apikojres
29.08.03, 10:34
A commentator in the official Egyptian government weekly, of all places,
writes this week that the entire Moslem claim on Jerusalem and El-Aksa is
based on a mistaken reading of one chapter of the Quran.
Ahmed Mahmad Oufa wrote that the verse that mentions a night journey by
Muhammed to a mosque has nothing to do with Jerusalem, as is generally
claimed, but with a mosque near the holy Moslem city of Medina.
Prof. Moshe Sharon, Middle Eastern expert in the Hebrew University, commented
on Arutz-7 today: "This is not a new claim. We must remember that Jerusalem
is not mentioned at all in the Quran [though it is mentioned hundreds of time
in the Bible - ed. note].
The verse in question is in Sura [chapter] 17, which states that Muhammad was
brought at night from one mosque to a "more distant" - aktsa, in Arabic -
mosque. The first Moslem commentators did not explain this as referring to
Jerusalem at all, of course, but rather as a miraculous night journey or
night vision or some such.
In the beginning of the 8th century, however, they began associating this
with Jerusalem, because they had a need to start giving sanctity to
Jerusalem, and so they started connecting this verse with Jerusalem...
Originally, however, the Moslems recognized the area of the Dome of the Rock
as holy because of the Jewish Temple of King Solomon."
It should be noted that the Al Aksa mosque was built on the Temple Mount 621
years after Mohammed's death. Prof. Shamir expressed great surprise at the
fact that such an article would be published in Arabic and in an Arabic-
speaking country.
