History of Jerusalem

Jerusalem is “the Most Remote Mosque.”

It began in the time of the Sabians as the site of a temple to Venus.

The Sabians used oil as a sacrificial offering and poured it upon the rock that was there.

The temple (of Venus) was later on totally destroyed.

The Israelites conquered Jerusalem and used it as the qiblah for their prayers. This happened in the following way:

Moses led the Israelite out of Egypt, in order to conquer Jerusalem, as God had promised to Isaac and Jacob, the fathers of Israel, before him.

While in the desert, God commanded Moses to use a tabernacle 65 of acacia wood, whose measurements, description, effigies (hayakil), 66 and statues were indicated (to Moses) in a revelation.

The tabernacle was to contain an ark, a table with plates, and a candelabrum with candles.

Moses was to make an altar for sacrifices. All this is very fully described in the Torah.

Moses made the tabernacle and placed in it the ark of the covenant - that is, the ark in which were kept the tablets fashioned in replacement of the tablets that had been sent down with the ten commandments and had been broken - and he placed the altar near it.

God told Moses that Aaron should be in charge of the sacrifices.

The Israelites set up the tabernacle among their tents in the desert. They prayed to it, offered their sacrifices upon the altar in front of it, and went there in order to receive revelations.

When they conquered Syria, they deposited it in Gilgal in the Holy Land between Benjamin and Ephraim.

The tabernacle remained there 14 years, for seven years of war, and for seven years after the conquest, when the country was being divided.

When Joshua died, the Israelites transferred it to Shiloh, close to Gilgal, and surrounded it with walls.

It remained there for 300 years, until the Philistines took it away. The Philistines returned the tabernacle.

After the death of Eli the priest, the Israelites transferred the tabernacle to Nob. Later on, in the days of Saul, it was transferred to Gibeon 69 in the land of Benjamin.

When David became ruler, he transferred the tabernacle and the ark to Jerusalem. He made a special tent for it, and placed it upon the Rock.

The tabernacle remained the qiblah of the Israelites. David wanted to build a temple upon the Rock in its place, but he was not able to complete it. He charged his son Solomon to take care of (the building of the temple). Solomon built it in the fourth year of his reign, 500 years after the death of Moses.

He made its columns of bronze, and he placed the glass pavilion 70 in it. He covered the doors and the walls with gold. He also used gold in fashioning its effigies (hayakil), statues, vessels, chandeliers, and keys. He made the back( room) 71 in (the form of) a vault.

In it, the ark of the covenant was to be placed. He brought it from Zion, the place of his father David. The tribes and priests carried it, and it was deposited in the vault.

The tabernacle, the vessels, and the altar were put in the places prepared for them in the Mosque. Things remained that way as long as God wished. The temple was later destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, 800 years after its construction.

Nebuchadnezzar burned the Torah and the staff (of Moses), melted the effigies (hayakil), and scattered the stones. Later on, the Persian rulers permitted the Israelites to return.

Ezra, the Israelite prophet at that time, rebuilt the temple with the help of the Persian ruler, Artaxerxes, who owed his birth to the Israelites who were led into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar.72 He set limits upon the reconstruction of (the temple) by (the Israelites) which made it a smaller building than that of Solomon. The Israelites did not go beyond that plan.

The 74 vaulted halls underneath the temple in two superimposed stories, the columns of the upper story of which rest upon the vault of the lower story, are thought by many people to have been Solomon’s stables. This is not so.

The vaulted halls were built in order to avoid any contamination of the temple in Jerusalem.

According to Jewish law, something unclean that is deep down in the earth and separated from the surface by a layer of earth, so that a straight line would connect the unclean object in the earth with the object on the surface, could be suspected of making the object on the surface unclean.

A suspicion has the same implication as a fact in (Jewish legal) opinion. Therefore, (the Israelites) built these vaulted halls in this form, with the columns of the upper 75 hall resting upon the vaults of (the lower), so that there would be no straight line (between the object underground and the object upon the surface), along which contamination could spread, and thus any suspicion of the contamination of the temple was avoided.

This makes for greater ritual cleanliness and holiness for the temple.76

Then, the Greek, Persian, and Roman rulers successively had control over the children of Israel. During that period, a flourishing royal authority was enjoyed by the children of Israel and exercised by the Hasmoneans who were (Jewish) priests. The Hasmoneans, in turn, were succeeded by Herod, a relative of theirs by marriage, and by his children. Herod rebuilt (the temple in) Jerusalem very splendidly, after the plan of Solomon.

He completed it in six years. Then, Titus, one of the Roman rulers, appeared and defeated the (Jews) and took possession of their realm. He destroyed Jerusalem and the temple there.

The place where the temple had been standing he ordered to be turned into a field.

Then, Christianity was adopted by the Romans.

Constantine’s mother Helena became a Christian.78 She traveled to Jerusalem in search of the wood where Jesus had been crucified.

The priests informed her that his cross had been thrown to the ground and had been covered with excrements and filth. She discovered the wood and built “the Church of the Excrements” 80 over the place where those excrements had been.

Christians think that that Church is on the grave of the Messiah. Helena destroyed the parts of the House (the Temple) that she found standing. She ordered dung and excrements to be thrown upon the Rock, until it was entirely covered and its site obscured.

That she considered the proper reward for what (the Jews) had done to the grave of the Messiah. Opposite “the (Church of the) Excrements,” they later on built Bethlehem, the house where Jesus was born. 81

Things remained this way until the coming of Islam and the Muslim conquest.

‘Umar was present at the conquest of Jerusalem, and he asked to see the Rock. The place was shown to him. It was piled high with dung and earth.

He had it laid bare, and he built upon it a mosque in the Bedouin style. He gave it as muchveneration as God allowed and as befitted its excellence, as preordained and established in the divine Qur’an. 82

Al-Walid b. ‘Abd-al-Malik later on devoted himself to constructing the Mosque of (the Rock) in the style of the Muslim mosques, as grandly as God wanted him to do it.

He had done the same with the Mosque in Mecca and the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina, as well as the Mosque of Damascus. The Arabs used to call (the Mosque of Damascus) the Nave (balat) of al-Walid. 83 Al-Walid compelled the Byzantine Emperor to send workers and money for the building of these mosques, and the Eastern Roman artisans were to embellish them with mosaics. The Eastern Emperor complied, and the construction of the mosques was able to materialize according to plan.

During the 11th century and especially at the end of it, the caliphate’s power weakened.

Jerusalem had the ‘Ubaydid(-Fatimids), the Shi’ah caliphs of Cairo. Their power also crumbled.

The European Christians conquered Jerusalem, as well as the border cities of Syria. Upon the holy Rock they built a church which they venerated and in the construction of which they took great pride.

Eventually, Salah-ad-din b. Ayyub al-Kurdi became the independent ruler of Egypt and Syria. He wiped out the influence and heresy of the Ubaydid (Fatimids). He advanced toward Syria and waged the holy war against the European Christians there. He deprived them of possession of Jerusalem and the other border cities of Syria they were holding.

This took place around the year 580 [1184/85].

Salah-ad-din destroyed the Christian church, uncovered the Rock, and rebuilt the Mosque in about the same form in which it is still standing at this time.

One should not bother about the famous problem arising from the sound tradition that the Prophet, when he was asked about the first “house” to be erected, replied=

“First Mecca, and then Jerusalem.”

When he was asked how long the time interval between the 2 buildings had been, he replied: “Forty years.”

The span between the construction of Mecca and the construction of Jerusalem corresponds to the span between Abraham and Solomon, because it was Solomon who built the temple in Jerusalem.

That is considerably more than 1,000 years.

The word “erected” that is used in the tradition was not intended to refer to “construction,” but it was intended to refer to the first House to be specially designated for divine worship.

It is not an unlikely assumption that Jerusalem was designated for divine worship a long time, such as (the period mentioned), before Solomon (built his temple).

It has been reported that the Sabians built a temple to Venus upon the Rock. That was perhaps because (Jerusalem) was already a place of divine worship.

In the same way, pre-Islamic Arabs placed idols and statues in and around the Ka’bah. The Sabians who built the temple of Venus lived in the time of Abraham.

There was an interval of 40 years between the time when Mecca was made a place of divine worship and the time when the same occurred in Jerusalem, even if there was no building there (at that early date), as is well known. The first to build (a temple in) Jerusalem was Solomon. This should be understood, as it is the solution to the problem raised by the tradition.

Medina is a city that was originally) called Yathrib. It, was built by Yathrib b. Mahla’il (Mahalalel), an Amalekite, and named after him. The Jews took Medina away from the (Amalekites), together with the other parts of the Hijaz.

Then, (the Aws and the Khazraj), descendants of Qaylah 85 who belonged to the Ghassanids, settled as neighbors of (the children of Israel in Arabia) and took (Medina) and its castles away from the Jews.

Because of God’s preordained concern for Medina, the Prophet was commanded to emigrate there, and he did so in the company of Abu Bakr. The men around him followed him. He settled there and built his Mosque and his houses in the place God had prepared for that (purpose) and had predestined since eternity for that honor.

The descendants of Qaylah received him hospitably and helped him. Therefore, they were called “the Helpers” (al-Ansar). Islam spread from Medina and eventually gained the upper hand over all other (organizations). Muhammad defeated his own people. He conquered Mecca. The Helpers thought that he would now move away from them and return to his own country. 86

This thought weighed upon them. However, the Messenger of God addressed 87 them and informed them that he would not move. Thus, when he died, he was even buried in Medina.

In praise of Medina’s excellence, there exist sound traditions, as everybody knows. Scholars disagree as to whether Medina should be considered as more excellent than Mecca.

Malik expressed himself in favor of Medina, because he accepted the clear statement to that effect on the authority of Rafi’ b. Khudayj, 88 which said that the Prophet had said= “Medina is better than Mecca.”

This tradition was transmitted by ‘Abd-al-Wahhab 89 in the Ma’unah. There are other such traditions the explicit wording of which indicates the same thing.

Abu Hanifah and ash-Shafi’i were of a different opinion.

At any rate, (Medina) comes right after the Sacred Mosque (of Mecca). The hearts of people everywhere long for it.

We have no information about any mosque on earth other than these three, save for stories about the Mosque of Adam on the Indian island of Ceylon. But there exists no wellestablished information about that mosque upon which one may rely. The ancient nations had mosques which they venerated in what they thought to be a spirit of religious devotion.

There were the fire temples of the Persians and the temples of the Greeks and the houses of the Arabs in the Hijaz, which the Prophet ordered destroyed on his raids.

Al-Mas’udi mentioned some of them.

We have no occasion whatever to mention them. They are not sanctioned by a religious law. They have nothing to do with religion.

No attention is paid to them or to their history. In connection with them, the information contained in historical works is enough.

Whoever wants to have historical information (about them) should consult the historical works.