Al Aqsa Mosque

Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem
Overview of the building
Local Name	(Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa)
Contact	31 46 '34 "North 35 14 '08 "East / 31.776111, 35.235556
Country	Israel - and Palestinian Occupied Territories ?
City	Jerusalem
Worship	Islam
Type	Mosque
Construction begins	before 679
Style (s) dominating (s)	Islamic architecture
Protection	World Heritage ( 1981 , Old City of Jerusalem )
Location
Geolocation on the map: Israel
change

The al-Aqsa or al-Aqsa (in Arabic called "Al-Jamaa al-Qibli" Arabic : , the term Arabic : , "most distant" being reserved for the plaza mosques ) is a mosque built in the ^seventh century in Jerusalem (Al Quds). It belongs, with the Dome of the Rock , a set of religious buildings built on the Temple Mount. This is the largest mosque in Jerusalem , where five thousand faithful can pray, the entire site can accommodate hundreds of thousands of people ^{A symbolic location}

The al-Aqsa Mosque is located on a very symbolic place, as it is, according to Jewish tradition, the location of Solomon's temple rebuilt in the ^sixth century BC. BC and enlarged in the ^first century BC. AD by Herod before being destroyed by the Romans in 70. The Wailing Wall shows what happened. The mosque appears to have been built on "the area added to the first century during the reign of Herod to allow construction of a basilica and its royal colonnade stoa the" it takes place on "a Herodian structure shaped Roman basilica classic " .

The art historians assert that during the Christian period, the place was abandoned, probably to mark the triumph of Christianity over the ancient religion . According to them, it is only with the arrival of Islam that the mosque is again used for religious buildings. This is confirmed by the study of Andreas Kaplony on historical sources, which indicate that the Temple Mount, under the Byzantines, had been neglected and it was a place of no architecture, where nature had reasserted itself. According to the study, it appears that the Jews of the city had tried, under Julian the Apostate (reigned 361-363) later during the occupation of the city Sassanid (614 - 628) of rebuilding a temple, in vain . Some guidebooks say, following a recurrent opinion in the literature of the nineteenth ^century, a church had been established at this site in 530 by Emperor Justinian .

Muslim tradition, from the mid- ^eighth century about Jerusalem and combines the Temple Mount to the Masjid al-Aqsa, that during the Isra and Miraj , Muhammad would have been following his night journey from Mecca , and from which he set out to climb to the seventh heaven, as indicated by the Koran (17, 1): "Glory to Him who by night," said his traveling servant Mohammed, the Al-Haram the Al-Aqsa Mosque which We have blessed around to show him some of Our Signs. It is he, really, who is the Hearer, the Seer. "The word masjid al-Aqsa was thus the oldest name given to the Temple Mount as a whole, before the meaning is not restricted solely to the mosque . Rather to the Dome of the Rock mosque than to itself as focused tradition of Miraj, the word masjid means not only the mosque as architecture but also all the holy place .

Some have suggested that the "Al Aqsa" beautiful and well appointed and include in the Koran was not that of Jerusalem, it would thus be a historic mistake Koran, because the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad, who died in 632, the mosque did not exist and had not yet been built before the conquest of Jerusalem by Omar in 638. Thesis found in the article by Ahmed Mohammed Arafa, a columnist for the Egyptian weekly Al-Qahira (August 5, 2003) . The author argues that contrary to what the surah, called "the Night Journey," this would be done in the emigration of Muhammad ( Hijra ) from Mecca to Medina. The latter had turned out well to pray to Aelia (Jerusalem), City of Jewish culture, but Jerusalem has not yet been conquered by Muslims. Indeed, Muhammad lost his battle against the Byzantines in 629, also known as Romans, about his march to the capture of Jerusalem to the east of the Jordan. And Sura 30, verse 1 to 5 of the Quran, actually keeps the memory of the encouragement given to the vanquished. He would turn away from this direction for prayer (qibla) to move towards the mosque of Medina, "the farthest" (Al Aqsa wrongly) is that of Al Haram in Mecca. The change in the direction of the qibla from Jerusalem to Mecca by Muhammad is indeed well attested in the Hadith , but nothing a priori is not related to the Masjid al-Haram in the Quran, nor does anything that it is Jerusalem, this tradition appears in the sources ⁱⁿ the eighth century only given a right of ownership over Jerusalem and Divine housekeeper. This would be for political purposes only much later the caliph Abd al-Malik built a new mosque in Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock, as a new shrine in order to divert the people of Mecca pilgrims then dominated by the rival Al-Zubayr ibn Marwan. This idea of a diversion of pilgrimage, supported by sources from ^the ninth century Abbasid hostile to the dynasty ommeyyade, was invalidated by most researchers .

The al-Aqsa mosque, the mosque as a whole, is oriented north-northwest south-southeast, that is to say exactly in the direction of Mecca . ^{The various phases of construction}

Arculf gives us a description of the place, between 679 and 688: "In place of the Temple, near the east wall, the Saracens attend a house of prayer square, built rudimentary, beams and planks. This house can accommodate three thousand men at the same time . "It's probably on the spur of the caliph Abd al-Malik (685-705), builder of the Dome of the Rock , or his son al-Walid I (705-715) built the first mosque that is hard . If we are to believe the historian al-Muqaddasi , the caliph would have liked this reconstruction to avoid the contrast between the mosque and the Dome.

According to Myriam Rosen Ayalon, the first phase was very different from the present construction, since it was a plan with three naves parallel to the qibla , as the great Umayyad mosque of Damascus a few years later . At that time the mosque was to be directly connected to the city palace, the Dar al-Imarat (discovered in the 1970s) by an archway behind the main mihrab. An earthquake almost completely destroyed the 748.

Under the Abbasid dynasty , the aisles of the mosque change orientation. With the construction of al-Mahdien in 780 , fifteen bays perpendicular to the mihrab up the place of prayer, including a magnified center. An earthquake in 1033 , the destroyed again. The mosque, once again, rebuilt. Jerusalem was taken during the Crusades in 1099 , the mosque was not destroyed, but serves as a palace called "temple of Solomon," and in 1119 it became the headquarters of the Order of the Temple.

Following the Muslim reconquest of the city in 1187 , a final reconstruction, from 1217 to 1218, giving the building its present: a central nave, surmounted by a dome and lined both sides of three bays. Remains of old as the qibla wall, still preserved in the centuries since the wall already reusing pre-Islamic south of the Temple Mount.

Modern Era

Between 1969 and 1983, the dome of the al-Aqsa was covered by aluminum anodization , which gave it a silvery appearance. In 1983, it regained its original coating of lead, dark gray.

dome covered with aluminum in 1982

Current lead lining, original dark gray

Al-Aqsa mosque

The setting of carved wood

The carved wooden ceiling of the building probably dating from the Umayyad period. They therefore constitute one of the only evidence of the art of wood at that time with those of Khirbat al-Mafjar. Composed of units treated plants with naturalism, they remind including mosaics surrounding the Dome of the Rock, and sculptures Castle Mshatta.

The wood carvings were involved probably a much larger scene, with mosaics and marble, as we still see the Dome of the Rock or Damascus. Nevertheless, they have not been preserved.

The current tensions

The al-Aqsa mosque between 1890 and 1900

On 21 August 1969, a Christian Australian Michael Denis Rohan, set fire to the building to make way for the third temple. Damage, important, could be repaired.

The Wailing Wall , the holiest site of Judaism, part of the wall of the mosque, this relatively small area of Jerusalem can be a source of tension between communities. Israel allows access to the mosque to non-Muslims, only to married men and women respectively aged 50 and 45 years, access to Muslim (s) of any age is allowed, but may be limited by the Israeli authorities in cases where other tensions.

The al-Aqsa mosque, like the rest of the Old City of Jerusalem is under Israeli control since 1967. The management of the entire Temple Mount is entrusted to a Waqf , the Islamic religious foundation, controlled by Jordan. In the Wadi Araba agreement , Israel has confirmed it in its functions and ensures that Jordan's role as guarantor of the privileged Muslim shrines in future peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine.

Controversy

Since the first excavation of 1938 conducted by the American Edward Robinson, several other excavations have taken place in the south and southwest of the Temple Mount but never under the Temple Mount where the Al-Aqsa Mosque ^, . However, the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) said that they threaten its foundations.

References

Old City of Jerusalem
Jewish Quarter	Western Wall Hurva Synagogue Four Sephardi Synagogues	Neighborhood Christian Neighborhood Jewish Neighborhood Armenian Neighborhood Muslim Mount of Temple
Muslim Quarter	Church of St. Anne Zedekiah Caves Pool of Bethesda
Christian Quarter	Church of Holy Sepulcher
Armenian Quarter	Cathedral Saint-Jacques Tower of David
Temple Mount	Temple of Jerusalem ( 1 2 Temple of Herod ) Temple Mount ( Dome of the Rock Mosque al-Aqsa)
Doors (Designated by numbers on map)	1. New Gate 2. Damascus Gate 3. Herod's Gate 4. Lions Gate 5. Golden Gate 6. Dung Gate 7. Zion Gate 8. Jaffa Gate

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