The Temple Mount (Hebrew: הַר
הַבַּיִת, Har haBáyit), also known as the Noble Sanctuary (Arabic: الحرم القدسي الشريف, al-ḥaram al-qudsī ash-sharīf) is a
religious site in the Old City of Jerusalem.
The Temple Mount is the holiest site for Judaism. The Jewish
Temple in Jerusalem stood there: the First
Temple (built c. 967 BCE, destroyed c. 586 BCE by the Babylonians), and the
Second Temple (rebuilt c. 516 BCE, destroyed in the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE). According to a
commonly held belief in Judaism, it is to be the site of the final Third Temple, to be
rebuilt with the coming of the Jewish Messiah.
Known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, it is also the site of two major Muslim
religious shrines, the Dome of the Rock (built c. 690) and Al-Aqsa Mosque (built c. 710). It is one of the most contested religious sites in the world. Under the
Jordanian rule of Eastern Jerusalem between 1948 and
1967, Jews were forbidden from entering the Old City. Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority claim sovereignty over the site,
which remains a key issue in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Israeli government has granted management of the site to a Muslim Council (Waqf).
Current features of the site
The position of the Chief Rabbinate on whether people should be allowed to be on the Mount, which some from both religions do not
follow.
Due to the extreme political sensitivity of the site, very little archaeological digging has been done on the Temple Mount
itself. Protests commonly occur whenever archaeologists conduct projects on or near the Mount. Aside from visual observation of
surface features, most other archaeological knowledge of the site comes from the 19th century survey carried out by
Charles Wilson and Charles Warren.
The Temple Mount is a large flat-topped construction built over a natural hill; the side walls of the Mount are hidden behind
residential buildings on the northern side and northern portion of the western side. The southern portion of the western side is
the Western Wall, only half visible above ground. On the southern and eastern sides the
walls are visible almost to their full height. A northern portion of the Western Wall may be seen from within the
Western Wall Tunnels, which were controversially excavated underneath the buildings
in that location in the 20th century. The platform itself is separated from the rest of the Old City by the Tyropoeon Valley, though this once deep valley is now largely hidden beneath later deposits, and is
imperceptible in places. The platform can be reached via Bridge Street — a street in the Arab quarter at the level of the
platform, actually sitting on a monumental bridge; the bridge is no longer externally visible due to the change in ground level,
but it may be seen (from beneath) via the Western Wall Tunnels.
An additional flat platform is built above the portion of the hill rising above the general level of the top of the Temple
Mount, and this upper platform is the location of the Dome of the Rock; the rock in
question is the bedrock at the peak of the hill, just breaching the floor level of the upper platform. Beneath the rock is
a natural cave known as the Well of Souls, originally accessible only by a narrow hole in
the rock itself, Crusaders hacked open an entrance to the cave from the south, by which it can
now be entered. There is also a smaller domed building on the upper platform, slightly to the east of the Dome of the Rock, known
as the Dome of the Chain — traditionally the location where a chain once rose to heaven. Several stairways rise to the
upper platform from the lower; that at the northwest corner is believed by some archaeologists be part of a much wider monumental
staircase, mostly hidden or destroyed, and dating from the Second Temple era.
The lower platform — that constituting most of the surface of the Temple Mount — has at its southern end the al-Aqsa Mosque,
which takes up most of the width of the Mount. Gardens take up the eastern and most of the northern side of the platform; the far
north of the platform houses an Islamic school.[1] The
lower platform also houses a fountain (known as al-Kas), originally supplied with water via a long narrow aqueduct leading
from pools at Bethlehem (colloquially known as Solomon's Pools), but now supplied from
Jerusalem's water mains. There are several cisterns embedded in the lower platform, designed to
collect rain water as a water supply. These have various forms and structures, seemingly built in different periods by different
architects, ranging from vaulted chambers built in the gap between the bedrock and the platform, to chambers cut into the bedrock
itself. Of these, the most notable are (numbering traditionally follows Wilson's scheme[2]):
- Cistern 1 (located under the northern side of the upper platform). There is a speculation that it had a function connected
with the altar of the Second Temple (and possibly of the earlier Temple),[3] or with the bronze sea.
- Cistern 5 (located under the south eastern corner of the upper platform) — a long and narrow chamber, with a strange
anti-clockwise curved section at its north western corner, and containing within it a doorway currently blocked by earth. The
cistern's position and design is such that there has been speculation it had a function connected with the altar of the Second
Temple (and possibly of the earlier Temple), or with the bronze sea. Charles Warren thought that the altar of burnt
offerings was located at the north western end. [4]
- Cistern 8 (located just north of the al-Aqsa Mosque) - known as the Great Sea, a large rock hewn cavern, the roof
supported by pillars carved from the rock; the chamber is particularly cave-like and atmospheric [13], and its maximum water
capacity is several hundred thousand gallons.
- Cistern 9 (located just south of cistern 8, and directly under the al-Aqsa Mosque) - known as the Well of the Leaf due
to its leaf-shaped plan, also rock hewn.
- Cistern 11 (located east of cistern 9) - a set of vaulted rooms forming a plan shaped like the letter E. Probably the largest
cistern, it has the potential to house over 700,000 gallons of water.
- Cistern 16/17 (located at the centre of the far northern end of the Temple Mount). Despite the currently narrow entrances,
this cistern (17 and 16 are the same cistern) is a large vaulted chamber, which Warren described as looking like the inside of
the cathedral at Cordoba (which was previously a mosque). Warren believed that it was
almost certainly built for some other purpose, and was only adapted into a cistern at a later date; he suggested that it might
have been part of a general vault supporting the northern side of the platform, in which case substantially more of the chamber
exists than is used for a cistern.
The walls of the platform contain several gateways, all currently blocked. In the east wall is the Golden Gate, through which legend states the Jewish
Messiah would enter Jerusalem. On the southern face are the Hulda Gates — the
triple gate (which has three arches) and the double gate (which has two arches, and is partly obscured by a
Crusader building); these were the entrance and exit (respectively) to the Temple Mount from Ophel
(the oldest part of Jerusalem), and the main access to the Mount for ordinary Jews. In the western face, near the southern
corner, is the Barclay's Gate — only half visible due to a building on the northern side. Also in
the western face, hidden by later construction but visible via the recent Western Wall Tunnels, and only rediscovered by Warren,
is Warren's Gate; the function of these western gates is obscure, but many Jews view
Warren's Gate as particularly holy, due to its location due west of the Dome of the Rock (traditional belief considers the Dome
of the Rock to have earlier been the location at which the Holy of Holies was
placed).
Warren was able to investigate the inside of these gates. Warren's Gate and the Golden Gate simply head towards the centre of
the Mount, fairly quickly giving access to the surface by steps.[5] Barclay's Gate is similar, but abruptly turns south as it does so; the reason for this is currently
unknown. The double and triple gates (the Huldah Gates) are more substantial; heading into the Mount for some distance
they each finally have steps rising to the surface just north of the al-Aqsa Mosque.[6] The passageway for each is vaulted, and has two aisles (in the case of the triple
gate, a third aisle exists for a brief distance beyond the gate); the eastern aisle of the double gates and western of the triple
gates reach the surface, the other aisles terminating some way before the steps — Warren believed that one aisle of each original
passage was extended when the al-Aqsa Mosque blocked the original surface exits.
East of and joined to the triple gate passageway is a large vaulted area, supporting the southeastern corner of the Temple
Mount platform — which is substantially above the bedrock at this point — the vaulted chambers here are popularly referred to as
King Solomon's Stables.[7] They were used as stables by the Crusaders, but were built by Herod the Great — along with the
platform they were built to support. In the process of investigating Cistern 10, Warren discovered tunnels that lay under
the Triple Gate passageway.[8] These passages lead in
erratic directions, some leading beyond the southern edge of the Temple Mount (they are at a depth below the base of the walls);
their purpose is currently unknown — as is whether they predate the Temple Mount — a situation not helped by the fact that apart
from Warren's expedition no one else is known to have visited them.
Traditions relating to the site
Jewish
According to an Aggada in the Talmud, the world was created
from the Foundation Stone on the Temple Mount[9] According to the Bible, the place where Abraham fulfilled God's test to see if he would be willing to sacrifice his son Isaac was
Mount Moriah, which the Talmud says was another name for the Temple Mount. [citation needed]
The Bible recounts that Jacob dreamt about angels ascending and descending a ladder
while sleeping on a stone. The Talmud says that this took place on the Temple Mount. Rashi also
identifies the site as the place where Jacob and Rebekah prayed, asking God to grant them
children.[10]
According to the Bible, King David purchased a threshing floor owned by Aravnah the
Jebusite[11] overlooking
Jerusalem upon the cessation of a plague, to erect an altar. He wanted to construct a permanent
temple there, but as his hands were "bloodied", he was forbidden to do so himself, so this task was left to his son
Solomon, who completed the task c. 950 BCE.
The Western Wall, also known as The Kotel, is a
part of the Temple Mount that survived the destruction of the Second Temple and remains
standing. The Western Wall is holy due to its proximity to the location on the Temple Mount of the Holy of Holies of the Temple, the Most Holy Place in Judaism. Due to Jewish religious restrictions on
entering the most sacred areas of the Temple Mount, the Western Wall has become, for practical purposes, the holiest generally
accessible site for Jews to pray. Many Jews often leave written prayers addressed to God in the cracks of the wall.
Jewish religious law concerning entry to the site
1978 sign at entrance to Temple Mount
Christian sources from the Byzantine period recorded that when Jews were allowed to visit the Temple ruins, they would anoint
the rock. According to Islamic tradition, immediately after its construction, five Jewish families from Jerusalem were employed
to clean the Dome of the Rock and to prepare wicks for its lamps.[12] The earliest known mention of a rabbinic prohibition on Jews entering the Temple Mount appears in a
letter[13] from Jerusalem by Rabbi Obadia da Bartinoro to
his father in 1488, i.e., during the Mamluk period.
Rabbinical consensus in both the Religious Zionist and the Haredi streams of Orthodox holds that it is forbidden for Jews
to enter the Temple Mount. Many rabbis have issued prohibitions against entering the Temple Mount because of the danger of
entering the area of the Temple courtyard and the impossibility of fulfilling the ritual requirement of cleansing oneself with
the ashes of a red heifer (see Numbers 19), and declared
it punishable with karet, death by heavenly decree [14]. The boundaries of the areas which are completely forbidden, while having large portions in common,
are delineated differently by various rabbinic authorities. Some rabbis, primarily belonging to right-wing Religious Zionism, disagree with the majority position and maintain that it is permitted and even
commendable to visit those parts of the Temple Mount which according to most medieval rabbinic authorities do not lead to any
controversy, even though rabbinical consensus nowadays maintains that the entire Temple Mount including those areas is off-limits
to Jews.
In May 2007, a group of right-wing Religious Zionist rabbis entered the Temple Mount.[15] This elicited widespread criticism from other religious Jews and from secular
Israelis, accusing the rabbis of provoking the Arabs. An editorial in the newspaper Haaretz
accused the rabbis of 'knowingly and irresponsibly bringing a burning torch closer to the most flammable hill in the Middle
East,' and noted that rabbinical consensus in both the Haredi and the Religious Zionist worlds forbids Jews from entering the
Temple Mount.[16] On May 16, Rabbi Avraham Shapiro, former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel and rosh
yeshiva of the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva, reiterated
that it is forbidden for Jews to enter the Temple Mount.[17] The Litvish Haredi newspaper Yated Ne'eman, which
is controlled by leading Litvish Haredi rabbis including Rabbi Yosef Sholom
Eliashiv and Rabbi Nissim Karelitz, accused the rabbis of transgressing a decree
punishable by 'death through the hands of heaven,' an issur koreis in (Ashkenazi) Hebrew.[18]
Those who forbid Jews from entering the Temple Mount
In August 1967, the Chief Rabbis of Israel, Isser
Yehuda Unterman and Yitzhak Nissim, in concert with other leading rabbis, asserted
that "For generations we have warned against and refrained from entering any part of the Temple Mount."
- 2005 declaration
When in January 2005 a large group of leading rabbis from the national-religious
(Zionist) stream of Orthodox Judaism signed a declaration confirming that the
1967 decision of Chief Rabbis Unterman and Nissim was still valid, declaring that it is absolutely forbidden for Jews to ascend
on the Temple Mount until Moshiach, the Jewish Messiah comes, the Temple
Institute responded furiously. Rabbis who signed on to the declaration were:[19]
- Other rabbis who forbid Jews from entering the Temple Mount
Religious Zionist rabbis:
Ashkenazi Haredi rabbis:
Ashkenazi Haredi rabbis generally do not publish any prohibitions against Jews going on the Temple Mount, since this is seen
as such a natural thing that their followers do not need to prohibited from doing so to prevent them from going on the Temple
Mount, similar to the fact that one will have trouble finding a recent halachic decision by an Ashkenazi Haredi rabbi stating
that Jews may not eat pork.
Those who permit Jews to enter the Temple Mount
Some rabbis who permitted Jews to enter the Temple Mount include:
During Maimonides' residence in Jerusalem, a synagogue stood on the Temple Mount alongside
other structures; Maimonides prayed there. The Rambam (Maimonides) specifically states that there are areas on the Temple
Mount that Jews are permitted to enter today even when all Jews are ritually unclean. He writes that in 1165 he visited Jerusalem
and went up on to the Temple Mount and prayed in the "great, holy house" (probably the Al-Aqsa mosque).[23]
Maimonides established a yearly holiday for himself and his sons, the 6th of
Cheshvan, commemorating the day he went up to pray on the Temple Mount
In 1267 Nahmanides wrote a letter to his son. It contained the following references to the
land and the Temple:
People regularly come to Jerusalem, men and women from Damascus and from Aleppo and from all parts of the country, to see the
Temple and weep over it. And may He who deemed us worthy to see Jerusalem in her ruins, grant us to see her rebuilt and restored,
and the honor of the Divine Presence returned.
It appears that Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra (Radbaz)
also ascended to a portion of the Temple Mount and gave advice to others how to do this. He permits entry from all the gates and
into the 135 x 135 cubits of the Women's Courtyard in the East since the Torah prohibition only
applies to the 187 x 135 cubits of the Temple in the West. [24]
Authorities who permit ascending the Temple Mount generally advise observing the elements of the laws of ritual purity that
are possible in the absence of the ancient Temple rites. These include cleansing following seminal emissions and menstrual
discharges. Although laws relating to ritual impurity through male seminal emissions, which were a significant aspect of the laws
of ritual purity in Talmudic times, have gradually disappeared from Orthodox Judaism since the Middle Ages, they still apply in
full force to contemporary Orthodox Jewish law concerning ascending the Temple Mount. Following a seminal emission, even one
resulting from marital intercourse, Orthodox men immerse in a mikvah (ritual bath) for ritual cleansing prior to ascending the Mount. Women likewise do not ascend during the
period of niddah (during and immediately after menstruation) and, following receiving a seminal
emission (intercourse), and immerse in a mikvah to attain ritual purity prior to ascending. Because the rules involved are
complex and may be unfamiliar since many are not applicable to circumstances other than the Temple Mount, some authorities advise
always immersing in a mikvah as a precaution prior to ascending.[25]
The law committee of the Masorti movement (Conservative Judaism in Israel) has issued two responsa on the
subject, both holding that Jews may visit the permitted sections of the Temple Mount. One responsa allows such visits, another
encourages them.
According to Rabbi Shlomo Goren, it's possible that Jews are even allowed to enter the heart of the Dome of the Rock, the
probable location of the Holy of Holies, according to Jewish Law of Conquest.[26]
- See also: Jerusalem in
Judaism
Muslim
- See also: "Third holiest site"
The Temple Mount is traditionally regarded by Muslims as the third most important
Islamic holy site, after Mecca and Medina. [27][28] The primary reason for its importance is the Muslim belief that in 621, Muhammad arrived there after a miraculous nocturnal journey aboard the
winged steed named Buraq, to take a brief tour of heaven with the Archangel Gabriel. This happened during Muhammad's time in Mecca, years before Muslims conquered Jerusalem (638).
Another reason for its importance in Islam is that both Kings David and Solomon are regarded as prophets, and the Temple (mentioned in Qur'an 17:7, and
described in much more detail in the noncanonical Qisas al-Anbiya) as one of the
earliest and most noteworthy places of worship of God. (The Kaaba's sanctity has a similar basis in the Islamic tradition that it was built, or rebuilt, by Abraham.) In addition to this, the "farthest Mosque" (al-masjid al-Aqsa) in verse
(17:1) of the Qur'an is traditionally interpreted by Muslims as
referring to the site at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on which the mosque of
that name now stands. References to Jerusalem and events there have been made mostly in various states of ambiguity, in the
Quran, and many times in the Hadith.[29]
Christian
The Temple is mentioned many times in the New Testament (for example, Mark 11:11) in addition to the Old Testament. Jesus prayed there as a Jew (Mark 11:25-26). Jesus chased money changers and other merchants from the courtyard of the Temple, turning over their
tables and accusing them of desecrating a sacred place with secular ways (see Jesus and the Money Changers). Also, Jesus predicted the destruction of the Second Temple,
which occurred in 70 CE (Matthew 24:2), and confirmed (Matthew 24:15) Daniel's revelation about the desecration of the upcoming third Jewish Temple (Daniel 9:27).
History
While the point at which the Temple Mount enters history may be disputed (see the religious traditions mentioned above),
history records that there was a First Temple that stood for 410 years, being built by
the Israelites in 996 BCE and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon in
586 BCE.
A stone (2.43x1
m) with
Hebrew inscription "To the
Trumpeting Place" excavated by
Benjamin Mazar at the southern foot of the Temple Mount is
believed to be a part of the Second Temple
Construction of the Second Temple began under Cyrus in 538 BCE, and was completed on the sixth year of
Darius the Great in 516 BCE, 70 years after
the exile to Babylonia.
Around 19 BCE, Herod the Great expanded the Temple
Mount and rebuilt the Temple (see Herod's Temple). In the course of the First Jewish-Roman War it was destroyed by Titus in
70 CE. The Romans did not topple the Western Wall. Upon the
destruction of the Temple, the Rabbis revised prayers, and introduced new ones to request the
speedy rebuilding of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem. They also instituted the saying of the portions of the
Torah commanding the bringing of the sacrifices in place of the sacrifices themselves.
During the time of the Byzantine Empire, it is believed that Constantine's mother, St. Helena, built a small church on
the Mount in the 4th century, calling it the Church of St.
Cyrus and St. John, later on enlarged and called the Church of the Holy Wisdom. The church was later destroyed and on its ruins
the Dome of the Rock was built.[30]
In 363, Emperor Julian II, on his way to engage
Persia, stopped at the ruins of the Second Temple in
Jerusalem. In keeping with his effort to foster religions other than
Christianity, Julian ordered the Temple rebuilt. A personal friend of his, Ammianus
Marcellinus, wrote this about the effort:
"Julian thought to rebuild at an extravagant expense the proud Temple once at Jerusalem, and committed this task to
Alypius of Antioch. Alypius set vigorously to work, and was seconded by the
governor of the province; when fearful balls of fire, breaking out near the foundations,
continued their attacks, till the workmen, after repeated scorchings, could approach no more: and he gave up the attempt."
The failure to rebuild the Temple has been ascribed to an earthquake, common in the region, and to the Jews' ambivalence about the project. Sabotage is a possibility, as is an accidental fire. Divine intervention was
the common view among Christian historians of the time.[31]
After the Muslim conquest of this region, Islamic tradition holds that when Muslims first entered the city of Jerusalem under
the leadership of Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab in 637, the ruins of the Temple were being used as a rubbish dump by the Christian
inhabitants, perhaps in order to humiliate the Jews and try to fulfill Jesus' prophecy that not a
stone would be left standing on another there (Matthew 24:1-2); Caliph Omar (a contemporary of Muhammad, who had died a few years earlier), ordered it cleaned and performed prayer there. However, He
refrained from building a mosque at the site but ordered a mosque to be constructed at the South East corner facing
Mecca, near which the Al-Aqsa Mosque was built 78 years
later.
In 691 an octagonal Muslim building topped by a dome was built by the Caliph Abd al Malik around the rock, for political reasons, in violation of the Caliph Omar's teachings. The
shrine became known as the Dome of the Rock (Qubbat as-Sakhra قبة الصخرة). In
715 the Umayyads led by the Caliph al-Walid I, rebuilt the
Temple's nearby Chanuyos into a mosque (see illustrations and detailed drawing) which they named al-Masjid al-Aqsa المسجد الأقصى, the
Al-Aqsa Mosque or in translation "the furthest mosque", corresponding to the
Muslim belief of Muhammad's miraculous nocturnal journey as recounted in the Quran and hadith. The term al-Haram al-Sharif الحرم الشريف (the Noble Sanctuary) refers to the whole area that
surrounds that Rock as was called later by the Mamluks and Ottomans[32]
The structures have been ruined or destroyed several times in earthquakes [citation needed]; the current version dates from the first half of the 11th century. For Muslims, the importance of the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque make Jerusalem the third-holiest city after
Mecca and Medina. The mosque and shrine are currently administered
by a Waqf (an Islamic trust).
In 1867, a team from the Royal Engineers, led by Lieutenant Charles Warren (later the London police commissioner of Jack the
Ripper fame) and financed by the Palestine Exploration Fund (P.E.F.),
discovered a series of tunnels beneath Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, some of which were directly underneath the headquarters of
the Knights Templar. Various small artifacts were found which indicated that Templars
had used some of the tunnels, though it is unclear who exactly first dug them. Some of the ruins which Warren discovered came
from centuries earlier, and other tunnels which his team discovered had evidently been used for a water system, as they led to a
series of cisterns.[33][34]
1969 Al-Aqsa arson and other conflicts and complaints
On August 21, 1969, an Australian, Michael Dennis Rohan, set the Al-Aqsa mosque on
fire. Rohan was a reader of The Plain Truth magazine published by the
Worldwide Church of God headed by Herbert
W. Armstrong, which was best known for its radio and television programs called The World Tomorrow featuring his son Garner Ted
Armstrong. Rohan had read an editorial in the June 1967 edition by Herbert W. Armstrong, concerning rebuilding of the
Temple on Temple Mount. The article implied that the present structures would have to be removed and then when a new Temple had
been built a series of events would take place resulting in the return of Jesus as the
Messiah. This interpretation of prophetic events is now common within Fundamentalist Christianity, but was almost exclusive to the Worldwide Church of God at that
time. [citation needed] Herbert W. Armstrong claimed
that Rohan was not a member of the church, only a subscriber to the magazine. The incident made worldwide news and The Daily
Telegraph newspaper in London pictured Rohan on its front page with a folded copy
of The Plain Truth sticking out of his outside jacket pocket.
The Arab world and the USSR (see role of the
Soviet Union) blamed Israel for the incident and Yassar Arafat constantly used it as the foundation of his attacks on
Israel. Several Arab and Islamic media agencies, including the Jordanian News Agency[14], IslamOnline[15], and Palestine Chronicle[16],
incorrectly reported that Rohan was Jewish. However, Herbert W. Armstrong was not a stranger to King Hussein and he had been working with Jordanian government to put his daily radio program called
The World Tomorrow on their AM and shortwave stations that broadcast from the
Jordanian West Bank. That contract had been negated due to the Six Day War and the sudden
capture of the Jordanian radio stations by Israel.
Israeli sources claim that Israeli firemen attempting to extinguish the blaze were hampered by Arabs who mistakenly believed
that the fire hoses contained petrol rather than water[17]; Shaykh Ekrima Sa'id Sabri claims
that Palestinian efforts to put out the fire were obstructed by Israel[18].
On February 1, 1981, an article "Islam Reborn"
written by Don A. Schanche appeared in the Opinion section of The Los Angeles
Times. It related the following information:
The Islamic conference, for example, was born in a worldwide surge of Muslim outrage over
the August, 1969, burning of Jerusalem's Al Aksa mosque, third holiest shrine in
Islam after Mecca and Medina, by a deranged Australian Jew, who many
Muslims believed was a pawn in a Zionist plot. The call to gather in Rabat, Morocco, to unify and do something to redress the outrage drew only 25 of
the more than 40 nations in the world with Muslim majorities. With only one cause to unite them, the kings and presidents talked
for only a day and issued a call for the restoration of Arab sovereignty over Jerusalem and other territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Then they adjourned. The meeting and the newly founded organization were all but
ignored by the rest of the world.... Last week, with its membership now grown to 42, but attendance weakened by the suspension of
Egypt and Soviet-occupied Afghanistan and the pointed absence
of Iran and Libya, the Islamic
conference went a long way toward achieving its long-sought goal of power in unity.
On April 11, 1981, an American-born Israeli Jewish soldier,
Alan Harry Goodman, entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque and started firing randomly, killing two Palestinians.
In recent years many complaints have been voiced by Israelis about Muslim construction and excavation on and underneath the
Temple Mount, and by Muslims about Israeli excavations, two under the Temple Mount, the rest around it[19]. Ironically, for a time Ambassador College - the liberal arts
educational institution of the Worldwide Church of God - regularly provided
students and money during summer breaks to assist with these excavations.
Some claim that this will lead to the destabilization of the retaining walls of the Temple Mount, of which the
Western Wall is one, and/or the al-Aqsa Mosque, and
allege that one side is doing so deliberately to cause the collapse of the sacred sites of the other. Israelis allege that
Palestinians are deliberately removing significant amounts of archaeological evidence about the Jewish past of the site and claim
to have found significant artifacts in the fill removed by bulldozers and trucks from the Temple Mount. Muslims allege that the
Israelis are deliberately damaging the remains of Islamic-era buildings found in their excavations[20]. See below for details.
Since the Waqf is granted almost full autonomy on the Islamic holy sites, Israeli archaeologists
have been prevented from inspecting the area; they have, however, conducted several excavations around the Temple Mount.
Damage to existing structures
In 1968-69, Israeli archeologists carried out excavations at the foot of the Temple Mount, immediately south of the al-Aqsa
mosque and opened two ancient Second Temple period tunnels there that penetrate beneath Al-Aqsa Mosque in the area of the Hulda
and Single gates, penetrating five meters into one and 30 meters into another. "At the Temple Mount's south wall digging took
place to uncover the Arabic Umayyad palaces and Crusader remains." [21]
Over the period 1970-1988, the Israeli authorities excavated a tunnel passing immediately to the west of the Temple Mount,
northwards from the Western Wall, that became known as the Western Wall Tunnel. They sometimes used mechanical excavators under the supervision of
archeologists. Palestinians claim that both of these have caused cracks and structural weakening of the buildings in the Muslim
Quarter of the city above. Israelis confirmed this danger:
- "The Moslem authorities were concerned about the ministry tunnel along the Temple Mount wall, and not without cause. Two
incidents during the Mazar dig along the southern wall had sounded alarm bells. Technion engineers had already measured a slight movement in part of the
southern wall during the excavations...There was no penetration of the Mount itself or danger to holy places, but midway in the
tunnel's progress large cracks appeared in one of the residential buildings in the Moslem Quarter, 12 meters above the
excavation. The dig was halted until steel buttresses secured the building." - Abraham Rabinovitch, The Jerusalem Post, September 27, 1996[22]
In 1981, Yehuda Meir Getz, rabbi of the Western Wall, had workmen open the ancient
Warren's Gate, accessing the innards of the Temple Mount itself from the Western Wall
Tunnel. Arabs on the Mount heard excavation noises from one of the more than two dozen cisterns on the Mount. Israeli Government
officials, upon being notified of the unauthorized tunneling, immediately ordered the Warren's Gate resealed. The 2000-year-old
stone gate was filled with cement, and remains cement-shut today.[23]
In 1996, Israel opened up an exit to the tunnel, which led to riots.
Archeologist Leon Pressouyre, a UNESCO envoy who visited the site in 1998 and claims to have
been prevented from meeting Israeli officials (in his own words, "Mr Avi Shoket, Israel's permanent delegate to UNESCO, had
repeatedly opposed my mission and, when I expressed the wish to meet with his successor, Uri Gabay, I was denied an
appointment"[24]), accuses
the Israeli government of culpably neglecting to protect the Islamic period buildings uncovered in Israeli excavations. More
recently, Prof. Oleg Grabar of the Institute for Advanced Study at
Princeton University has replaced Leon Pressouyre as the UNESCO envoy to
investigate the Israeli allegations that antiquities are being destroyed by the Waqf on the Temple Mount.[25] Initially, Grabar was denied
access to the buildings by Israel for over a year, allegedly due to the threat of violence resulting from the al-Aqsa Intifada. His eventual conclusion was that the monuments are deteriorating largely because of
conflicts over who is responsible for them, the Jordanian government, the local Palestinian Authority or the Israeli
government.
In autumn 2002, a bulge of about 700 mm was reported in the southern retaining wall part of the Temple Mount. It was feared
that that part of the wall might seriously deteriorate or even collapse. The Waqf would not permit detailed Israeli inspection
but came to an agreement with Israel that led to a team of Jordanian engineers inspecting the wall in October. They recommended
repair work that involved replacing or resetting most of the stones in the affected area which covers 2,000 square feet (200 m²)
and is located 25 feet (8 m) from the top of the wall. [26] Repairs were completed before January 2004. The restoration of 250 square
meters of wall cost 100,000 Jordanian dinars ($140,000).[27]
On February 11, 2004, the eastern wall of the Temple Mount
was damaged by an earthquake. The damage threatens to topple sections of the wall into the area known as Solomon's Stables.
[28]
On February 16, 2004, a few days after the earthquake, a
portion of a stone retaining wall, supporting the ramp that leads from the Western Wall plaza to the Gate of the Moors on the Temple Mount, collapsed. [29]
Damage to adjoining areas
The southern wall of Temple Mount
In 1967, after the Six Day War, Israel razed the Moroccan Quarter (Harat al-Magharbah) of the Old City,
immediately adjacent to the Temple Mount. Before the demolition the only way to access the Western Wall was through a blind alley
in the quarter. This had long been an area of tension between the residents of the neighborhood and the Jewish Pilgrims. A plaza
was built in front of the Western Wall.
Damage to antiquities
In 1996 the Waqf began construction in the structures known since Crusader times as Solomon's Stables, and in the Eastern Hulda Gate passageway,
allowed the area to be (re)opened as a mosque called the Marwani Musalla (claimed by Israel to be new, by Palestinians to
be restored from pre-Crusader times, having been built by a calif named Marwani, and the Crusaders having turned it into
stables) capable of accommodating 7,000 individuals. Many Israelis regard this as a radical change of the status quo under which
the site had been administered since the Six-Day War which should not have been undertaken
without consulting the Israeli government; Palestinians regard these objections as irrelevant. Though the building was built at
the same time as the Al-Aqsa Mosque, whether the building had been a mosque before Crusader times or not is open to
discussion.
The ongoing construction work taking place atop the Temple Mount.
Tractor on the Temple Mount, December 2006
In 1997, the Western Hulda Gate passageway was converted into another mosque. In
November 1999, a buried Crusader-era door was reopened as an emergency exit for the Mosque located within the Solomon's Stables
area, opening an excavation claimed by Israel to be 18,000 square feet (1,700 m²) in size and up to 36 feet (11 m) deep.
According to The New York Times, an emergency exit had been urged upon the
Waqf by the Israeli police, and its necessity was acknowledged by the Israel
Antiquities Authority[30].
In early 2001, Israeli police said they observed bulldozers destroying an ancient arched structure located adjacent to the
eastern wall of the Temple Mount in the course of construction during which 6,000 square meters of the Temple Mount were dug up
by tractors, paved, and declared to be open air mosques, which is assumed to have intermixed the underlying strata. Some of the
earth and rubble removed was dumped in the El-Azaria and in the Kidron Valleys, and some of it (as of September 2004) remained in
mounds on the site. The excavation and removal of earth with minimal archaeological supervision became an issue of controversy,
with some scholars such as Jon Seligman, Hershel Shanks and Eilat Mazar claiming that valuable history material is being destroyed and others, such as Dan Bahat and
Meir Ben-Dov, disputing this assessment. The Israel Antiquities Authority
(IAA) inspected the material and declared it of no archaeological value[citation needed], but a group called the Committee for the Prevention of Destruction of
Antiquities on the Temple Mount campaigned against this position and in September 2004 obtained a temporary injunction
against the IAA and the Muslim Waqf preventing them from removing the material which still lies in mounds on the site. Both sides
accuse the other of having political motivation.
The Ir David Foundation is currently funding the Israel Antiquities Authority sifting of the rubble [31] and a sampling
of its finds of archaeologically significant items are available on the internet.[32]
Robinson's arch on the south western side: A staircase built by
Herod led to this arch
and to an old Gate to the Temple Mount
Vandalism to the southern wall
On March 30, 2005, the southern wall of the Temple Mount was found to have been the target of vandals. The word
"Allah" in approximately a foot tall Arabic script was
found newly carved into the ancient stones. The vandalism was attributed to a team of Jordanian
engineers and Palestinian laborers in charge of strengthening that section of the wall. The discovery caused outrage among
Israeli archaeologists and many Jews were angered by the graffiti at Judaism’s holiest site. [35]
2007 Waqf excavations
-
In July 2007, the Waqf Muslim religious trust began digging a ditch from the northern side of the Temple Mount compound to the Dome of the Rock as a prelude to infrastructure
work in the area. Although the dig was approved by the police, it generated protests from archaeologists. The Committee for the Prevention of Destruction of
Antiquities on the Temple Mount criticized the use of a tractor for excavation at the
Temple Mount "without real, professional and careful archaeological supervision involving meticulous documentation". [36]
Management of the site
A Muslim Waqf has managed the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif continuously since the Muslim
reconquest of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Since taking control of the area in the
Six-Day War, Israel has permitted the Waqf to retain internal
administration of the site. Under this arrangement Jews and Christians are permitted to visit the site. As a security measure to
prevent Intifada-related riots from destroying the site, however, the Israeli government has agreed to enforce a ban on
non-Muslim prayer on the site. Non-Muslims who are observed praying on the site are subject to expulsion by the police [33]
On 7 June 1967, immediately after the fighting had died down in
Jerusalem, the then Prime Minister, Levi Eshkol, convened the spiritual leaders of all the
communities in Jerusalem and assured them that "no harm whatsoever shall come to the places sacred to all religions", and that
contacts should be maintained in order to make certain that spiritual activities of the religious leaders in the Old City may
continue. He also mentioned that upon his request the Minister of Religious Affairs had issued instructions according to which
arrangements in connection with the Western Wall, Muslim Holy Places and Christian Holy Places should be determined by the Chief
Rabbis of Israel, a council of Muslim clerics and a council of Christian clergy respectively. Together with the extension of
Israeli jurisdiction and administration over east Jerusalem, the Knesset passed the Preservation of the Holy Places Law, 1967,
[34] ensuring protection of the Holy Places against desecration, as well as
freedom of access thereto.—Jerusalem–The Legal and Political Background Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Israel
[35]
According to 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."[36] Shlomo Goren also
entered the Dome of the Rock with a Torah book and the shofar.
[37]
Recent events
Plans for a synagogue
During the Sukkot festival in 2006 Uri Ariel, a member of
the Knesset from the National Union party (a
right wing opposition party) ascended to the mount, [38] and said that he is preparing a plan where a synagogue will be built on the mount.
His suggested synagogue would not be built instead of the mosques but in a separate area in accordance with rulings of 'prominent
rabbis.' He said he believed that this will be correcting a historical injustice and that it is an opportunity for the Muslim
world to prove that it is tolerant to all faiths.
Plans for a new minaret
October 14 2006, it was reported in The Times[37] that there are plans
to build a new minaret, the first of its kind for 600 years, on the Temple Mount. King Abdullah II of Jordan announced a competition to design a fifth minaret for the walls of the
Temple Mount complex, imprinting his Hashemite dynasty on the site. The new addition would,
the King said, “reflect the Islamic significance and sanctity of the mosque”. The scheme is likely to cost £200,000. The plans
are for a seven-sided tower — after the seven-pointed Hashemite star — and at 42 metres (130 ft), it would be 3.5 metres (11 ft)
taller than the next-largest minaret. The minaret will be constructed on the eastern wall of the Temple Mount near
the Golden Gate.
Although Israel has not objected and plans are on track for construction to begin early 2007,[38] a leading Israeli archeologist lambasted the plan. "I am against any change in
the status quo on the Temple Mount", said Bar-Ilan University's Dr. Gabi Barkai, a
member of the Committee for the
Prevention of Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount. "If the status quo is being changed, then it should not just
be the addition of Muslim structures at the site”.
The existing four minarets include three near the Western Wall and one near the northern
wall. The first minaret was constructed on the southwest corner of the Temple Mount in 1278. The second was built in 1297 by
order of a Mameluk king, the third by a governor of Jerusalem in 1329, and the last in 1367.
Mugrabi Gate ramp reconstruction
A view overlooking the Temple Mount. To the right of the
Western Wall, or the Kotel, in the
center of the picture, is the wooden, temporary bridge connecting the Western Wall Plaza to the Mugrabi Gate.
During February 2007 the Israel Antiquities Authority started work on
the construction of a new pedestrian pathway to the Temple Mount. The existing wooden structure was built as a temporary measure
after a landslide in 2005 made the earthen ram
![A drawing of Ezekiel's Visionary Temple from the Book of Ezekiel 40-47[citation needed]](http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/5/5a/180px-Secondtempleplan.jpg)
