The Muslim Claim to Jerusalem Part IV

By Daniel Pipes

4th part of 4

Conclusion

Politics, not religious sensibility, has fueled the Muslim attachment to Jerusalem for nearly fourteen centuries; what the historian Bernard Wasserstein has written about the growth of Muslim feeling in the course of the Countercrusade applies through the centuries: "often in the history of Jerusalem, heightened religious fervour may be explained in large part by political necessity."¹⁰⁴ This pattern has three main implications. First, Jerusalem will never be more than a secondary city for Muslims; "belief in the sanctity of Jerusalem," Sivan rightly concludes, "cannot be said to have been widely diffused nor deeply rooted in Islam."¹⁰⁵ Second, the Muslim interest lies not so much in controlling Jerusalem as it does in denying control over the city to anyone else. Third, the Islamic connection to the city is weaker than the Jewish one because it arises as much from transitory and mundane considerations as from the immutable claims of faith.

Mecca, by contrast, is the eternal city of Islam, the place from which non-Muslims are strictly forbidden. Very roughly speaking, what Jerusalem is to Jews, Mecca is to Muslims – a point made in the Qur'an itself (2:145) in recognizing that Muslims have one qibla and "the people of the Book" another one. The parallel was noted by medieval Muslims; the geographer Yaqut (1179-1229) wrote, for example, that "Mecca is holy to Muslims and Jerusalem to the Jews."¹⁰⁶ In modern times, some scholars have come to the same conclusion: "Jerusalem plays for the Jewish people the same role that Mecca has for Muslims," writes Abdul Hadi Palazzi, director of the Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community.¹⁰⁷

The similarities are striking. Jews pray thrice to Jerusalem, Muslims five times daily to Mecca. Muslims see Mecca as the navel of the world, just as Jews see Jerusalem. Whereas Jews believe Abraham nearly sacrificed Ishmael's brother Isaac in Jerusalem, Muslims believe this episode took place in Mecca. The Ka'ba in Mecca has similar functions for Muslims as the Temple in Jerusalem for Jews (such as serving as a destination for pilgrimage). The Temple and Ka'ba are both said to be inimitable structures. The supplicant takes off his shoes and goes barefoot in both their precincts. Solomon's Temple was inaugurated on Yom Kippur, the tenth day of the year, and the Ka'ba receives its new cover also on the tenth day of each year.¹⁰⁸ If Jerusalem is for Jews a place so holy that not just its soil but even its air is deemed sacred, Mecca is the place whose "very mention reverberates awe in Muslims' hearts," according to Abad Ahmad of the Islamic Society of Central Jersey.¹⁰⁹

This parallelism of Mecca and Jerusalem offers the basis of a solution, as Sheikh Palazzi wisely writes:

separation in directions of prayer is a mean to decrease possible rivalries in management of Holy Places. For those who receive from Allah the gift of equilibrium and the attitude to reconciliation, it should not be difficult to conclude that, as no one is willing to deny Muslims a complete sovereignty over Mecca, from an Islamic point of view -notwithstanding opposite, groundless propagandistic claims - there is not any sound theological reason to deny an equal right of Jews over Jerusalem.¹¹⁰

To back up this view, Palazzi notes several striking and oft-neglected passages in the Qur'an . One of them (5:22-23) quotes Moses instructing the Jews to "enter the Holy Land (al-ard al-muqaddisa) which God has assigned unto you." Another verse (17:104) has God Himself making the same point: "We said to the Children of Israel: 'Dwell securely in the Land.'" Qur'an 2:145 states that the Jews "would not follow your qibla; nor are you going to follow their qibla," indicating a recognition of the Temple Mount as the Jews' direction of prayer. "God himself is saying that Jerusalem is as important to Jews as Mecca is to Moslems,"¹¹¹ Palazzi concludes.

His analysis has a clear and sensible implication: just as Muslims rule an undivided Mecca, Jews should rule an undivided Jerusalem.

Daniel Pipes is editor of the Middle East Quarterly.

 

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

¹ Ehud Olmert, "I Am the Most Privileged Jew in the Universe," Middle East Quarterly, Dec. 1997, p. 65.
² It is, however, in some places referred to, such as Sura 17:7. It also bears noting that "Mecca" appears just once in the Qur'an.
³ The Jerusalem Post, Aug. 23, 2000.
⁴ Associated Press, Aug. 11, 2000; Reuters, Aug. 25, 2000.
⁵ Reuters, Aug. 12, 2000.
⁶ American Muslim Council, "American Muslims Identify Top Ten Issues," Feb. 29, 2000; Council on American-Islamic Relations, "New Survey Reiterates American Muslim Concern for Jerusalem," July 6, 2000.
⁷ At-Tabari, Jami` al-Bayan fi Tafsir al-Qur'an (Cairo, 1321/1903), quoted in F. E. Peters, Jerusalem (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 181.
<sup>8</sup> W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad in Medina (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956), p. 200.
<sup>9</sup> Quoted in Peters, Jerusalem, pp. 195-96.
<sup>10</sup> Its holiness in the monotheistic traditions gave it a special standing. For example, while the word for Zion in Arabic is Sihyawn (or Sahyun) and it historically refers to Jerusalem (or sometimes to Byzantium), on rare occasions it has referred to Mecca, possibly "an early tendency to enhance the holiness of Mecca by attributing to it holy merits of Biblical places and persons." The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition, c.v. "Sihyawn."
<sup>11</sup> Amikam Elad, "Why Did 'Abd al-Malik Build the Dome of the Rock?" Bayt al-Maqdis: 'Abd al-Malik's Jerusalem, ed. Julian Raby and Jeremy Johns (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), vol. 1, p. 48.
<sup>12</sup> Izhak Hasson, "The Muslim View of Jerusalem: The Qur'an and Hadith," The History of Jerusalem: The Early Muslim Period, 638-1099, ed. Joshua Prawer and Haggai Ben-Shammai (New York: New York University Press, 1996), p. 358.
<sup>13</sup> For a revisionist account, which interprets the construction of the Dome of the Rock as the beginning of Islam, see Moshe Sharon, "The Birth of Islam in the Holy Land," The Holy Land in History and Thought, ed. Moshe Sharon (Leiden: E J. Brill, 1988), pp. 225-35.
<sup>14</sup> B. Schreike, "Die Himmelreise Muhammeds," Der Islam 6 (1915-16): 1-30; J. Horovitz, "Muhammeds Himmelfahrt," Der Islam 9 (1919): 159-83; Heribert Busse, "Jerusalem in the Story of Muhammad's Night Journey and Ascension," Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 14 (1991): 1-40. See also Heribert Busse and Georg Kretschmar, Jerusalemer Heiligstumstraditionen (Weisbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1987).
<sup>15</sup> Arthur Jeffrey, "The Suppressed Qur'an Commentary of Muhammad Abu Zaid," Der Islam, 20 (1932): 306.
<sup>16</sup> Alfred Guillaume, "Where Was Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa?" Al-Andalus, (18) 1953: 323-36.
<sup>17</sup>Quoted in Joseph van Ess, "'Abd al-Malik and the Dome of the Rock," Bayt al-Maqdis: `Abd al-Malik's Jerusalem, ed. Julian Raby and Jeremy Johns (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), vol. 1, p. 93.
¹⁸ Ibn al-Rawandi, "Origins of Islam: A Critical Look at the Sources," The Quest for the Historical Muhammad, ed. Ibn Warraq (New York: Prometheus, 2000), p.101.
¹⁹ A. L. Tibawi, Jerusalem: Its Place in Islam and Arab History (Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1969), p. 9.
²⁰ Examples are in Hasson, "The Muslim View of Jerusalem," p. 353.
²¹ R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, "The Meaning of Jerusalem to Jews, Christians, and Muslims," Jerusalem in the Mind of the Western World, 1800-1948, vol. 5 of With Eyes toward Zion, ed. Yehoshua Ben-Arieh and Moshe Davis (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997), p. 10. The "virtues of Jerusalem" literature was once thought to date from centuries later, but recent research has established its Umayyad origins.
²² Ignaz Goldziher, Muhammadanische Studien, vol. 2 (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1889-90), pp. 34-37.
²³ Abdul Aziz Duri, "Jerusalem in the Early Islamic Period, 7th-11th Centuries AD," in Jerusalem in History: 3,000 B.C. to the Present Day, rev. ed., ed. Kamil J. Asali (London: Kegan Paul International, 1997), p. 112.
²⁴ Hasson, "The Muslim View of Jerusalem," p. 377.
²⁵ Paul Wheatley, The Places Where Men Pray Together: Cities in Islamic Lands, Seventh through the Tenth Centuries (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), p. 297.
²⁶ F. E. Peters, The Distant Shrine: The Islamic Centuries in Jerusalem (New York: AMS, 1993), p. 71.
²⁷Shams ad-Din al-Muqaddasi, Ahsan at-Taqasim fi Ma`rifat at-Taqalim, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1877). Quoted in Guy Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1890), p. 86.
²⁸ Mutahhar b. Tahir al-Maqdisi, Kitab al-Bad' wa't-Ta'rikh, vol. 4, ed. Clément Huart (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1907), p. 72.
²⁹Amikam Elad, Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), p. 1.
³⁰ S. D. Goitein, "Al-Kuds," The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2d edition, vol. 5, pp. 329, 322.
³¹ Peters, Jerusalem, p. 214.
³² Robert Irwin, "Muslim Responses to the Crusades," History Today, Apr. 1997, p. 44.
³³ Emmanuel Sivan, Interpretations of Islam: Past and Present (Princeton, N.J.: Darwin Press, 1985), p. 76.
³⁴ Ibid., pp. 83, 87.
³⁵ Ibn Shaddad, An-Nawadir as-Sultaniya wa'l-Mahasin al-Yusufiya, vol. 3 (Paris, 1884), p. 265; quoted in Donald P. Little, "Jerusalem under the Ayyubids and Mamluks, 1187-1516 AD," Jerusalem in History: 3,000 B.C. to the Present Day, rev. ed., ed. Kamil J. Asali (London: Kegan Paul International, 1997), p. 179.
³⁶ Oleg Grabar Mohammad Al-Asad, Abeer Audeh, and Said Nuseibeh, The Shape of the Holy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 157. See also p. 113.
³⁷ Little, "Jerusalem under the Ayyubids and Mamluks," p. 181.
³⁸ Hans I. Gottschalk, Al-Malik al-Kamil von Ägypten und seine Zeit (Wiesbaden, 1958), p. 88.
³⁹ R.J.C. Broadhurst, A History of the Ayyubid Sultans of Egypt Translated from the Arabic of al-Maqrizi (Boston: Twayne, 1980), p. 26.
⁴⁰ Ibid., p. 26.
⁴¹ Ibid., p. 207.
⁴² Quoted in Claude Cahen and Ibrahim Chabbouh, "Le testament d'al-Malik as-Salih Ayyub," Bulletin d'Etudes Orientales, 29 (1977): 100.
⁴³ Sivan, Interpretations of Islam, p. 100.
⁴⁴ 'Ali b. 'Abd al-Kafi as-Subki (d. 746/XX), Shifa' as-Saqam fi Ziyarat Khayr al-Anam (Cairo, 1318), p. 49. Referenced in Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, trans. from Hebrew (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 99.
⁴⁵ James Parkes, Whose Land? A History of the Peoples of Palestine, rev. ed. (Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1970), p. 171.
⁴⁶ Henry McMahon to John Shuckburgh, Mar. 12, 1922, in Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. 4, companion document volume, part 3, p. 1805. The author thanks Sir Martin for this reference.
⁴⁷ Quoted in Pierre van Paasen, Days of Our Years (New York: Hillman-Curl, 1939), p. 379. Although van Paasen's credibility has sometimes been called into doubt, his biographers H. David Kirk and Beverly Tansey have checked out "his often colorful pronouncements against the sober realities" and found him reliable ("Pierre van Paasen's Unheeded Warnings of a Coming Holocaust," Midstream, July/Aug. 2000, p. 10.
⁴⁸ Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, "The Sanctity of Jerusalem in Islam," Some Religious Aspects of Islam: A Collection of Articles (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981), p. 70.
⁴⁹ Milhemet Ha-Meqomot Ha-Qedoshim (Jerusalem: Makhon Yerushalayim Le-Heker Yisrael, 2000).
⁵⁰ Quoted in Meron Benvenisti, Jerusalem: The Torn City (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1976), p. 28.
⁵¹ Marshall J. Breger and Thomas A. Idinopulos, Jerusalem's Holy Places and the Peace Process (Washington: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1998), p. 15.
⁵² Malcolm H. Kerr, The Arab Cold War: Gamal 'Abd al-Nasir and His Rivals, 1958-70, 3d ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1971).
⁵³ Text in Y. Harkabi, The Palestinian Covenant and its Meaning (London: Valentine, Mitchell, 1979), p. 126.
⁵⁴ Lazarus-Yafeh, "The Sanctity of Jerusalem in Islam," p. 223.
⁵⁵ The Jerusalem Post, Aug. 29, 2000. The inclusion of Christians (and the absence of Jews) makes Arafat's political purposes particularly obvious.
⁵⁶ PA Mufti 'Ikrama Sabri quoted in Khalid Amayreh, "Mufti of Palestine: Alqods is the Sister of Mecca and Madina," Islamic Association for Palestine, Aug. 6, 2000; Hasan Abu 'Ali, a stone throwing teenager, quoted in Associated Press, Sept. 30, 2000.
⁵⁷ Martin Kramer, "Redeeming Jerusalem: The Pan-Islamic Premise of Hizballah," The Iranian Revolution and the Muslim World, ed. David Menashri (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1990), p. 125.
⁵⁸ Cited in Peter Chelkowski and Hamid Dabashi, Staging a Revolution: The Art of Persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran (New York: New York University Press, 1999), p. 23.
⁵⁹ Examples in English include A. L. Tibawi, Jerusalem: Its Place in Islam and Arab History (Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1969); M. A. Aamiri, Jerusalem: Arab Origins and Heritage (London: Longman, 1978); Islamic Council of Europe, Jerusalem: The Key to World Peace (London: Islamic Council of Europe, 1980).
⁶⁰ Such as Imad Saleh, Entre mon rêve et Jérusalem: Poèmes (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1999).
⁶¹ Reuters, Oct. 21, 2000.
⁶² Reuters, June 14, 2001.
⁶³ Ha'aretz, June 11, 2001.
⁶⁴ Al-Quds, Nov. 14, 1997.
⁶⁵ Ghada Talhami, "Jerusalem in the Muslim Consciousness," The Muslim World, 86 (1996): 229.
⁶⁶ Ibrahim Hooper, "Jerusalem Belongs to All Faiths," The Washington Post, Oct. 16, 1996.
⁶⁷ Yunis Yusuf, a 78-year old Palestinian who sells vegetables in the Dheisheh refugee camp, in Christine Hauser, "Jerusalem is explosive issue at U.S. peace summit," Reuters, July 10, 2000.
⁶⁸ English examples: The Holy Qur-an: Text, Translation and Commentary by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, fn. 2168 and The Meaning of the Glorious Koran by Mohammed Marmeduke Pickthall, fn. 2.
⁶⁹ The Korân: Translated into English from the Original Arabic by Reverend George Sale (first published in 1734).
⁷⁰ The Message of the Qur'än: Translated and explained by Muhammad Asad.
⁷¹ The Quran: A New Interpretation, Textual Exegesis by Muhammad Baqir Behbudi, trans. Colin Turner.
⁷² "American Muslim Organizations Emphasize Muslim Rights in Jerusalem," July 10, 2000, a statement endorsed by American Muslim Council, American Muslim Foundation, American Muslims for Jerusalem, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Islamic Association for Palestine, Islamic Circle of North America, Islamic Society of North America, Muslim Public Affairs Council.
⁷³ Hooper, "Jerusalem Belongs to All Faiths."
⁷⁴ The Palestinian Information Center, Sept. 21, 2000.
⁷⁵ Time.com, Apr. 10, 2001.
⁷⁶ See http://al-awda.org, May 16, 2001.
⁷⁷'Abd al-Hamid as-Sa'ih, Radio Amman, Sept. 23, 1967, quoted in Middle East Record, 3 (1967): 294.
⁷⁸ Quoted in David Holden and Richard Johns, The House of Saud: The Rise and Rule of the Most Powerful Dynasty in the Arab World (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981), p. 344.
⁷⁹ Interviewed by Aaron Lerner of the Independent Media Review & Analysis, an Internet service at http://www.virtual.co.il/city_services/lists/imra-l, Mar. 24, 1997.
⁸⁰ See http://www.pna.org/mininfo/j_ourcap/sites.htm.
⁸¹ Makor Rishon, May 22, 1998; Die Welt, Jan. 17, 2001.
⁸² Makor Rishon, May 22, 1998. Curiously, A Brief Guide to al-Haram al-Sharif (Jerusalem: Supreme Moslem Council, 1930), a nine-page English-language tourist guide, tells otherwise: "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 to 2 Samuel 26:25. The Jerusalem Post, Jan. 26, 2001, reports on this booklet.
⁸³ Al- Jazira Television, June 28, 1998.
⁸⁴ As described in "Recent study reveals: Al-Haram Al-Sharif's western wall is not the Wailing," ArabicNews.com, Mar. 5, 2001, http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/010305/2001030524.html.
⁸⁵ Wikalat al-Anba' al-Falastiniya, Oct. 25, 1990; PA Mufti 'Ikrama Sabri, Reuters, Feb. 20, 2001. Two days later, the Egyptian mufti endorsed this fatwa (Reuters, Feb. 22, 2001).
⁸⁶ The Jerusalem Report, Apr. 3, 1997. A. L. Tibawi, Jerusalem: Its Place in Islamic and Arab History (Beirut: The Institute for Palestine Studies, 1969) primarily argues against any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount in general and to the Western Wall in particular, which Tibawi in one place (p. 34) disrespectfully refers to as "the Wailing place."
⁸⁷ Sheikh Muhammad Husayn, The New York Times, Oct. 27, 1996.
⁸⁸ Voice of Palestine, Feb. 23, 2001.
⁸⁹ Sawt Al-Haqq wa'l-Hurriya, Aug. 25, 2000. Nonetheless, out of "respect to Judaism," the Palestinian Authority is willing to permit Jews to pray at the Western Wall—on condition Jews have no sovereign rights there; as PA Mufti 'Ikrima Sabri puts it, "granting free access to the wall does not mean that the wall will belong to them. The wall is ours." (Kull Al-Arab, Aug. 16, 2000). All quotations from Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI), "The Debate at Camp David over Jerusalem's Holy Places," Aug. 28, 2000.
⁹⁰ Al-Hayat al-Jadida (Gaza), Aug. 10, 2000. Cited in "The Debate at Camp David over Jerusalem's Holy Places."
⁹¹ Associated Press, Sept. 14, 2000.
⁹² Reuters, Sept. 19, 2000.
⁹³ For example, in English: Mohammed Abdul Hameed Al-Khateeb, Al-Quds: The Place of Jerusalem in Classical Judaic and Islamic Traditions (London: Ta-Ha, 1419/1998); Ghada Hashem Talhami, "Academic Myths and Propaganda," Middle East Policy, Feb. 2000, pp. 113-29.
⁹⁴ Islamic Association for Palestine, "Camp David II Must Address the Historical Injustices against the Palestinian People," July 12, 2000.
⁹⁵The New York Times, Mar. 1, 1997.
⁹⁶ Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 70-71.
⁹⁷ At-Tabari, Ta'rikh ar-Rusul wa'l-Muluk, vol. 1, ed. M.J. de Goeje, et al. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1879-1901), pp. 2408-09; text in Bernard Lewis, Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, vol. 2 of Religion and Society (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), p. 3.
⁹⁸ As-Suyuti, "Ithaf al-Akhissa," manuscript, Hebrew University Library, fol. 81a, l.8, quoted in "al-Kuds" in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. The curious term Al-Masjid al-Haram ("Mosque of the Sanctuary") is not in use among Muslims.
⁹⁹ On which, Gil, A History of Palestine, pp. 67 note, 90, 102.
¹⁰⁰ Quoted in Jeffrey Goldberg, "Arafat's Gift: The Return of Ariel Sharon," The New Yorker, Jan. 29, 2001, p. 55.
¹⁰¹ Eva Baer, "Visual Representations of Jerusalem's Holy Islamic Sites," The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Art, published as Journal of the Center of Jewish Art, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, vol. 23-24, ed. Bianca Kühnel, (1997-98): 392.
¹⁰² Ami Ayalon, Egypt's Quest for Cultural Orientation (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1999), p. 7. Reference to Arthur Jeffrey, "The Suppressed Qur'an Commentary of Muhammad Abu Zaid," Der Islam 20 (1932), p. 306.
¹⁰³ Reuters, Mar. 28, 2001.
¹⁰⁴ Bernard Wasserstein, Divided Jerusalem: The Struggle for the Holy City (London, Profile Books, 2001), p. 11. On p. 13, Wasserstein notes that "political considerations have played a significant part" in all three of the major monotheistic traditions' focus on Jerusalem.
¹⁰⁵ Sivan, Interpretations of Islam, p. 79.
¹⁰⁶ Moshe Kohn, The Jerusalem Post, June 2, 2000.
¹⁰⁷ Abdul Hadi Palazzi, "Antizionism and Antisemitism in the Contemporary Islamic Milieu" at http://www.ummah.net/islamic_institute/.
¹⁰⁸ Heribert Busse, "Jerusalem and Mecca, the Temple and the Kaaba," The Holy Land in History and Thought, ed. Moshe Sharon (Leiden: E J. Brill, 1988), pp. 236-46, provides a fuller list of comparisons and connections between the two cities and concludes that the many similarities are not a coincidence: the Prophet Muhammad, he finds, apparently "made use of elements from Jewish sources" in transforming the Ka'ba from a local, pagan temple into a universal, monotheistic sanctuary (p. 244).
¹⁰⁹The Wall Street Journal, Jan. 31, 1997.
¹¹⁰ Abdul Hadi Palazzi, "Antizionism and Antisemitism at http://www.ummah.net/islamic_institute/. Palazzi also notes the curious fact that those Islamists who closely follow Ibn Taymiya's ideas about politics are also the ones leading the fight for an Islamic Jerusalem; they choose entirely to ignore the fact that Ibn Taymiya himself saw no special role for Jerusalem in Islam.