How many times is Jerusalem mentioned in the Old Testament compared to the Koran?

Answer 1

800 times in the Old Testament while the Koran refers to Jerusalem many times (I have not counted exactly), but without mentioning it's name.

This is standard for the Koran. For example, Muhammad is mentioned in the Koran only one time by name, only once and yet there are many references to Muhammad in the Koran without mentioning his name. The same is true for Jerusalem whereby the stories of Solomon in the Koran (Solomon is mentioned in the Koran over 20 times) mention the building of the temple; the stories of Moses and the Exodus (Moses is mentioned over 160 times) refer to finding the holy land; the Kingdom of David (David is mentioned 17 times); the mount of olives (in east Jerusalem) is sworn by in the quran; Also the farthest house of worship (the temple in Jerusalem) is mentioned several times, in one instance to explain why Muslims should no longer face towards Jerusalem in Prayer.

The most mentioned (explicitly) place name in the Koran is "Egypt" (mentioned by name four times; more than Mecca which is mentioned by name only once), but this does not mean Egypt is holy in Islam or diminishes Mecca and Jerusalem's place in Islam one iota.

The question called for a comparison. Giving one side of the answer doesn't clarify the question. the following answer although not mine seems to both answer and clarify the question.

(Reuters) - Beset by questions about Jerusalem's future in talks with the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached for The Bible on Wednesday to stake out the Jewish state's contested claim on the city.

Netanyahu told a parliamentary session commemorating Israel's capture of East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 war that "Jerusalem" and its alternative Hebrew name "Zion" appear 850 times in the Old Testament, Judaism's core canon.

"As to how many times Jerusalem is mentioned in the holy scriptures of other faiths, I recommend you check," he said.

Citing such ancestry, Israel calls all of Jerusalem its "eternal and indivisible" capital -- a designation not recognized abroad, where many powers support Arab claims to East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

The dispute is further inflamed by the fact East Jerusalem houses al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third-holiest shrine, on a plaza that Jews revere as the vestige of two biblical Jewish temples.

Heckled by a lawmaker from Israel's Arab minority, Netanyahu offered a lesson in comparative religion from the lectern.

"Because you asked: Jerusalem is mentioned 142 times in the New Testament, and none of the 16 various Arabic names for Jerusalem is mentioned in the Koran. But in an expanded interpretation of the Koran from the 12th century, one passage is said to refer to Jerusalem," he said.

Responding to Netanyahu's citations, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said: "I find it very distasteful, this use of religion to incite hatred and fear. East Jerusalem is an occupied Palestinian town, and East Jerusalem cannot continue to be occupied if there is to be peace."

MANY RULERS

Destroyed as a Jewish capital by the Romans in the 1st century AD, Jerusalem was a Christian city under their Byzantine successors before falling to Muslim Arabs in the 7th. European Crusaders regained it for a century, after which came 700 years of Muslim rule until Britain defeated the Ottoman Turks in 1917.

As Britain prepared to quit, the United Nations proposed international rule for the city in 1947 as a "corpus separatum."

That proposal was overtaken by fighting that left Israel holding West Jerusalem in 1948 and Jordanian forces in East Jerusalem. Israel then took the rest in the Six Day War of 1967.

The city, within boundaries defined by Israel but not recognized internationally, is now home to 750,000 people, two in three of them Jews and the rest mostly Muslim Palestinians.

Netanyahu did not refer in his speech to indirect peace negotiations with the Palestinians that resumed this month after 1-1/2 years of U.S. trouble-shooting. Diplomacy has been mired by mutual recrimination, including from Israel over the Palestinian refusal to formally recognize it as a Jewish state.

This has ossified into diehard hostility among Palestinians aligned with Islamist Hamas, while those more inclined toward peacemaking accuse Israel of sabotaging prospects by treating occupied land as a Jewish birthright that can be freely seized.

Netanyahu said Israel would retain control over all of Jerusalem while ensuring freedom of worship at its holy sites.

Such assertions are challenged by Palestinians given that Israel, over the last decade of fighting, has often limited their access to al-Aqsa. Christians in the adjacent West Bank complain of similar difficulties in reaching Jerusalem churches.

"There is no undercutting, nor do I intend to undercut, the connection of others to Jerusalem," Netanyahu said.

"But I do confront the attempt to undercut and warp or obfuscate the unique connection that we, the people of Israel, have to the capital of Israel."

(Reuters) - Beset by questions about Jerusalem's future in talks with the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached for the Bible on Wednesday to stake out the Jewish state's contested claim on the city.

Netanyahu told a parliamentary session commemorating Israel's capture of East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 war that "Jerusalem" and its alternative Hebrew name "Zion" appear 850 times in the Old Testament, Judaism's core canon.

"As to how many times Jerusalem is mentioned in the holy scriptures of other faiths, I recommend you check," he said.

Citing such ancestry, Israel calls all of Jerusalem its "eternal and indivisible" capital -- a designation not recognized abroad, where many powers support Arab claims to East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

The dispute is further inflamed by the fact East Jerusalem houses al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third-holiest shrine, on a plaza that Jews revere as the vestige of two biblical Jewish temples.

Heckled by a lawmaker from Israel's Arab minority, Netanyahu offered a lesson in comparative religion from the lectern.

"Because you asked: Jerusalem is mentioned 142 times in the New Testament, and none of the 16 various Arabic names for Jerusalem is mentioned in the Koran. But in an expanded interpretation of the Koran from the 12th century, one passage is said to refer to Jerusalem," he said.

Responding to Netanyahu's citations, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said: "I find it very distasteful, this use of religion to incite hatred and fear. East Jerusalem is an occupied Palestinian town, and East Jerusalem cannot continue to be occupied if there is to be peace."

MANY RULERS

Destroyed as a Jewish capital by the Romans in the 1st century AD, Jerusalem was a Christian city under their Byzantine successors before falling to Muslim Arabs in the 7th. European Crusaders regained it for a century, after which came 700 years of Muslim rule until Britain defeated the Ottoman Turks in 1917.

As Britain prepared to quit, the United Nations proposed international rule for the city in 1947 as a "corpus separatum."

That proposal was overtaken by fighting that left Israel holding West Jerusalem in 1948 and Jordanian forces in East Jerusalem. Israel then took the rest in the Six Day War of 1967.

The city, within boundaries defined by Israel but not recognized internationally, is now home to 750,000 people, two in three of them Jews and the rest mostly Muslim Palestinians.

Netanyahu did not refer in his speech to indirect peace negotiations with the Palestinians that resumed this month after 1-1/2 years of U.S. trouble-shooting. Diplomacy has been mired by mutual recrimination, including from Israel over the Palestinian refusal to formally recognize it as a Jewish state.

This has ossified into diehard hostility among Palestinians aligned with Islamist Hamas, while those more inclined toward peacemaking accuse Israel of sabotaging prospects by treating occupied land as a Jewish birthright that can be freely seized.

Netanyahu said Israel would retain control over all of Jerusalem while ensuring freedom of worship at its holy sites.

Such assertions are challenged by Palestinians given that Israel, over the last decade of fighting, has often limited their access to al-Aqsa. Christians in the adjacent West Bank complain of similar difficulties in reaching Jerusalem churches.

"There is no undercutting, nor do I intend to undercut, the connection of others to Jerusalem," Netanyahu said.

"But I do confront the attempt to undercut and warp or obfuscate the unique connection that we, the people of Israel, have to the capital of Israel."

Answer 2

Mohammed never made it to Jerusalem, and the word "Jerusalem" appears nowhere in the Koran.

The Jewish claim to the Holy Land is much older then that of our Arab cousins. It has been our homeland for 3,000 years, and until the first Arab invaders arrived in the 700s, no descendants of Ishmael ever claimed any part of the land for themselves. Islam was established only 1300 years ago, more then 1700 years AFTER Jews made Jerusalem their capital! The Land of Israel is mentioned many hundreds of times in the Torah by its names "Canaan" and/or "Israel"; other names such as Zion are many many times more. The city of Jerusalem is mentioned 622 times in the Torah by its name Jerusalem and is referred to thousands of times by other names. The land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem are NEVER mentioned in the Quran, the book held holiest by Ishmael's descendants-not as "Palestine," not as "Israel" and not by ANY other name!

Source(s):

Answer 3

Zero.