Home > Olives & Thorns > Archives > 2008 > November > 20 > Entry
One place, two histories
While there was no conclusive archaeological evidence of the second temple, our Israeli guide Amir Cheshin told us, “We know it was there.”
There is the western retaining wall — Judaism’s holiest site — and “those boulders over there.” Several dozen large stone blocks excavated since 1967 are believed to have been part of the temple.
Scientific proof — so far mostly lacking — that the two Jewish temples of the Torah actually existed, is sought by many Israelis as further validation of the creation of the modern state of Israel. Even so, faith trumps science on this holy patch of land.
Our Palestinian guide told a different version of history. There were no temples on this spot, Mohammad Abu Aktash, told us. “Nothing they have in this area for him,” he said, referring to Jews.
In this bitterly contested city, it is arguably the most peaceful spot — called the Noble Sanctuary by Muslims and Temple Mount by Jews — ironic, as it is the primary object of contention.
Closed to non-Muslims since the second Palestinian uprising erupted here in 2000, the al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock were opened briefly yesterday for a tour by foreign journalists.
The splendor of the structures and their importance in Islam were in many ways secondary to politics.
“We wait to bring peace and free Jerusalem,” Abu Aktash told us several times, in reference to what many Palestinians consider an illegal occupation of the Old City of Jerusalem, some of all of historic Palestine. Abu Aktash welcomed us to, “the land of the prophet,” meaning the Muslim prophet, Mohammad.
Mentioning the white marble pillars donated by Benito Mussolini was a way of pointing out the pockmarks on the pillars from skirmishes with Israelis. Inside the third holiest site in Islam, a glass case displayed tear gas canisters fired by Israeli troops there.
There was symmetry to the moment. Israelis keep hundreds of homemade Palestinian rocket casings on display at the police station in Sderot, which has been pummeled by Gaza militants over recent years. The collection is largely for the benefit of visiting journalists and diplomats and often serves as a backdrop for televised statements by dignitaries.
Comments
By Brad Brzezinski
November 23, 2008 8:11 AM | Link to this
A police station vs. a house of prayer: symmetry or irony?
For your information, rockets are designed to kill. Tear gas is used as a non-lethal means to control rioters.
By Al
November 23, 2008 11:39 AM | Link to this
So Mr. W. Gee let me understand this correctly - you think that gas canisters are equal to rockets? Palestinian terrorists fired thousands of rockets indiscriminately targeting innocent civilians in Israel and Israeli police fired non-lethal gas canisters to disperse demonstrations and somehow you decided that these two have some kind of “symmetry”?!
By Paul Malin
November 23, 2008 6:37 PM | Link to this
This is sorry stuff all around. No one is in any doubt that the Western wall (which is not Judaism’s most holy site; the Temple Mount itself is) was built by Herod the Great, about 650 years before Islam’s founding. If the massive construction of the Temple Mount was not for the Temple, what was it for? If the Temple existed somewhere else, where and on what evidence? If it didn’t exist at all, what should we make of all the Old Testament descriptions, of Jewish laments for its destruction, of Christian stories of Jesus’s presentation at the Temple, and of his chasing the money-lenders out of it?
Until contemporary Muslims had a political reason to deny Jewish attachment to the site, they were quite sure it was the location of the Temple too. The guide published by the Muslim waqf in charge of the Noble Sanctuary in the 1920’s and 30’s says “Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute. This, too, is the spot … on which ‘David built there an altar unto the Lord….’”
More to the point, archaeological evidence is largely irrelevant. The 15 million Jews alive today and all those who came before them for the past 2,000 years believe and believed the Temple Mount to be holy. Therefore it is holy to them. Likewise, all Muslims believe the site is holy to them and therefore it is. Does Mr. Gee want to raise the question of scientific evidence for al-buraq, the winged horse that supposedly carried Mohammed from Mecca to Jerusalem, and from there to heaven, and back — and all in one night? It is this unlikely tale that makes the place holy to Muslims. The Temple is more likely to have existed than al-buraq: In the absence of proof, can we Jews have the Mount back?
In reality, it is more probable that the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque were built over the site of the Temple as a statement of Muslim religio-political supremacy over Christianity and Judaism, just as the Hagia Sophia, the great church of the Byzantine Empire, was converted to a mosque by the Ottoman Turks when they captured Constantinople. Religio-political supremacism is what’s behind Arab claims of sole rights to the Mount today. While Israeli governments have claimed sovereignty, they have proved very willing to recognize Muslim attachment to it and to share its use. Muslims are giving advanced notice that sharing it is not in their plans.
By Clay Chip Smith
November 26, 2008 10:47 AM | Link to this
In 2006, As a American Muslim, I visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque for about 13 days to do my 5 daily prayers. This was indeed a blessing to visit this holy site.
Islam is for everyone. Anyone may enter Islam and benefit from this holy site. Please consider entering Islam for the good pleasure of God.
To enter the plaza, I had to pass through 2 sets of monitors.
Since I look western, the Israeli military would ask me for my passport. When they see my name is also western, they would ask if I was Muslim — I would answer “yes”. This was not good enough, and they asked me to recite some Quran for them. For which I would recite Al-Fatiha chapter.
Next, passing the Palestinian monitors was simpler. I would say “As-Salaam Alaikom (Peace be upon you)” and they would return the greeting and heading to the Mosque I walked.
By gib filps
November 28, 2008 12:25 PM | Link to this
By Al
November 23, 2008 11:39 AM | Link to this
So Mr. W. Gee let me understand this correctly - you think that gas canisters are equal to rockets? Palestinian terrorists fired thousands of rockets indiscriminately targeting innocent civilians in Israel and Israeli police fired non-lethal gas canisters to disperse demonstrations and somehow you decided that these two have some kind of “symmetry”?!………… and israeli army frces fire tanks and automatic weapons at women and children who throw rocks. Seriously, get the hell out of palestine, it aint yours.