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Temple Mount

The Temple MountHar haB·yit) is a hotly contested religious site in the Old City of Jerusalem.

A plan of the Haram al-Sharif in 1890.

It was the site of the first and second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and according to Judaism is to be the site of the third and final Temple in the time of the Messiah. It is also the site of two major Muslim religious shrines, the Dome of the Rock (c. 690) and Al-Aqsa Mosque (c. 710). It is the holiest site in Judaism, the third holiest site in Islam, and has special significance to Christianity. It is thus one of the most contested religious sites in the world. Ariel Sharon's controversial September 28, 2000, visit to the Temple Mount is cited by some people as the event that precipitated the Second Intifada, although others, including Palestinian representatives, dismiss this and instead feel that the catalyst for the violence was the breakdown of the Camp David negotiations on July 25, 2000.

History and traditions of the site

According to the Talmud, it was from here that God gathered the earth that was formed into Adam (some Christians say it was Golgotha), and it was here that Adam - and later Cain, Abel, and Noah - offered sacrifices to God. According to the Bible, the place where Abraham fulfilled God's test to see if he would be willing to sacrifice his son Isaac was Mount Moriah, which the Talmud says was another name for the Temple Mount. Muslim accounts also point to this as the location that Abraham was to sacrifice his son Ishmael, and the traditional location believed to be the spot ("the furthest mosque") where in 621, Mohammed briefly passed by on a miraculous journey aboard the winged steed Buraq, on his way to take a brief tour of heaven with the Archangel Gabriel.

The Bible recounts that Jacob dreamt about angels ascending and descending a ladder while sleeping on a stone. The Talmud says that this took place on the Temple Mount, and Jewish tradition has it that the rock in the Dome of the Rock was the one on which he slept. According to the Bible, King David purchased a threshing floor owned by Aravnah the Jebusite (2 Samuel, 24:18-25) overlooking Jerusalem upon the cessation of a plague, to erect an altar. He wanted to construct a permanent temple there, but as his hands were "bloodied," he was forbidden to do so himself, so this task was left to his son Solomon, who completed the task c. 950 BCE. After standing for 410 years, the First Temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians in 586 BCE. Reconstruction of the Temple (see the Second Temple) began after the 70 year exile to Babylonia, but was destroyed by Titus 420 years later, in 70 CE. The Romans were, however, unable to topple the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. Upon the destruction of the Temple, the Rabbis revised prayers, and introduced new ones to request the speedy rebuilding of the Temple. They also instituted the saying of the portions of the Torah commanding the bringing of the sacrifices in place of the sacrifices themselves.

Islamic tradition holds that when Muslims first entered the city of Jerusalem under the leadership of Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab (also known as Umar or Omar) in 637, the ruins of the Temple were being used as a rubbish dump by the Christian inhabitants, perhaps in order to humiliate the Jews and fulfill Jesus' prophecy that not a stone would be left standing on another there; Caliph Omar (contemporary of Muhammad, who had died a few years earlier), ordered it cleaned and performed prayer there. According to some sources, he also ordered a mosque to be constructed at the spot, upon which site the Al-Aqsa Mosque was built several decades later. Most medieval historians - notably the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes Confessor and the Jewish Secrets of Rabbi Simon ben Yohai - indicate that Omar's action was hailed by the Jews of the time as a restoration of the Temple of Jerusalem. After the Muslim conquest of this region, the Temple Mount became known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif ? (the Noble Sanctuary); it is traditionally regarded by Muslims as the third most important Islamic holy site, after Mecca and Medina. The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism. Islam respects David and Solomon as prophets, and regards the Temple (mentioned in Qur'an 17:7, and described in much more detail in the noncanonical Qisas al-Anbiya) as one of the earliest and most noteworthy places of worship of God. (The Kaaba's sanctity has a similar basis in the Islamic tradition that it was built, or rebuilt, by Abraham.) In addition to this, the "farthest Mosque" (al-masjid al-Aq?a) in verse (17:1) of the Qur'an is traditionally interpreted by Muslims as referring to the site at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on which the mosque of that name now stands; see Al-Aqsa Mosque regarding this interpretation.In 690 CE, after the Islamic conquest of Palestine, an octagonal Muslim shrine (but not a mosque) was built around the rock, which became known as the Dome of the Rock (Qubbat as-Sakhra ??? ??????). In 715 CE the Umayyads rebuilt the Temple's nearby Chanuyos into a mosque (see illustrations and detailed drawing) which they named al-Masjid al-Aqsa the Al-Aqsa Mosque or in translation "the furthest mosque", after the legend about Mohammed's journey (see Isra and Mi'raj). The structures have been destroyed several times in earthquakes; the current version dates from the first half of the 11th century. Both buildings, the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque, are considered holy to Muslims and make Jerusalem the third-holiest city, after Mecca and Medina. The mosque and shrine are currently administered by a Waqf (an Islamic trust) that enjoys total autonomy. The Western Wall of the Temple Mount remains standing until today and due to its proximity to where the Temples once stood has, for practical purposes, became the holiest site for Jews to pray. Many Jews often leave written prayers addressed to God in the cracks of the wall.

Controversy over location of site

In 1999 Dr. Ernest L. Martin published a controversial book called The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot based upon the idea of Ory Mazar, son of Professor Benjamin Mazar of Hebrew University. In 1995 Dr. Martin wrote a draft report to support this theory. He wrote: "I was then under the impression that Simon the Hasmonean (along with Herod a century later) moved the Temple from the Ophel mound to the Dome of the Rock area."However, after studying the words of Josephus concerning the Temple of Herod, which was reported to be in the same general area of the former Temples, he then read the account of Eleazar who led the final contingent of Jewish resistance to the Romans at Masada which stated that the Roman fortress was the only structure left by 73 C.E. "With this key in mind, I came to the conclusion in 1997 that all the Temples were indeed located on the Ophel mound over the area of the Gihon Spring". This theory implied that Judaism was fighting to preserve the wrong location, which in turn sparked reactions from Muslims.The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot by Dr. Martin was made even more controversial due to the fact that he had previously spent five years engaged in excavations near the Western Wall in a joint project between Hebrew University and Ambassador College, publisher of The Plain Truth magazine edited by Herbert W. Armstrong.

Jewish religious law concerning entry to the site

The Rabbis have ruled that Jews may not enter specific areas (approximately 15%) of the Temple Mount [2] because of the danger of entering the area of the Temple courtyard and the difficulty of fulfilling the ritual requirement of cleansing oneself with the ashes of a red heifer (see Numbers 19), and declared it punishable with kareth, or death by heavenly decree [3]. The boundaries of the areas to be avoided, while having large portions in common, are delineated differently by various rabbinic authorities.Many Rabbis have "imposed a blanket ban on access for Jews to the entire Temple Mount"[4], given the uncertainty about the location of the permitted areas, an opinion still supported by Rabbis such as Ovadia Yosef, Avraham Shapiro, Eliahu Bakshi-Doron, and Israel Lau. In August 1967, the Chief Rabbis of Israel, Isser Yehuda Unterman and Yitzhak

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