his office on the Mount and conducted a series of demonstrations on the Mount in support of the right of Jewish men to enter there. His behavior displeased the government, which restricted his public actions, censored his writings, and in August prevented him from attending the annual Oral Law Conference at which the question of access to the Mount was debated. Although there was considerable opposition, the conference consensus was to confirm the ban on entry to Jews. The ruling said "We have been warned, since time immemorial [], against entering the entire area of the Temple Mount and have indeed avoided doing so." According to Ron Hassner, the ruling "brilliantly" solved the government's problem of avoiding ethnic conflict, since those Jews who most respected rabbinical authority were those most likely to clash with Muslims on the Mount. Rabbinical consensus in the post-1967 period, held that it is forbidden for Jews to enter any part of the Temple Mount, and in January 2005, a declaration was signed confirming the 1967 decision. Most Haredi rabbis are of the opinion that the Mount is off limits to Jews and non-Jews alike. Their opinions against entering the Temple Mount are based on the current political climate surrounding the Mount, along with the potential danger of entering the hallowed area of the Temple courtyard and the impossibility of fulfilling the ritual requirement of cleansing oneself with the ashes of a red heifer. The boundaries of the areas which are completely forbidden, while having large portions in common, are delineated differently by various rabbinic authorities. However, there is a growing body of Modern Orthodox and national religious rabbis who encourage visits to certain parts of the Mount, which they believe are permitted according to most medieval rabbinical authorities. These rabbis include: Shlomo Goren (former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel); Chaim David Halevi (former Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv and Yafo); Dov Lior (Rabbi of Kiryat Arba); Yosef Elboim; Yisrael Ariel; She'ar Yashuv Cohen (Chief Rabbi of

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

); Yuval Sherlo (

rosh yeshiva Rosh yeshiva or Rosh Hayeshiva (, plural, pl. , '; Anglicized pl. ''rosh yeshivas'') is the title given to the dean of a yeshiva, a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and th ...

of the

hesder Hesder ( "arrangement"; also Yeshivat Hesder ) is an Israeli yeshiva program which combines advanced Talmudic studies with military service in the Israel Defense Forces, usually within a Religious Zionist framework. The program allows Orthodox J ...

yeshiva of

Petah Tikva Petah Tikva (, ), also spelt Petah Tiqwa and known informally as Em HaMoshavot (), is a city in the Central District (Israel), Central District of Israel, east of Tel Aviv. It was founded in 1878, mainly by Haredi Judaism, Haredi Jews of the Old Y ...

); Meir Kahane. One of them, Shlomo Goren, held that it is possible that Jews are even allowed to enter the heart of the Dome of the Rock in time of war, according to Jewish Law of Conquest. These authorities demand an attitude of veneration on the part of Jews ascending the Temple Mount, ablution in a

mikveh A mikveh or mikvah (, ''mikva'ot'', ''mikvot'', or (Ashkenazi Hebrew, Ashkenazic) ''mikves'', lit., "a collection") is a bath used for ritual washing in Judaism#Full-body immersion, ritual immersion in Judaism to achieve Tumah and taharah, ...

prior to the ascent, and the wearing of non-leather shoes. Some rabbinic authorities are now of the opinion that it is imperative for Jews to ascend in order to halt the ongoing process of Islamization of the Temple Mount. Maimonides, perhaps the greatest codifier of Jewish Law, wrote in ''Laws of the Chosen House ch 7 Law 15'' "One may bring a dead body in to the (lower sanctified areas of the) Temple Mount and there is no need to say that the ritually impure (from the dead) may enter there, because the dead body itself can enter". One who is ritually impure through direct or in-direct contact of the dead cannot walk in the higher sanctified areas. For those who are visibly Jewish, they have no choice, but to follow a peripheral route as it has become unofficially part of the status quo on the Mount. Many of these recent opinions rely on archaeological evidence. In December 2013, the two Chief Rabbis of Israel, David Lau and Yitzhak Yosef, reiterated the ban on Jews entering the Temple Mount. They wrote, "In light of hoseneglecting his ruling we once again warn that nothing has changed and this strict prohibition remains in effect for the entire area f the Temple Mount. In November 2014, the Sephardic chief rabbi Yitzhak Yosef reiterated the point of view held by many rabbinic authorities that Jews should not visit the Mount.Itamar Sharon
'Jews must stop Temple Mount visits, Sephardi chief rabbi says'
'' The Times of Israel'', 7 November 2014. On the occasion of an upsurge in Palestinian knifing attacks on Israelis, associated with fears that Israel was changing the status quo on the Mount, the Haredi newspaper Mishpacha ran a notification in Arabic asking, 'their cousins', Palestinians, to stop trying to murder members of their congregation, since they were vehemently opposed to ascending the Mount and consider such visits proscribed by Jewish law.

Features

Courtyard

The large courtyard ('' sahn'') can host more than 400,000 worshippers, making it one of the largest mosques in the world.

Upper platform

The upper platform surrounds the

, beneath which lies the Well of Souls, originally accessible only by a narrow hole in the Sakhrah, the foundation stone on which the Dome of the Rock site and after which it is named, until the

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

dug a new entrance to the cave from the south. The platform is accessible via eight staircases, each of which is topped by a free-standing arcade known in Arabic as the ''qanatir'' or ''mawazin''. The arcades were erected in different periods from the 10th to 15th centuries. There is also a smaller domed building on the upper platform, to the east of the Dome of the Rock, known as the Dome of the Chain (''Qubbat al-Sisila'' in Arabic). Its exact origin and purpose is uncertain but historical sources indicate it was built under the reign of Abd al-Malik, the same Umayyad caliph who built the Dome of the Rock. Two other small domes stand to the northwest of the Dome of the Rock. The Dome of the Ascension (''Qubbat al-Miraj'' in Arabic) has an inscription with a date corresponding to 1201 CE. It may have been a former Crusader structure, possibly a

baptistery In Church architecture, Christian architecture the baptistery or baptistry (Old French ''baptisterie''; Latin ''baptisterium''; Greek language, Greek , 'bathing-place, baptistery', from , baptízein, 'to baptize') is the separate centrally planned ...

, that was repurposed at this time, or it may be a structure that was built after

's capture of the city and reused some Crusader-era materials, including its columns. Per its name, this dome commemorates the spot where, according to some, Muhammad ascended to heaven. The Dome of the Spirits or Dome of the Winds (''Qubbat al-Arwah'' in Arabic) stands a little further north and is dated to the 16th century. In the southwest corner of the upper platform is a quadrangular structure which includes a portion topped by another dome. It is known as the Dome of Literature (''Qubba Nahwiyya'' in Arabic) and dated to 1208. Standing further east, close to one of the southern entrance arcades, is a stone '' minbar'' known as the "Summer Pulpit" or Minbar of Burhan al-Din, used for open-air prayers. It appears to be an older ciborium from the Crusader period, as attested by its sculptural decoration, which was then reused under the Ayyubids. Sometime after 1345, a Mamluk judge named Burhan al-Din (d. 1388) restored it and added a stone staircase, giving it its present form.

Lower platform

The lower platform – which constitutes most of the surface of the Temple Mount – has at its southern end al-Aqsa Mosque, which takes up most of the width of the Mount. Gardens take up the eastern and most of the northern side of the platform; the far north of the platform houses an Islamic school. The lower platform also houses an ablution fountain (known as ''al-Kas''), originally supplied with water via a long narrow aqueduct leading from the so-called '' Solomon's Pools'' near

Bethlehem Bethlehem is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, located about south of Jerusalem, and the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate. It had a population of people, as of . The city's economy is strongly linked to Tourism in the State of Palesti ...

, but now supplied from Jerusalem's water mains. There are several

cisterns A cistern (; , ; ) is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. To prevent leakage, the interior of the cistern is often lined with hydraulic plaster. Cisterns are disti ...

beneath the lower platform, designed to collect rainwater as a water supply. These have various forms and structures, seemingly built in different periods, ranging from vaulted chambers built in the gap between the bedrock and the platform, to chambers cut into the bedrock itself. Of these, the most notable are (numbering traditionally follows Wilson's scheme): * Cistern 1 (located under the northern side of the upper platform). There is a speculation that it had a function connected with the altar of the Second Temple (and possibly of the earlier Temple), or with the '' bronze sea''. * Cistern 5 (located under the southeastern corner of the upper platform)a long and narrow chamber, with a strange anti-clockwise curved section at its northwestern corner and containing within it a doorway currently blocked by earth. The cistern's position and design is such that there has been speculation it had a function connected with the altar of the Second Temple (and possibly of the earlier Temple), or with the ''bronze sea''. Charles Warren thought that the ''altar of burnt offerings'' was located at the northwestern end. * Cistern 8 (located just north of the al-Aqsa Mosque)known as the ''Great Sea'', a large rock hewn cavern, the roof supported by pillars carved from the rock; the chamber is particularly cave-like and atmospheric, and its maximum water capacity is several hundred thousand gallons. * Cistern 9 (located just south of cistern 8, and directly under the al-Aqsa Mosque)known as the ''Well of the Leaf'' due to its leaf-shaped plan, is also rock hewn. * Cistern 11 (located east of cistern 9)a set of vaulted rooms forming a plan shaped like the letter E. Probably the largest cistern, it has the potential to house over 700,000 gallons of water. * Cistern 16/17 (located at the centre of the far northern end of the Temple Mount). Despite the currently narrow entrances, this cistern (17 and 16 are the same cistern) is a large, vaulted chamber, which Warren described as looking like the inside of the cathedral at Cordoba (which was previously a mosque). Warren believed that it was almost certainly built for some other purpose and was only adapted into a cistern at a later date; he suggested that it might have been part of a general vault supporting the northern side of the platform, in which case substantially more of the chamber exists than is used for a cistern.

Gates

:Sealed gates The retaining walls of the platform contain several gateways, all now blocked. In the eastern wall is the Golden Gate, through which legend states the Jewish Messiah would enter Jerusalem. On the southern face are the Hulda Gates – the ''triple gate'' (which has three arches) and the ''double gate'' (which has two arches and is partly obscured by a Crusader building); these were the entrance and exit (respectively) to the Temple Mount from Ophel (the oldest part of Jerusalem), and the main access to the Mount for ordinary Jews. In the western face, near the southern corner, is the Barclay's Gate – only half visible due to a building (the "house of Abu Sa'ud") on the northern side. Also in the western face, hidden by later construction but visible via the recent Western Wall Tunnels, and only rediscovered by Warren, is Warren's Gate; the function of these western gates is obscure, but many Jews view Warren's Gate as particularly holy, due to its location due west of the Dome of the Rock. The current location of the Dome of the Rock is considered one of the possible locations where the

was placed; numerous alternative opinions exist, based on study and calculations, such as those of Tuvia Sagiv. Warren was able to investigate the inside of these gates. Warren's Gate and the Golden Gate simply head toward the centre of the Mount, giving access to the surface by steps. Barclay's Gate is similar, but abruptly turns south as it does so; the reason for this is unknown. The double and triple gates (the ''Huldah Gates'') are more substantial; heading into the Mount for some distance they each finally have steps rising to the surface just north of al-Aqsa Mosque. The passageway for each is vaulted, and has two aisles (in the case of the triple gate, a third aisle exists for a brief distance beyond the gate); the eastern aisle of the double gates and western aisle of the triple gates reach the surface, the other aisles terminating some way before the steps. Warren believed that one aisle of each original passage was extended when al-Aqsa Mosque blocked the original surface exits. In the process of investigating Cistern 10, Warren discovered tunnels that lay ''under'' the Triple Gate passageway. These passages lead in erratic directions, some leading beyond the southern edge of the Temple Mount (they are at a depth below the base of the walls); their purpose is unknown – as is whether they predate the Temple Mount – a situation not helped by the fact that apart from Warren's expedition no one else is known to have visited them. Altogether, there are six major sealed gates and a postern, listed here counterclockwise, dating from either the Roman/Herodian, Byzantine, or Early Muslim periods: * Bab al-Jana'iz/al-Buraq (Gate of the Funerals/of al-Buraq); eastern wall; a hardly noticeable postern, or maybe an improvised gate, a short distance south of the Golden Gate * Golden Gate (Bab al-Zahabi); eastern wall (northern third), a double gate: ::Bab al-Rahma (Door of Mercy) is the southern opening, ::Bab al-Tauba (Door of Repentance) is the northern opening * Warren's Gate; western wall, now only visible from the Western Wall Tunnel * Bab an-Nabi (Gate of the Prophet) or Barclay's Gate; western wall, visible from al-Buraq Mosque inside the Haram, and from the Western Wall plaza (women's section) and the adjacent building (the so-called house of Abu Sa'ud) * Double Gate (Bab al-Thulathe; possibly one of the Huldah Gates); southern wall, underneath al-Aqsa Mosque * Triple Gate; southern wall, outside Solomon's Stables/Marwani Mosque * Single Gate; southern wall, outside Solomon's Stables/Marwani Mosque :Open gates of the Haram There are now eleven open gates offering access to the Muslim Haram al-Sharif. * Bab al-Asbat (Gate of the Tribes); north-east corner * Bab al-Hitta/Huttah (Gate of Remission, Pardon, or Absolution); northern wall * Bab al-Atim/'Atm/Attim (Gate of Darkness); northern wall * Bab al-Ghawanima (Gate of Bani Ghanim); north-west corner * Bab al-Majlis / an-Nazir/Nadhir (Council Gate / Inspector's Gate); western wall (northern third) * Bab al-Hadid (Iron Gate); western wall (central part) * Bab al-Qattanin (Gate of the Cotton Merchants); western wall (central part) * Bab al-Matarah/Mathara (Ablution Gate); western wall (central part) Two twin gates follow south of the Ablution Gate, the Tranquility Gate and the Gate of the Chain: * Bab as-Salam / al-Sakina (Tranquility Gate / Gate of the Dwelling), the northern one of the two; western wall (central part) * Bab as-Silsileh (Gate of the Chain), the southern one of the two; western wall (central part) * Bab al-Magharbeh/Maghariba (Moroccans' Gate/Gate of the Moors); western wall (southern third); the only entrance for non-Muslims A twelfth gate still open during Ottoman rule is now closed to the public: * Bab as-Sarai (Gate of the Seraglio); a small gate to the former residence of the Pasha of Jerusalem; western wall, northern part (between the Bani Ghanim and Council gates).

Solomon's Stables/Marwani Mosque

East of and joined to the triple gate passageway is a large vaulted area, supporting the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount platform – which is substantially above the bedrock at this point – the vaulted chambers here are popularly referred to as Solomon's Stables. They were used as stables by the Crusaders, but were built by Herod the Great – along with the platform they were built to support.

Northern and western porticos

The complex is bordered on the south and east by the outer walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. On the north and west it is bordered by two long porticos ('' riwaq''), built during the Mamluk period. A number of other structures were also built along these areas, mainly also from the Mamluk period. On the north side, they include the Isardiyya Madrasa, built before 1345, and the Almalikiyya Madrasa, dated to 1340. On the west side, they include the Ashrafiyya Madrasa, built by Sultan Qaytbay between 1480 and 1482, and the adjacent Uthmaniyya Madrasa, dated to 1437. The Sabil of Qaytbay, contemporary with the Ashrafiyya Madrasa, also stands nearby.

Minarets

The existing four minarets include three along the western perimeter of the esplanade and one along the northern wall. The earliest dated minaret was constructed on the northwest corner of the Temple Mount in 1298, with three other minarets added over the course of the 14th century.

Archaeology, site alterations

Due to the extreme political sensitivity of the site, no real archaeological excavations have ever been conducted on the Temple Mount itself. Protests commonly occur whenever archaeologists conduct projects near the Mount. This sensitivity has not, however, protected both Jewish and Muslim works from accusations of destroying archeological evidence on a number of occasions. Aside from visual observation of surface features, most other archaeological knowledge of the site comes from the 19th-century survey carried out by Charles Wilson and Charles Warren and others. Since the Waqf is granted almost full autonomy on the Islamic holy sites, Israeli archaeologists have been prevented from inspecting the area, and are restricted to conducting excavations around the Temple Mount. After the Six-Day War of 1967, Israeli archeologists began a series of excavations near the site at the southern wall that uncovered finds from the Second Temple period through Roman,

and Crusader times. Israeli archaeological digs at the southwestern corner of Temple Mount discovered traces of four Muslim palaces built under the

Umayyad Caliphate The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire (, ; ) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty. Uthman ibn Affan, the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a member o ...

, though the remains have not been well preserved but instead had a museum built upon them. The former UN envoy to Jerusalem, Raymond M. Lemaire, criticised "the construction of a metallic pergola in the middle of the courtyard of one of the Umayyad palaces, which disfigures the site." Upon visiting Jerusalem in September 1999, medieval art historian Léon Pressouyre noted that the palaces had lost their archaeological features due to neglect, "for in the guise of highlighting the remains of previous periods he Israeli authoritiestrivialise the Umayyad palaces, major monuments in the area". Over the period 1970–1988, a number of tunnels were excavated in the vicinity, including one that passed to the west of the Mount and became known as the Western Wall Tunnel, which was opened to the public in 1996. The same year the Waqf began construction of a new mosque in the structures known since Crusader times as Solomon's Stables. Many Israelis regarded this as a radical change of the status quo, which should not have been undertaken without first consulting the Israeli government. The project was done without attention to the possibility of disturbing historically significant archaeological material, with stone and ancient artifacts treated without regard to their preservation. Israeli organizations such as the Committee to Prevent the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount argue 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. Since the late 1990s, the Temple Mount Sifting Project has been reclaiming earth from similar illegal excavations on the mount that had been dumped in the nearby Kidron Valley that had yielded important finds, including Iron Age figurines, an 8th or 7th centuries BCE clay sealing inscribed in Hebrew, Persian period YHD coins, Herodian opus sectile tiles, Byzantine tesserae, and arrowheads, mostly from the Crusader period. In late 2002, a bulge of about was reported in the southern retaining wall part of the Temple Mount. A Jordanian team of engineers recommended replacing or resetting most of the stones in the affected area. In February 2004, the eastern wall of the Mount was damaged by an earthquake. The damage threatened to topple sections of the wall into the area known as Solomon's Stables. A few days later, a portion of retaining wall, supporting the earthen ramp that led from the Western Wall plaza to the Gate of the Moors on the Temple Mount, collapsed. In 2007 the Israel Antiquities Authority started construction of a temporary wooden pedestrian pathway to replace the Mugrabi Gate ramp after a landslide in 2005 made it unsafe and in danger of collapse. The works sparked condemnation from Arab leaders. In July 2007 the Muslim religious trust which administers the Mount began digging a ,

trench A trench is a type of digging, excavation or depression in the ground that is generally deeper than it is wide (as opposed to a swale (landform), swale or a bar ditch), and narrow compared with its length (as opposed to a simple hole or trapping ...

from the northern side of the Temple Mount compound to the

in order to replace 40-year-old electric cables in the area. Israeli archaeologists accused the waqf of a deliberate act of cultural vandalism. Accusations of vandalism at the site resurfaced in 2018 and again in 2022.

Noteworthy events

;February 2004: ''Partially collapsed Mughrabi-Bridge:'' An 800-year-old wall holding back part of the hill jutting out from the Western Wall leading up to the Mughrabi Gate partially collapsed. Authorities believed a recent earthquake may have been responsible. ;March 2005: ''Allah inscription:'' The word "

", in approximately a Arabic script, was found newly carved into the ancient stones, an act viewed by Jews as vandalism. The carving was attributed to a team of

ian 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 inscription at Judaism's holiest site. ;October 2006:''Synagogue proposal:'' Uri Ariel, a member of the Knesset from the National Union party (a right-wing opposition party) ascended to the mount, and said that he is preparing a plan where a synagogue will be built on the mount. His proposed

synagogue A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...

would not be built instead of the mosques but in a separate area in accordance with rulings of 'prominent rabbis.' He said he believed that this will be correcting a historical injustice and that it is an opportunity for the Muslim world to prove that it is tolerant to all faiths. :''Minaret proposal:'' Plans are mooted to build a new minaret on the mount, the first of its kind for 600 years. King

Abdullah II of Jordan Abdullah II (Abdullah bin Hussein; born 30 January 1962) is King of Jordan, having ascended the throne on 7 February 1999. He is a member of the Hashemites, who have been the reigning royal family of Jordan since 1921, and is traditionally reg ...

announced a competition to design a fifth minaret for the walls of the Temple Mount complex. He said it would "reflect the Islamic significance and sanctity of the mosque". The scheme, estimated to cost $300,000, is for a seven-sided tower – after the seven-pointed Hashemite star – and at , it would be taller than the next-largest minaret. The minaret would be constructed on the eastern wall of the Temple Mount near the Golden Gate. ;February 2007: '' Mugrabi Gate ramp reconstruction:'' Repairs to an earthen ramp leading to the Mugrabi Gate sparked Arab protests. ;May 2007: ''Right-wing Jews ascend the Mount:'' A group of right-wing Religious Zionist rabbis entered the Temple Mount. This elicited widespread criticism from other religious Jews and from secular Israelis, accusing the rabbis of provoking the Arabs. An editorial in the newspaper ''

'' accused the rabbis of 'knowingly and irresponsibly bringing a burning torch closer to the most flammable hill in the Middle East,' and noted that rabbinical consensus in both the Haredi and the Religious Zionist worlds forbids Jews from entering the Temple Mount. On May 16, Rabbi Avraham Shapira, former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel and

of the Mercaz HaRav

yeshiva A yeshiva (; ; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are studied in parallel. The stu ...

, reiterated his opinion that it is forbidden for Jews to enter the Temple Mount. The Litvish Haredi newspaper '' Yated Ne'eman'', which is controlled by leading Litvish Haredi rabbis including Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv and Rabbi Nissim Karelitz, accused the rabbis of transgressing a decree punishable by 'death through the hands of heaven.'"Yated Ne'eman" article
. ;July 2007: '' Temple Mount cable replacement'': The

Waqf A (; , plural ), also called a (, plural or ), or ''mortmain'' property, is an Alienation (property law), inalienable charitable financial endowment, endowment under Sharia, Islamic law. It typically involves donating a building, plot ...

began digging a ditch from the northern side of the Temple Mount compound to the Dome of the Rock as a prelude to infrastructure work in the area. Although the dig was approved by the police, it generated protests from archaeologists. ;October 2009: ''Clashes'': Palestinian protesters gathered at the site after rumours that an extreme Israeli group would harm the site, which the Israeli government denied. Israeli police assembled at the Temple Mount complex to disperse Palestinian protesters who were throwing stones at them. The police used

stun grenade A stun grenade, also known as a flash grenade, flashbang, thunderflash, or sound bomb, is a Non-lethal weapon, non-lethal explosive device used to temporarily disorient an enemy's senses. Upon detonation, a stun grenade produces Flash blindness, ...

s on the protesters, of which 15 were later arrested, including the Palestinian President's adviser on Jerusalem affairs. Eighteen Palestinians and 3 police officers were injured. ;July 2010: ''A public opinion poll'' in Israel showed that 49% of Israelis want the Temple to be rebuilt, with 27% saying the government should make active steps towards such reconstruction. The poll was conducted by channel 99, the government-owned Knesset channel, in advance of the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, on which Jews commemorate the destruction of both the first and second Temples, which stood at this site. :Knesset Member Danny Danon visited the Temple Mount in accordance with rabbinical views of Jewish Law on the ninth of the Hebrew Month of Av. The Knesset member condemned the conditions imposed by Muslims upon religious Jews at the site and vowed to work to improve conditions. ;July 2017 :'' Temple Mount shooting'': Three men from the Israeli-Arab city of Umm al-Fahm opened fire on two Israeli

Druze The Druze ( ; , ' or ', , '), who Endonym and exonym, call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn (), are an Arabs, Arab Eastern esotericism, esoteric Religious denomination, religious group from West Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic ...

policemen at the Lions' Gate. Gun attacks have been unusual at the Temple Mount in recent decades. :Following the July 14 attack, the site was shut down, and reopened on July 16 with metal detector-equipped checkpoints, spurring calls for protests by Muslim leaders associated with the site. ;April 2022 : ''Al-Aqsa Mosque clashes'': On 15 April 2022, clashes erupted between Palestinians and Israeli Security Forces on the Temple Mount. The clashes began when Palestinians threw stones, firecrackers, and other heavy objects at Israeli police officers. The policemen responded with various riot control measures. Some Palestinians then barricaded themselves inside al-Aqsa Mosque and continued throwing stones at the policemen. In response, police raided the mosque, arresting those who had barricaded themselves inside. Some damage was done to the mosque's structure. ;April 2023 : ''Al-Aqsa Mosque clashes''

Panorama

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * * Finkelstein, Louis; Horbury, William; Davies, William David; Sturdy, John. ''The Cambridge History of Judaism'',

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

, 1999. * * Ha'ivri, David. ''Reclaiming the Temple Mount'', HaMeir L'David, 2006 * Hassner, Ron E., "War on Sacred Grounds," Cornell University Press, 2009. * * Lundquist, John. ''The Temple of Jerusalem'', Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007. * Mazar, Benjamin: ''The Mountain of the Lord''. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1975. * Negev, Avraham & Gibson, Shimon. ''Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land'', Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005. * * * *

External links

Templemount.org
* . Biblical Archaeology Review. *
Temple Mount Sifting Project
{{Authority control Mountains of Jerusalem Historic sites in Jerusalem Islam in Jerusalem Jerusalem in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict Conversion of non-Christian religious buildings and structures into churches Religious buildings and structures converted into mosques Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs (Jordan) National symbols of Palestine Tabernacle and Temples in Jerusalem