[Fred Nerks]

MOSLEM CLAIM TO JERUSALEM RESTS ON WOBBLY VERSE


From Arutz-7 Thursday, Aug. 28, 2003 / Rosh Chodesh Elul 5763


A commentator in the official Egyptian government weekly, of all places,
writes this week that the entire Moslem claim on Jerusalem and El-Aksa is based on a mistaken reading of one chapter of the Quran. Ahmed Mahmad Oufa wrote that the verse that mentions a night journey by Muhammed to a mosque has nothing to do with Jerusalem, as is generally claimed, but with a mosque near the holy Moslem city of Medina.

Prof. Moshe Sharon, Middle Eastern expert in the Hebrew University, expressed
great surprise at the fact that such an article would be published in Arabic and in an Arabic-speaking country. Speaking with Arutz-7 today, he said, "All in all, this is not a new claim. We must remember that Jerusalem is not mentioned at all in the Quran [though it is mentioned hundreds of time in the Bible - ed. note]. The verse in question is in Sura [chapter] 17, which states that Muhammad was brought at night from one mosque to a "more distant" - aktsa, in Arabic - mosque. The first Moslem commentators did not explain this as referring to Jerusalem at all, of course, but rather as a miraculous night journey or night vision or some such.

In the beginning of the 8th century, however, they began associating this with Jerusalem, because they had a need to start giving sanctity to Jerusalem, and so they started connecting this verse with Jerusalem... Originally, however, the Moslems recognized the area of the Dome of the Rock as holy because of the Jewish Temple of King Solomon."

This last point may be borne out, Nissan Ratzlav-Katz notes, by the fact that
the modern Arabic name for Jerusalem, Al-Quds, is adapted from the original
Arabic name for the Temple Mount: Bayt al-Maqdis - or Beit HaMikdash [Hebrew
for Holy Temple].

It should further be noted that the Al Aksa mosque was built on the Temple
Mount 621 years after Mohammed's death.

[muawiyah]

Now, Fred, what does the critical verse in the Koran read if it's interpreted as Syriac-Aramaic and not Classical Arabic?

One of the problems of changing the translation has to do with Nazi "histo-archaeology" that had all the places mentioned in the Koran or the Hadiths located very near Mecca. Intriguingly the Nazis latched on to some interesting aspects of the Arabian peninsula that had been overlooked, but there has been little cooboration of their theories. In the meantime folks have continued with the belief that Mohammad did a special night journey to Jerusalem and from there to Heaven on a horse that left its hoofprint behind on a stone over which Dome of the Rock is constructed.

I suspect Moslems picked up on that particular rock when they discovered the hoof print.

[Iam1ru1-2]

"Ahmed Mahmad Oufa wrote that the verse that mentions a night journey by Muhammed to a mosque has nothing to do with Jerusalem, as is generally claimed"

There wasn't any mosque in Jerusalem during the life of Mohammed, so he couln't have flown to Allah Heaven from there.

[Fred Nerks]

I knew if I looked hard enough I would find a picture somewhere of mad mo riding on his magic winged horse with female breasts and peacock feathers for a tail...