Muhammed and Jerusalem

In response to a comment to my earlier post that says "So prophet Muhammad did get to Jerusalem and ascended to heaven from there" I would like to clarify this a bit to those who are not familiar with what happened.

The event of Muhammed getting to Jerusalem and ascending to heaven could only be confirmed by Muhammed himself. There was no physical journey that he made with other followers all the way from Mecca to Jerusalem. There is no historical document (e.g. Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, etc) describing this, and it is only referenced in the Koran in Sura 17 - "Night Journey." No one else was witness to this journey. There are no archeological findings to support Muhammad's visit to Jerusalem. And as explained in an earlier post, there is no mention of Jerusalem in the Koran. That is a latter interpretation of the words "farthest mosque."

In the Koran, it is written that in one night the Prophet Muhammed was transported from the temple at Mecca to a remote mosque and back to Mecca, but no details are given of the strange journey.


THE NIGHT JOURNEY

سبحان الذي أسرى بعبده ليلاً من المسجد الحرام إلى المسجد الأقصى الذي باركنا حوله
Koran sura 17: Night Journey Of Mecca Celebrated be the praises of Him who took His servant a journey by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque, the precinct of which we have blessed, to show him of our signs! verily, He both hears and looks.

THE STORY GOES...

Muhammed rested in Kaaba, which is in Mecca (Saudi Arabia of today). While he slept, Gabriel, the angel, came to him, and brought him the winged steed Buraq, a winged white animal from Paradise, greater in size than a donkey but lesser than a mule, with wings on its hind legs. The Buraq carried Muhammad the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where he got off Buraq, tied it up, and led other prophets in prayer. He then got back on Buraq, and was taken to the heavens, where he toured heaven and hell, and spoke with the earlier prophets, and with Allah. Allah told him to enjoin the Muslims to pray fifty times a day; however, Moses told Muhammad that they would never do it, and urged Muhammad to go back several times and ask for a reduction, until finally it was reduced to five times a day.

Afterwards, the unbelieving Meccans regarded this as absurd, and some went to Abu Bakr and told him "Look at what your companion is saying. He says he went to Jerusalem and came back in one night." Abu Bakr told them, "If he said that, then he is truthful. I believe him concerning the news of the heavens — that an angel descends to him from the heavens. How could I not believe he went to Jerusalem and came back in a short period of time — when these are on earth?" It was for this that Abu Bakr is said to have received his nickname "as-Siddiq", the believer.

Since the Prophet himself did not leave any clear-cut explanation of this experience, Muslim thinkers - including the Prophet's Companions - have always widely differed as to its true nature.

The great majority of the Companions believed that both the Night Journey and the Ascension were physical occurrences - in other words, that the Prophet was borne bodily to Jerusalem and then to heaven - while a minority were convinced that the experience was purely spiritual. Among the latter we find, in particular, the name of Ayesha, the Prophet's widow and most intimate companion of his later years, who declared emphatically that "he was transported only in his spirit (bi-ruhihi), while his body did not leave its place" (cf. Tabari, Zamakhshari and Ibn Kathir in their commentaries on 17: 1); the great Al-Hasan al-Basri, who belonged to the next generation, held uncompromisingly to the same view.

CHRONOLOGICAL TURN OF EVENTS:

1000 BCE: Jerusalem made Capital of David's Kingdom.

960 BCE: First Temple, the national and spiritual center of the Jewish people, built in Jerusalem by King Solomon.

586 BCE: Judah conquered by Babylonia; Jerusalem and First Temple destroyed; most Jews exiled to Babylonia.

538-515 BCE: Many Jews return from Babylonia; Temple rebuilt. ("Second Temple").

0 BCE/AD: JESUS and Christianity begin.

70 AD: Destruction of Jerusalem and Second Temple by the Romans. All that remained is the Western Wall (Wailing Wall).

1000 BCE through 636 AD: Jerusalem ruled (in this order) by Israelites, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantine Empire, Persians.

622 AD: The Night Journey occured.

• At the time this verse of the Quran was recited many muslims understood the phrase "furthest mosque" as a poetic phrase for a mosque already known to them, a mosque in Heaven, or as a metaphor.
  For the following reasons, they find it unlikely that this verse referred to a location in Jerusalem:
  There were already two places that Muslim tradition of that time period called "the furthest mosque"; one was the mosque in Medina (Arthur Jeffrey, The Suppressed Quran Commentary of Muhammad Abu Zaid, Der Islam, 20 (1932): 306) and the other was the mosque in the town of Jirana, which Muhammed is said to have visited in 630. (Alfred Guillaume, Where Was Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa? Al-Andalus, (18) 1953: 323–36)

632 AD: Muhammad died.

638 AD: Caliph Umar I captured Jerusalem from the Persians.

• Seeing the magnificent Church of the Holy Sepulchre built by Constantine in 335 A.D. and well aware of how sacred the city was to both the Christians and the Jews, Umar declared that the city was sacred to the Muslims as well. Needing a rationale, he searched the Koran and zeroed in on Sura 17. The "Furthermost Point" (al-masjid al-Aqsa) of Sura 17, where Mohammed ascended to heaven, was, Umar decreed, none other than the Jews' holiest of holies, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

715 AD: The Umayyads built a new mosque on the Temple Mount; they named this Mosque al-masjid al-aqsa, the Al-Aqsa Mosque or "furthest mosque". AL Tibawi, a Palestinian historian, argues that this action "gave reality to the figurative name used in the Koran." (AL Tibawi, Jerusalem: Its Place in Islam and Arab History, Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1969, p. 9.)



I have no doubt that Muslims today regard Jerusalem as important, but until they acknowledge that it was sacred to the Jews long before their ancestors invaded it and declared it holy to them, and until they acknowledge our historical right to live in Israel with Jerusalem as our Capitol (as it has been for hundreds of years before the Arabs invaded it) - there is no hope for peace between Abrahams descendents.

The photos of the "farthest mosque" shown on this website are evidence enough to prove that the Muslims did not consider it as the most sacred place of worship until last century. In fact, the most holiest place for Muslims is still considered to be in Mecca, quite far from Jerusalem, if I might say so.

Strangely enough, the Christians have a much stronger physical claim on Jerusalem and many other holy sites in Israel - yet they do not proclaim it in the same manner that Arabs do - they do not call for the destruction of our country or the deaths of millions of Jews just for the purpose of being able to worship in their holy places.

The claim for Jerusalem by the Muslims following the Iranian president, is based purely on hatred of the Jews and nothing else. It does not attempt to solve our co-existence, nor does it acknowledge our right to live our lives. It is an attempt to obliterate a nation off the face of the earth, for one reason alone - more political power.

Killing all the Jews, conquering Jerusalem, making it the Capitol of Islamic nations will not bring peace to earth. It will not resolve all the problems the Muslim world is facing. It will not bring the Muslims together. As long as humans are so different from each other - even Muslims will continue to fight amongst themselves (e.g. Iraq...). Jerusalem is not the answer. The answer is within the people. The answer lies in talking, understanding, acknowledging - and dare I say, faith that we can live together in peace.


Shalom Salam
שלום سلام