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Al Aqsa was built over the ruins of a Byzantine church ~ which had been destroyed by the pagan Sassanids well before the arrival of any Moslems. Most sources credit the Meccan Arabs with reducing Sassanid power in the region.

There's quite a bit of history at Temple Mount between the Roman sack of Jerusalem in 70 AD and the construction of the far later Islamic structures.

Wiki says, kinda sorta, "..... the Sassanid Empire encompassed all of today's Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, eastern Syria, the Caucasus (Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Dagestan), southwestern Central Asia, part of Turkey, certain coastal parts of the Arabian Peninsula, the Persian Gulf area, and some areas of Balochistan (Pakistan). ......." which means it was a really big deal back in the day!

We are dealing with an enormous chunk of history ~ 4X the amount between ourselves and the arrival of John Cabot who discovered North America.

There is no clear cut link between the creation of the Eastern Roman Empire and the rise of the Arabs in the 7th and 8th centuries ~ the Sassanids OWNED the territory and did their own stuff or a good 400 years ~ double the history of the USA itself!

Historically speaking the Arabs barely got things off the ground and they were displaced entirely BY THE SELJUK TURKS! Various Mongol groups were involved in various places for several hundred years, and finally, at the end of WWI the Western powers chopped up the Ottoman Empire ~ and for a variety of reasons decided to liberate the Arabs ~ a people who hadn't had a country for nearly 1,000 years!

You are correct about the history of the Temple Mount. As a reprisal against the Jewish revolt that began in 67AD, Titus (Roman) destroyed the ciy and temple. Other than the Bar Kokhba (Jewish) revolt, it remained in Roman, then Byzantine (Eastern Roman Empire) control until the Sassanids (Persians) besieged the city in 614. The Byzantines recaptured Jerusalem in 629 but lost it to the Muslims (Arabs) in 637. Their Dome of the Rock was completed in 691, an attempt to out do the Christian churches. The al-Aqsa mosque was built slightly later, using among other things, stone from the Church of Our Lady, destroyed by the Sassanids.

It is interesting to speculate what might have happened if the Great Schism of 1054 could have been avoided or quickly healed. Would the Christians have been able to re-capture and hold the Holy Land? Would Turkey and much of the Middle East still be Christian? Interesting questions.

History just proves the greed in men's hearts and our need for a Saviour.