© Richard Randall

Caribbean

Sundries

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Jewish claims of exclusivity

• Few Israelis object to the continued Arab presence on the Temple Mount.

• One extremist fringe group, the Temple Mount and Eretz Yisrael Faithful Movement advocates the removal of the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa mosque, 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." This group has very little support in Israel.

• In 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.

Acknowledgements of the bases 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 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), 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 [26]; however, Palestinians under the age of 45 have been barred from entry during past periods of conflict. [27], Palestinians were restricted due to Israeli-claims of architectural integrity [28], 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 [29]. 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

The main reason that the Temple Mount is holy in Judaism is that it was the site of the Temple. This fact provides a reason for its holiness in Islam; it is still considered to be the orthodox Islamic position. 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:

"The site is one of the oldest in the world. Its sanctity dates from the earliest 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." A footnote refers the reader to 2 Samuel 26:25. [citation needed]

More recent examples include a fatwa issued by the Saudi Sheikh M. S. al-Munajjid, quoted on IslamOnline, 18 March 2001, stating that:

Al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) was the first of the two qiblahs (prayer direction), and is one of the three mosques to which people may travel for the purpose of worship. And it was said that it was built by Sulayman (Solomon, peace be upon him), as stated in Sunan an-Nasa’i and classed as authentic by al-Albani. [citation needed]

Since the beginning of Islam, this has been the orthodox position. Starting in the 1990s, however, some people, including the PA-appointed Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, chairperson of the Palestinian Higher Islamic Commission and Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, have denied that the site is connected with Solomon, and that it had any history involving the Jews.

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