FINAL WARNING: The Shining Star
city, building an octagonal church on the site. After the death of
Muhammed (570-632), his follower Omar (Umar Abu Ibn el-Khattab, or
Umar I) became Caliph, taking over Jerusalem in 638, with the help of
his Islamic army. In 643-44 he built a wooden mosque on the Temple
site, which stood for 44 years. In 687, Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, the
10th Caliph, began work on the Qubbat as-Sakhra or the Dome of the
Rock (also known as the Mosque of Omar), which was completed in
691.The Mosque was built to rival the Church of the Holy Sepulcher
showing its religious claim on the city by symbolizing the ideology of
their new faith, and to be a protection for the rock believed to be the
threshing floor purchased by David. No Islamic tradition was
connected to the site. Even the Quran (Surah V, v. 21), the Islamic holy
scripture, states that the Jews have a historic claim on the land.
However, the event known as the ‘Night Journey of Muhammad’ (or
‘hijrah’), when he fled from Mecca to Medina, was connected to
Jerusalem, because it mentioned al-Aqsa, which is the name of the
Mosque south of the Dome of the Rock. LinguisticaIly, ‘al-aqsa,’ when
it is translated, means ‘far corner,’ and could very well refer to Mecca.
Therefore, the Temple Mount is said to be the rock where Muhammed
received his instructions from God, and ascended into Heaven. Some
historians believe that the story was concocted during the rule of
Umayyad prince, al-Walid I (705-715) to raise the funds necessary to
build the al-Aqsa Mosque into an edifice comparable to the Dome of
the Rock.From 1099-1187, the Crusaders occupied Jerusalem, and the Dome of
the Rock became a Christian church, while the al-Aqsa Mosque
became the headquarters of the Knights Templar. When Jerusalem
was overthrown by the Muslim leader Saladin (Salanad-Din), the
Temple Mount complex, containing both the Dome of the Rock and the
al-Aqsa Mosque, which is referred to as the Haram ash-Sharif, became
the third holiest site in the Islamic faith (after Mecca and Medina), even
though all prayers are directed toward Mecca.Today, the obstacle for rebuilding the Temple, is the Islamic holy site,
the Dome of the Rock. It is maintained that the Arabs have had a claim
on it for 5,000 years, and that there was never a Jewish temple on that
area. The Israeli Antiquities Authority, and most Israeli archaeologists