Lumen Olivarum: The Al-Aqsa Mosque

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

The Al-Aqsa Mosque

The Al-Aqsa Mosque (الْمَسْجِدِ الْأَقْصَى) is first mentioned in the Quran (Surah 17:1). However, the present building on the south side of Temple Mount was built in the 7^th and 8^th centuries by Umayyad Caliphs Abd Al-Malik, and his son Al-Walid. It may well be anachronistic to call this southernmost building on the Temple Mount the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The 15^th century Muslim scholar Mujir Al-Din Al-Hanbali argued that Al-Aqsa originally encompassed what we know as the entire mount. He states,

Verily, Al-Aqsa is a name for the whole mosque which is surrounded by the wall, the length and width of which are mentioned here, for the building that exists in the southern part of the Mosque, and the other ones such as the Dome of the Rock and the corridors and other [buildings] are novel (muhdatha).

Firas Al-Sawway is a Syrian scholar. He writes on mythology, religion, and history. In a recent video clip from MEMRI TV dated March 3, 2019, Sawway argues,

The Al-Aqsa Mosque that is mentioned in the Quran is not the place we know today. The one who said that this place in Jerusalem is the Al-Aqsa Mosque was Abd Al-Malik Ibn Marwan. He wanted to build a holy place there and decided to call it the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Historians say that this place indeed became a Qibla for the Muslims at that time. People from all over the world came to visit it, and it has remained a holy place to this day.

It seems there are several ways to interpret all of the above: 1) someone might suggest that the Quran’s reference to the Al-Aqsa was not located on the Temple Mount, but somewhere else; 2) another view might argue that Al-Aqsa in the Quran refers to the entire mount and that the area belongs entirely to Moslems and not to Jews; or 3) someone might reason that the Al-Aqsa refers to the entire mount, but this area was where the Jewish Temple once stood and that the Israeli people still have a claim to the sacred space. It is interesting that when the Quran speaks of the Jewish Temple, it uses the term الْمَسْجِدَ, which literally means mosque (Surah 17:7). Perhaps the temple (الْمَسْجِدَ) is in a real sense the most distant mosque in time and space. God will again show His mercy.