Hajj and the pilgrimage to the second temple
-
One question come to my mind, does the dome of the rock mosque prevent jews to pilgrimize to thier temple?
-
Peace
I wanted to post the rest of the above article in case if anyone has trouble accessing the site and also this part of the artcile gives all the references, which can be useful to anyone interested.
Normative Communitas and the Struggle for Religious Legitimacy
in Pilgrimages to the Second Temple by Dr. Jackie FeldmanWhile many of the purity restrictions applied primarily in the Temple context, some were extended to everyday life. The haverim, a Pharisee elite, adopted Temple customs in everyday life. They ate their daily meals in closed circles of other haverim, in conditions of purity similar to those obtaining among Temple priests eating consecrated foods and avoided contact with amei ha'aretz (MDemai 22-3; TDemai 22-3), "the simple people of the rural and urban masses. who were more cavalier or selective in their observance of the commandments". On the pilgrimage festivals, however, the Pharisees suspended the purity restrictions of the haverim "'Jerusalem built up, a city knit (hubra) together, (to which tribes would make pilgrimage)' - a city that makes all Israel haverim.the rabbis made the impurity of the am ha'aretz equivalent to purity" (BBes 11b; BNid 34a). The elevation of all amei ha'aretz to the status of haverim - members of the elite group, is what enables all pilgrims, haverim and amei ha'aretz alike to become haverim - friends. The suspension of these purity restrictions, however, applied only on pilgrimage festivals. The resulting festival spirit is conveyed through the Midrash "And the (nations of the world) find all of Israel in Jerusalem, all eating the same meal, all drinking the same drink, all praying to the same God. and they say, 'there can be nothing better than to attach oneself to this people'." (Sifrei Deut 354 (Horowitz ed., p. 416)).
- Pilgrimage and religious legitimation
Pilgrimage offered an opportunity for the Temple priesthood to display their status as religious mediators, but they usually remained distant figures, isolated by lineage, purity restrictions (cf. MSanh 21), separate entrances to the sanctuary and an aristocratic self-conception as a tribe set apart. As the author of a contemporary pseudopigraphal book writes, "they with hand and mind will touch impure things. yet they will say, 'Do not touch me, lest you pollute me in the position I occupy'." (As. Mos. 7, 9-10). Furthermore, the High Priestly families' amassed riches, their alliances with wealthy lay families, their exemption from both State and Temple taxes (MSheq 13-4), their abuses of power (TMen, 1321), their fraternal violence (Antiquities V 180-181; X 213), occasionally leading to murders within the Temple precincts (MYoma 22; TYom Hakippurim 112), and their often pro-Roman sympathies, all engendered resentment on the part of many people, especially those in Jerusalem who came in more frequent contact with them. This resentment burst forth during the Great Revolt in the year 70 C.E. (Wars II427; IV414; VII412ff.).
While the High Priests fortified their lofty position, the Pharisees employed the arena of pilgrimage to present their world-view and to gain the affection and respect of the people. They mingled among the masses on pilgrimage festivals, sharing their meals, teaching the Law and encouraging the people to participate more actively in Temple rites, moving the focus from the Holy of Holies to the more visible and accessible altar and courtyards. They went to the extent of juggling torches and performing acrobatics on the Feast of the Water-Drawing (TSukkah 42). Undoubtedly, the contacts made on pilgrimage would aid them as they went out to the provinces and the Diaspora to preach their message in synagogues. Furthermore, in addition to their participation in the Temple cult, the Pharisees promoted Torah study and observance of ethical and ritual laws in daily life as pillars of Judaism, alongside the sacrificial cult (MAbot 12). Towards the close of the Second Temple Period, they also began to practice certain secondary Temple rites in synagogues throughout the Jewish world lighting an eternal flame, blowing the ram's horn, holding processions in the synagogue with the etrog and lulav, reading the Torah in public, reading the daily Psalm, and more. These practices extended Temple sanctity to areas outside the holy city and, paved the way for the acceptance of the Pharisee's spiritual descendants, the Rabbis, as authoritative vehicles of holiness.
- Conclusions
The examples I have provided illustrate how ritual barriers erected by the Temple priesthood, which confirmed the priests' superior position as sole mediators of the divine, were swept away or rendered more flexible by the flow of festival pilgrims, who sought to appear as equals "before the Lord". The interaction of priestly and popular forces, along with the encouragement of a popularizing class of intellectual Pharisees, resulted in the dynamic process of normative communitas. But because of the status of the Second Temple as center of the world, communitas itself could be employed by non-Priestly groups as a tool in their struggle for Temple-based legitimacy.
NOTES
For a detailed historical account of pilgrimage to the Second Temple, see Shmuel Safrai , , , " ("ה. , ", ", , , ", ' 487 - 498. Return to text.
Jacob Neusner, The Idea of Purity in Ancient Judaism, Leiden, 1983, p. 29.
, " ", , , ", ' 154-165,
Mircea Eliade and Lawrence F. Sullivan, "Center of the World", Encyclopedia of Religion, New York, 1987, Vol. 3, p. 166. Cf. Mircea Eliade, "Symbolism of the Centre'", Images and Symbols, Kansas City, 1981, pp. 27-56. Return to text.
Raphael Patai (Man and Temple, London 1947) provides a detailed, if uncritical, survey of the sources attaching cosmic meaning to the Temple, its vessels and rites. See also Jackie Feldman, "Le second Temple comme institution ?conomique, sociale et politique", in Shmuel Trigano, ed., La Soci?t? Juive A Travers L'histoire, Tome II, Paris 1992, 156-158.
Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, New York 1959, 20-65. Much of Eliade's material is drawn from A. J. Wensinck, The Ideas of the Western Semites concerning the Navel of the Earth, Amsterdam, 1916.
Clifford Geertz, "Religion as a Cultural System", in The Interpretation of Cultures, New York 1973, 87-125.
Victor Turner, "Liminality and Communitas", The Ritual Process, Chicago 1969, 96. idem., "The Center out There The Pilgrim's Goal", History of Religions 12 (1973), 191-230. Victor Turner and Edith Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, Oxford 1978, 34-35. Return to text.
Michael J. Sallnow, "Communitas Reconsidered The Sociology of Andean Pilgrimage", Man, Vol. 16 (1981), 164-182.
"Introduction", in John Eade and Michael Sallnow, eds, Contesting the Sacred The Anthropology of Christian Pilgrimage, London and New York 1999 {1991}, 1-6.
Eric Cohen, "Pilgrimage Centers Concentric and Excentric", Annals of Tourism Research 19(1), (1992), 47.
Cohen, "Pilgrimage Centers", 33-37. Return to text.
For a discussion of the trustworthiness of rabbinic sources on the Temple, see Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, The History of Sukkot in the Second Temple and Rabbinic Periods, Atlanta 1995, 103-106, and bibliography ad loc.
For example, the proliferation of stone vessels in Jerusalem, in the late Second Tempe Period, as well as the Mikvaot found near the Temple Mount confirm details of Tannaitic halalkha. See Yitzchak Magen, "Jerusalem as a Center of the Stone Vessel Industry during the Second Temple Period", in Hillel Geva, ed., Ancient Jerusalem Revealed, Jerusalem 1994, 244-256; idem., "Ancient Israel's Stone Age Purity in Second Temple Times", Biblical Archaeological Review 24, 5, (1995), 46-52.
, " " " ", , , ", ' 225-256. , " - , ", ; , , ", ' 205-212.
Some scholars go so far as to suggest that encouragement of mass pilgrimage was an innovation of Herod's. The encouragement of pilgrimage was certainly in tune with Herod's larger financial schemes. See , " ", ., ., . , , , 1989, ' 174-181. . See also Martin Goodman, "The Pilgrimage Economy of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period", in Lee Levine, ed., Jerusalem Its Sanctity and Centrality in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, New York 1999, 71-72.
I ignore here the Temple of Onias at Leontopolos, which was, at best, a marginal local phenomenon, as well as the temple at Elephantine (Yev) in Upper Egypt, which served as a center of sacrificial worship for the local Jewish military colony during the 6th and 5th Centuries BCE. Return to text.
R. Mac Mullen, Paganism in the Roman Empire, New Haven, 1981, pp. 25-29. See also Goodman, Pilgrimage Economy, 70-75.
Contra Flaccum 45-46. On the symbolic importance of Jerusalem for Hellenistic Jews, see
, " ", 11 , 1979, ' 45-46. " , " ", , , 1957, ' 192-208. .. , " ", , , ", ' 172-178.
Pierre Deffontaines, "G?ographie des p?lerinages", Geographie et Religions, Paris 1948, 295-338. David Sopher, Geography of Religions, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1967; B.Z. Kedar, and R.J.Z. Werblowsky, Sacred Space Shrine, City, Land, New York, 1998. Moshe Weinfeld, "Jerusalem as a Political and Spiritual Capital", in Joan Goodrich Westenholz, ed., Capital Cities Urban Planning and Spiritual Dimensions, Jerusalem, 1998, 15-40. Return to text.
Safrai, Ha'aliyah laregel, 71-74. Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus, Philadelphia 1969 (1967), 90ff. See also
' , ? , , 2000, ' 35, 4, .
, " ", 5, 1985, ' 16-17.
, , , ", ' 80-92.
On catchment basins of pilgrimage, see Deffontaines, G?ographie; Mary Nolan and Sidney Nolan, Christian Pilgrimage in Modern Western Europe, Chapel Hill 1989. Return to text.
See the exhaustive list of references in Safrai, ha'aliya laregel, 42-71.
This phenomenon has been well documented in the history of Islamic pilgrimages, especially from West Africa See William R. Roff, "Pilgrimage and the History of Religions Theoretical Approaches to the Hajj", in Richard C. Martin, ed., Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies, Tucson 1985, 78-86; 220-222. C. Bawa Yamba, Permanent Pilgrims The Role of Pilgrimage in the Lives of West African Muslims in Sudan, Washington 1995.
Jonathan Z. Smith (To Take Place Towards Theory in Ritual, Chicago 1987, 63-73) has argued that the hierarchy of successively more stringent purity restrictions governing access to the inner precincts of the Temple should be understood, not as the religious man's perception of the absolute nature of sacred space (qua Eliade), but rather as the projection of categories of social status differentiations on undifferentiated space by particular groups of men. Return to text.
See the discussion of the exterritoriality of Jerusalem in Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel. II Teilband, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1969, 1219-1235, and Smith, To Take Place, 47-73.
Marcel Mauss, The Gift Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies, London, 1954. Bronislaw Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific, New York 1981 {1922}, 95-96. Peter Blau, "Social Exchange" in Exchange and Power in Social Life, New York 1964, 88-114.
Blau, "Social Exchange",.112-113. Return to text.
Blau, Social Exchange, 98.
Blau, Social Exchange, 112.
Victor Turner, From Ritual to Theatre, New York 1982, 49.
William Scott Green, quoted in Jacob Neusner, A History of The Mishnaic Law of Purities, Part Twenty-One, Leiden, 1977, 1.
Eliade, Sacred and Profane, 20-65.
On the warning inscription , see Elias Bickermann, "The Warning Inscription on Herod's Temple", Jewish Quarterly Review 37 (1946-7), pp. 387-405. Peretz Segal, "The Penalty of the Warning Inscription from the Temple of Jerusalem", Israel Exploration Journal 39 (1989), 79-84. Return to text.
For an account of the conflict between priests holding a highly abstract view of God, who was to be served in silence (P), and a second, more popularizing group (H), that introduced song and popular practices, see , , , , ", ' 120-155, 159-184.
Although, according to the halakha, non-priests were allowed to slaughter sacrificial animals, in practice, the task was performed by priests, except for the Passover lamb (cf. Safrai, ha'aliya laregel, 181).
The comparison with Eleusis is taken from Bruria Biton-Ashkelony,
, , -, -, ".
J. L. Rubinstein, The History of Sukkot in the Second Temple and Rabbinic Periods, Atlanta 1995, pp. 145-148. Return to text.
The sections on aspects of the Sukkot festival in the Temple are based on my Master's thesis, Jackie Feldman, The Pull of the Center and the Experience of Communitas in Second Temple Pilgrimage, unpublished M.A. thesis, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 1988. Several of the themes in my thesis were expanded by Israel Knohl, , " ", ' ("א, ' 139- 146.
On the cosmic significance of the festival, see Raphael Patai, Man and Temple, 24-53. On simhat beit hasho'eva in general, see Rubinstein, Sukkot, 122-131; 163-179. Also Jeffrey L. Rubinstein, "The Sukkot Wine-Libation", in Robert Chazan, William W. Hallo and Lawrence Schiffman eds., Ki Baruch Hu Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Baruch A. Levine, Winona Lake, Illinois 1999, 575-591.
These conflicts may date back to the struggle of different schools of priests, the Priestly Cult (P) and the Holiness School (H), in the late First Temple Period. See Israel Knohl, Pulmus Hakittot, 145-146. See also Jeffrey L. Rubinstein, "The Sadducees and the Water Libation", Jewish Quarterly Review 64(4), 1994, 417-444, who provides two alternative explanations of the Pharisee-Sadducee conflict over these Sukkot Temple customs. Return to text.
On the question of the display of the table to pilgrims and the depiction of the table on Bar Kochba coins, see ", " ' ", " - -", ("ז, ' 22-25, " ("ח, ' 67-57.
In an early apocryphal Gospel, Papyrus Oxyrynychus V 840, the High Priest accuses Jesus and his disciples of visiting the Temple in order to gaze at the sacred vessels, even though they were not properly purified. See the sources on the link of the Biblical command of pilgrimage and revelation in Knohl, Mikdash, pp. 139-140, notes 6-9. Knohl suggests that some sources understood that "the vision of the sacred vessels was a kind of vision of God".
Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger, New York, 1989 (1966), 113. See also her chapters on pollution in idem., pp. 29-40; 94-114; "Pollution", in idem., Implicit Meanings Essays in Anthropology, London 1975, 47-59. Return to text.
James Preston, "Purification", Encyclopedia of Religion, New York 1987, Vol. 12, 93; Turner, Ritual Process.
Safrai, ha'aliya laregel, 141.
Benjamin Uffenheimer, Am Ha'aretz, Leiden 1977. The quotes here are translated from the Hebrew version.
See Daniel Schwartz, Priesthood, Temple, Sacrifices Opposition and Spiritualization in the Late Second Temple Period, unpublished dissertation, Jerusalem 1981, 9-43. Return to text.
The Tractate Abot writes the Priesthood out of the history of revelation. Priests are completely eliminated from the line of transmission of the Law from Sinai. See " , " ", 18 1947), ' 1-29.
, " ", , , ", ("ח, ', ' 133-153.
? 2003 Dr. Jackie Feldman
-
Peace Lost Philosopher
I did not understand your question did you mean whether muslims are preventing the Jews from the Temple mount.
I post the following article hoping it will answer your question but I am unable to verify the authenticity of the information. Please find the link and verify the references given.
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.
Jewish religious law concerning entry to the site
1978 sign at entrance to Temple Mount
Most Orthodox rabbis, both those belonging to the Religious Zionist and the Haredi Orthodox streams of, have issued prohibitions against entering the Temple Mount 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 karet, death by heavenly decree . The boundaries of the areas which are completely forbidden, while having large portions in common, are delineated differently by various rabbinic authorities. Some rabbis, primarily belonging to right-wing Religious Zionism, disagree with the majority position and maintain that it is permitted and even commendable to visit those parts of the Temple Mount which according to most rabbinic authorities do not lead to any controversy.
Those who forbid Jews from entering the Temple Mount
In August 1967, the Chief Rabbis of Israel, Isser Yehuda Unterman and Yitzhak Nissim, in concert with other leading rabbis, asserted that "For generations we have warned against and refrained from entering any part of the Temple Mount."
When in January 2005 a large group of leading rabbis from the national-religious (Zionist) stream of Orthodox Judaism signed a declaration confirming that the 1967 decision of Chief Rabbis Unterman and Nissim was still valid, declaring that it is absolutely forbidden for Jews to ascend on the Temple Mount until Moshiach, the Jewish Messiah comes, the Temple Institute responded furiously. Rabbis who signed on to the declaration were? Rabbi Yona Metzger, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel
? Rabbi Shlomo Amar, Sefardi Chief Rabbi of Israel
? Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of Sefardi Haredi Judaism and of the Shas party, and former Sefardi Chief Rabbi of Israel
? Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron, former Sefardi Chief Rabbi of Israel
? Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, rabbi of the Western Wall
? Rabbi Avraham Shapiro, former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel
? Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, rosh yeshiva of the Ateret Cohanim yeshiva
? Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel and current Chief Rabbi of Tel AvivAll Ashkenazi Haredi rabbis forbid entering the Temple Mount. Some of them are
? Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky, the Steipler
? Rabbi Yosef Sholom Eliashiv
? Rabbi Avraham Yeshayeh Karelitz, the Chazon Ish
? Rabbi Velvel Soloveitchik, the Brisker Rov
? Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, the Satmar RovThose who permit Jews to enter the Temple Mount
Some rabbis who permitted Jews to enter the Temple Mount include
? Rabbi Shlomo Goren, former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel
? Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, former Sefardi Chief Rabbi of Israel
? Rabbi Chaim David Halevi, former Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv and Jaffo
? Rabbi Dov Lior, Rabbi of Kiryat Arba
? Rabbi Yosef Elboim
? Rabbi Yisrael Ariel
? Rabbi Shear Yishuv HaCohen, Chief Rabbi of Haifa
? Rabbi Yuval Sherlo, rosh yeshiva of the hesder yeshiva of Petach TikvahThey have "strongly encouraged" Jews to visit the permitted sections of the Temple Mount.
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Mount
There is a lot of information available on this subject on the net at wikipedia , answer.com and encyclopedia britanica possibly because it is a very important and holy site for Jews Christians and Muslims and for over 3000 years connected to these 3 religions and also it has been the controversial hot spot for the lat 60 years .
-
Peace Lost Philosopher
The following is from the same wikipedia link giving more information on entry and prayer at the mount.
Management of the site
A Muslim Waqf has managed the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif continuously since the Muslim reconquest of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Since taking control of the area in the Six-Day War, Israel has permitted the Waqf to retain internal administration of the site. Under this arrangement Jews and Christians are permitted to visit the site. As a security measure to prevent Intifada-related riots from destroying the site, however, the Israeli government has agreed to enforce 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
On 7 June 1967, immediately after the fighting had died down in Jerusalem, the then Prime Minister, Levi Eshkol, convened the spiritual leaders of all the communities in Jerusalem and assured them that "no harm whatsoever shall come to the places sacred to all religions", and that contacts should be maintained in order to make certain that spiritual activities of the religious leaders in the Old City may continue. He also mentioned that upon his request the Minister of Religious Affairs had issued instructions according to which arrangements in connection with the Western Wall, Muslim Holy Places and Christian Holy Places should be determined by the Chief Rabbis of Israel, a council of Muslim clerics and a council of Christian clergy respectively. Together with the extension of Israeli jurisdiction and administration over east Jerusalem, the Knesset passed the Preservation of the Holy Places Law, 1967, ensuring protection of the Holy Places against desecration, as well as freedom of access thereto.?Jerusalem?The Legal and Political Background Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Israel
According to a posthumously-published interview with Haaretz, General Uzi Narkiss reported that on June 7, 1967, a few hours after East Jerusalem fell into Israeli hands, Rabbi Shlomo Goren had told him "Now is the time to put 100 kilograms of explosives into the Mosque of Omar so that we may rid ourselves of it once and for all." His request was denied; according to Goren's aide Menahem Hacohen, he had not suggested blowing up the mosque, but had merely stated that "if, during the course of the war a bomb had fallen on the mosque and it would have - you know - disappeared - that would have been a good thing." Later that year, in a speech to a military convention, he added "Certainly we should have blown it up. It is a tragedy for generations that we did not do so. ... I myself would have gone up there and wiped it off the ground completely so that there was no trace that there was ever a Mosque of Omar there." Shlomo Goren also entered the Dome of the Rock with a Torah book and the shofar.
Recent events
Plans for a synagogue
During the Sukkot festival in 2006 Uri Ariel, a member of the knesset from the National Union party ascended to the mount, and said that he's preparing a plan where a synagogue will be built on the mount. His suggested synagogue won't be built instead of the mosques but in a separate area in accordance with rulings of the prominent Rabbis. He said he believed that this will be correcting a historical injustice and that it's an opportunity for the Muslim world to prove that it's tolerant to all faiths.
Plans for a new minaret
October 14, 2006, it was reported in The Times that there are plans to build a new minaret, the first of its kind for 600 years, on the Temple Mount. King Abdullah II of Jordan announced a competition to design a fifth minaret for the walls of the Temple Mount complex, imprinting his Hashemite dynasty on the site. The new addition would, the King said, ?reflect the Islamic significance and sanctity of the mosque?. The scheme is likely to cost ?200,000. The plans are for a seven-sided tower ? after the seven-pointed Hashemite star ? and at 42 metres (130ft), it would be 3.5 metres (11ft) taller than the next-largest minaret. The minaret will be constructed on the eastern wall of the Temple Mount near the Golden Gate.
Although Israel has not objected and plans are on track for construction to begin early 2007 , a leading Israeli archeologist lambasted the plan. "I am against any change in the status quo on the Temple Mount", said Bar-Ilan University's Dr. Gabi Barkai, a member of the Committee for the Prevention of Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount. "If the status quo is being changed, then it should not just be the addition of Muslim structures at the site?.
The existing four minarets include three near the Western Wall and one near the northern wall. The first minaret was constructed on the southwest corner of the Temple Mount in 1278. The second was built in 1297 by order of a Mameluke king, the third by a governor of Jerusalem in 1329, and the last in 1367.
Claims of exclusivity
Jewish claims
Jews claim that the Temple Mount is one of the sites that was legally purchased by their ancestors and therefore remains the legitimate property of the Jewish people only. They cite the midrash (Genesis Rabba 797) which states that ?There are three places regarding which the nations of the world cannot taunt Israel and say ?you have stolen them.? They are The Cave of the Patriarchs, the Temple Mount (I Chronicles 2125) and the burial site of Joseph." .
Jews point to the edict of Cyrus the Great, (ca. 576 or 590 BCE ? July 529 BCE), ruler of the Persian Empire, who gave permission and encouraged the exiled Jews of the time to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. A few years later when the authorities in Jerusalem asked the Jews what right they had to build a Temple, they referred to the decree of Cyrus. Darius, who was then reigning, organised a search for this alleged decree. When it was found in the archives at Ecbatana ('Achmetha.' Ezra 62), Darius reaffirmed the decree and the work proceeded. This edict, fully reproduced in the Book of Ezra, confirms non-Jewish recognition of the Jewish rights to the site.
In another non-Jewish acknowledgment of the Jewish rights to the site, a letter written by Julian, the Roman Emperor between 361-363, tells of how he told the Jews that he would rebuild the sacred city of Jerusalem for them, (closed to the Jews since Hadrian in 135), ?...which for so many years you have longed to see inhabited, ... and together with you, glorify the Most High God therein?. A personal friend of his, Ammianus Marcellinus, wrote about the effort to rebuild the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, as did Sozomen (c400-c450) in his Historia Ecclesiastica.
Most Israelis and Jews acquiesce to the continued Arab presence on the Temple Mount. However, traditional Judaism believes that the Temple Mount area will eventually come under Jewish control, and a Temple will be rebuilt. Some Israelis and Jews hold secular or liberal views and regard the sacrificial cult as an earlier primitivism. They see no need for a future Temple, although concur that the site holds immense cultural significance in Judaism. Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak did not give up Israeli sovereignty of the Temple Mount and its retaining walls during negotiations at the Camp David 2000 Summit. Religiously Orthodox Jews eagerly await the building of the third and final Temple with most religious authorities viewing this event as occurring by Divine Providence at the hand of a future Jewish Messiah.
A minority view, following the influential view of Maimonides, holds that when possible, Jews should attempt to rebuild the Temple on their own as a necessary step in bringing about the Messianic age.Another view is to establish not the Temple but a synagogue on the Mount. During the Camp David 2000 Summit, the then Prime Minister Ehud Barak raised the possibility of building a synagogue on the mount while more recently MK Uri Ariel has called for the construction of a synagogue on the mount.
A very small minority, notably the Temple Mount and Eretz Yisrael Faithful Movement and The Temple Institute, advocate as a political platform the immediate removal of the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa mosques, which they deem signs of "Islamic conquest and domination", suggesting that they be "rebuilt at Mecca" and claiming "God ... expects Israel to re-liberate the Temple Mount from the pagan Arab worshippers."
While the Temple Mount and Eretz Yisrael Faithful Movement has had very little success in persuading the Israeli government to forcibly remove the area's mosques, it has had greater success in its efforts to lift restrictions on Jewish worship at the Temple mount. The group has had growing (although still limited) support in Israel in its political campaign in support of permitting Jews to worship at Judaism's holiest site. Currently, Jews are permitted to enter the Temple Mount under tight police observation, but are prohibited from bringing ritual objects or praying there.
Muslim claims
Muslim Caliphs never made the western wall inaccessible to Jews, while Muslims also view it has a holy place.
Sheikh Raad Salah - head of the Islamic Movement in Israel has stated "We remind, for the 1,000th time, that the entire Al-Aqsa mosque, including all of its area and alleys above the ground and under it, is exclusive and absolute Moslem property, and no one else has any rights to even one grain of earth in it."
In a Makor Rishon interview, published on May 22, 1998, the Imam of al-Aqsa Mosque and the PA?s Jerusalem Mufti Akrem Tzabari announced that ?Jews have no right to the Temple Mount.?
"The archaeology of Jerusalem is diverse - excavations in the Old City and the areas surrounding it revealed Umayyad Islamic palaces, Roman ruins, Armenian ruins and others. Outside of what is mentioned written in the Old and New Testaments, there is no tangible evidence of any Jewish traces remains in the old city of Jerusalem and its immediate vicinity."?Palestinian Authority Information Ministry Press Release, December 10, 1997
During the Camp David 2000 Summit, Dennis Ross, the US envoy, reported that Yasser Arafat "never offered any substantive ideas, not once" at the talks. However, "He did offer one new idea, which was that the Temple didn't exist in Jerusalem, that it was in Nablus."
"The claims being made by the rulers of Israel and its rabbis about the alleged Temple are pure fabrications without any base or foundation."?Statement by the Higher Islamic Authority of Palestine Al-Quds (PA), December 28, 2001 (Translation by BBC Worldwide Monitoring)
Acknowledgments of the basis for its holiness to other religions
Jewish
As Jews do not consider the Qur'an sacred, their tradition ideologically refutes Muhammed's status as a prophet and his journey to Jerusalem. Some Jews (and others) hold that the Qur'an's discussion of the night trip never involved Jerusalem or the Temple Mount (as the place of the event is not specified and neither is mentioned by name anywhere in the Qur'an), but rather that this was a later Muslim reinterpretation of the verse, made for political reasons. See the discussion of this topic at Isra and Mi'raj.
However, the Government of Israel and most Jews recognize that Muslims regard the site as holy based upon their beliefs, and respect the rights of Muslims to hold such beliefs and to pray there in their fashion. The State of Israel allows Muslims access to the site since capturing it in the Six-Day War, and they are the only ones who are permitted to pray on the site ; however, Palestinians under the age of 45 have been barred from entry during past periods of conflict. , Palestinians were restricted due to Israeli-claims of architectural integrity , and, further, Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are often currently unable to reach the site due to restrictions on their movements . Recent controversy has developed when Israeli authorities allowed non-Muslims to enter the mosque compound, against the wishes of the Waqf who administers the site .
Muslim
Many Muslims acknowledge that the Temple Mount is holy to the Jews, the main reason being that the Temple Mount was the site of the Temple of Solomon. In A Brief Guide to al-Haram al-Sharif, a booklet published in 1930 by the "Supreme Moslem Council", a body established by the British government to administer waqfs and headed by Hajj Amin al-Husayni during the British Mandate period, states (page 3)
"The site is one of the oldest in the world. Its sanctity dates from the earliest (perhaps from pre-historic) times. Its identity with the site of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute. This, too, is the spot, according to universal belief, on which David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings."
This has been the orthodox position in Islam. More recent examples include a fatwa issued by the Saudi Sheikh M. S. al-Munajjid, quoted on IslamOnline, 18 March 2001.Other examples of Islamic scholars giving similar acknowledgements include
Imam Al-Qurtubi, the Islamic counterpart of the Jewish commentator Rashi, quotes the earlier commentator Imam Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari who related the Prophet Muhammad's response to a follower's query about the ruins of the fabled Jewish Temple. Qurtubi sets out in writing Tabari's words about the destruction of the Temple, which tally in every detail with biblical accounts of the Temple's destruction by the Babylonians, reconstruction, and final destruction by the Romans.
Yusuf Ali
The Farthest Mosque must refer to the site of the Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem on the hill of Moriah, at or near which stands the Dome of the Rock? it was a sacred place to both Jews and Christians? The chief dates in connection with the Temple in Jerusalem are It was finished by Solomon about 1004 BCE; destroyed by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar about 586 BCE; rebuilt under Ezra and Nehemiah about 515 BCE; turned into a heathen idol temple by one of Alexander the Great's successors, Antiochus Epiphanes, 167 BCE; restored by Herod, 17 BCE to 29; and completely razed to the ground by the Emperor Titus in 70. These ups and downs are among the greater signs in religious history. Commentary number 2168
Shaykh Prof. Abdul Hadi Palazzi goes as far to suggest that the Quran expressly recognizes that Jerusalem plays for Jews the same role that Mecca does for Muslims, and quotes the Quran...They would not follow thy direction of prayer (qibla), nor art thou to follow their direction of prayer; nor indeed will they follow each other's direction of prayer... (Koran 2145)
All Quranic commentators explain that "thy qibla" (direction of prayer for Muslims) is clearly the Kaba of Mecca, while "their qibla" (direction of prayer for Jews) refers to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
In relation to this, M. Shaykh Zadeh Hashiyaah states in Qadn Baydawn's commentary "Verily, in their prayers Jews orientate themselves toward the Rock (sakhrah), while Christians orientate themselves eastwards..."
Starting in the 1990s, however, some people, including Sheikh Ekrima Sa'id Sabri, chairperson of the Palestinian Higher Islamic Commission and Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who was appointed by the PA have denied that the site is connected with Solomon, or that it had any history involving the Jews
-
Peace,
Honestly, the way I see it is that the Children of Israel and the later Jews made a mistake. They made it so their religion was based on one location in one and one temple. The Samaritans created another temple and went to that one obviously because of their disgust for the rest of the Children of Israel's attitudes. However, they too tried to give their temple all of the shine. They were proven wrong in this when God took many of them to Babylon where their religion had to undergo change and not be temple-centered. The temple was even destroyed later on. This was a sign from God. their religion was not supposed to be centered on one temple. Whatever temple that was raised to God was the temple they were supposed to go too. However, in what we see in the Bible is more representative of the temples or mosques that we are supposed to construct. Being regional mosques, not Mosques on every corner. Nor do we have to go their everyday only during the times of pilgrimage is is obligatory for us to go, of we can go.
Godbless,
AnwarGod forbid some natural disaster or war destroys mecca for good. The way the Muslims are acting something like this is bound to happen, which will change the path of Muslims forever.
-
Salam
There are records that Mu'awyah (of the Ummayads) the self-proclaimed Caliph in Damascus, Syria after (he deposed "peacefully" Ali, gave the injunction that using the Temple in Jerusalem was better than the ones in Makkah or Medinah, this was due to his dislike of the Hashimite tribe (the Prophet's tribe), and so for a good while, the pilgrimage from Syria and Iraq was done to Jerusalem.
So it might be that Makkah was after all a genuine temple for the Hajj, despite what I was led to believe in Ayman's articles, and that indeed the temple in Jerusalem is a second temple...
TBC -
Peace brother
We can not run in to conclusions that fast. The information I posted above about the Second Temple is Jewish History written many years after the incident. I do not think that there is real evidence The Second Temple existed in that location as described just as there is no evidence that Mecca and Kaaba, the cubic structure, existed in pre-quranic times or that Abraham built it. Further there is no quranic support for this. Also there was no Temple in Jeruslaem during the time of Muawiya, Dome of the Rock being built much later by Malik Ibn Marwan and Masjidul Aqsa years after. But as suggested during the time of Muawiya or even later Muslims could have visited Jerusalem as a pilgrimage.
-
Peace warner
The problem we have is not being allowed to make archaeological investigations around and within holy sites in what is now known as "Saudi Arabia".
I am sure we might be able to settle the debate where the Hajj is to be performed using scientific evidence, unless all evidence was destroyed, but even then, however careful, something will usually be left behind, especially if the Creator wills it so (cf. detective stories ) -
Peace Bros
I would like to add this (my view)
I do not think there is a second temple.
From the logic of the revelations, and the people they address, it seems that the best place for the place for Pilgrimage is and has been within Jerusalem.
It seems the various communities who took over the reins of the Islamic Empire (Caliphates or whatever), changed the Capital where they were strongest (Medinah, Kufa, Damascus, Baghdad, etc) , and probably the Restricted Temple was moved from Jerusalem to Makkah because of some political and ethnical reasons (the Ummayads and Abbassids were Arabs).
Then they had to justify it by inventing some hadiths to make up the story, inclusive of the birth place of Muhammad etc. -
peace be with you guys as well,
Thank you for sharing,
May God Almighty make all things clear and understandable to us.