Posted on 12/04/2005 6:58:07 PM PST by SJackson
Three faiths have claimed ownership over Jerusalem. Plain ancient history favors Jewish ownership over the holy city. Christians claimed control of it at various moments in history, but no sound theological or historical claim can or should be made for ownership. Yet many Muslims today claim Jerusalem as theirs. Islam’s claim on Jerusalem can be questioned because of two dubious reasons and because these shaky reasons come too late in history.
In AD 630, Muhammad led an army of about 30,000 jihadists northward to fight the Byzantines. He stopped in Tabuk, in northern Saudi Arabia today, but in the seventh century it sat in a kind of no-man’s land, where northern Arab tribes lived. He had heard a rumor that the Byzantines had assembled a massive army, but the rumor was false because they never showed up. Yet, the Prophet’s northward march must have deeply impressed the northern tribes. He was able to extract agreements from them, saying, in effect, that they would be safe from aggression (read: aggression from Muhammad himself) if they paid a tax for the “privilege” of living under his “protection.”
It is impossible to exaggerate the influence of the Tabuk Crusade as precedent. Muhammad showed his followers how to deal with peoples that Muslim armies confronted after his death (Sura 9:29).
(1) The attacked region or city may fight and die;
(2) they may become Muslims and pay a forced charity tax, the zakat; or
(3) the Jews and Christians may keep their faith and pay a jizya tax. There was little hope for polytheists and their religious “freedom” under Islam.
Muhammad died of a fever in 632. Later Muslims learned well from the example of their founder. In 634, Muslim armies stormed out of the Arabian Peninsula and began the conquest of Palestine (and other regions). In 638, Muslims conquered Jerusalem. Fifty years later, in 688, they began the construction of the Dome of the Rock. In 692, they finished the building project.
Various armies have fought over Jerusalem, but surprisingly, it has been Muslim armies and self-proclaimed leaders of Islam who have battled each other over the city (and Palestine) more often than non-Muslims. For example, Moshe Gil in A History of Palestine: 634-1099 says that the Fatimids, a North African Shi’ite dynasty named after Muhammad’s daughter because the rulers claimed descent from her, invaded Palestine in 970 and destroyed it after a century of unceasing war, especially devastating its Jewish population.
The Fatimid army… turned toward Palestine…. Theoretically, this was the outset of about a century of Fatimid rule in Palestine. In fact, the Fatimids were compelled to join battle with not a few of the enemies who stood in their way: the Arabs… the Qarmatis; a Turkish army… Arab tribes in Syria… and in the background the Byzantines were lurking …. [A]ll in all, it was an almost unceasing war which destroyed Palestine, and especially its Jewish population, even before the Crusaders’ eventuality. (p. 336)
To take other examples, in 1071, the Turks besieged Jerusalem, which surrendered in 1073. Thus, Jerusalem came under the control of the Sunnis and out from under the Shi’ite Fatimids. Next, the European Crusaders conquered Jerusalem in 1099, but then in 1187 Saladin took it back.
But how strong is a militant claim? What happens when a more powerful army claims Jerusalem, as the Jews did in 1967 in response to Arab aggression? A military foundation is strong only for a moment. So what are the right reasons for owning a city or land?
Taking a step back to view the big picture clarifies matters. If Islam had not stormed out of the Arabian Peninsula after Muhammad’s death to wage wars of conquest, then no trouble would have emerged. But Islam is imperialistic and is bent on world domination.[1] Aside from following Muhammad’s warpath that culminated in the Tabuk Crusade and engaging in sheer conquest, why else do Muslims assert their ownership over Jerusalem?
It is a fact that Muhammad never entered Jerusalem in a down-to-earth way, with boots on the ground, as it were. It is also a fact that the Quran never mentions Jerusalem once.
However, according to the prolific Muslim scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr, professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University, Muhammad transformed Jerusalem into a holy site for Muslims in three primary ways (“The Spiritual Significance of Jerusalem: The Islamic Vision. The Islamic Quarterly. 4 (1998): pp.233-242).
First, while in Mecca the Prophet used Jerusalem as his first qiblah (prayer direction); then, after Muhammad emigrated from Mecca to Medina, Allah permitted his prophet to turn towards Mecca in prayer (Sura 2:144, 149-150). For Nasr, this permission therefore provides a “mystical” link between Mecca and Jerusalem.
Second, while Muhammad was still living in Mecca, he reports that he took a Night Journey to a farther location in a vision, even though Jerusalem is never mentioned by name. According to MAS Abdel Haleem’s translation for Oxford University Press (2004), the two passages in the sura (or chapter), itself entitled Night Journey, read:
17:1 Glory to Him who made His servant travel by night from the sacred place of worship [Mecca] to the furthest place of worship [Jerusalem], whose surroundings We have blessed, to show him some of Our signs….17:59 ... We send signs only to give warning. 60 Prophet, We have told you that your Lord knows all human beings. The vision We showed you was only a test for people….
This non-empirical revelation contains two basic ideas: First, as the context around verses 59 and 60 shows, Muhammad was undergoing some persecution in Mecca; the polytheists were asking for a sign of Muhammad’s prophethood. He replies that he is only an ordinary man, so he cannot perform them. The only sign Allah gives him is a vision. Second, this revelation parallels the one in 2:144, which permits Muhammad to take over the Kabah shrine before he actually does. The two passages are mutually supportive. Sura 17:1 reads: “...whose surroundings We have blessed”...Allah blesses the location (Jerusalem, though the Quran never says this), as He will bless Mecca a few years later. It should be noted that later tradition says that while in Jerusalem Muhammad was taken up to the seventh heaven from the Temple Mount, giving the vision extra significance for Muslims today.
This is why the al-Aqsa or “farthest” Mosque has been built on top of the Jewish Temple – not near the Temple. But is a non-historical revelation that does not mention Jerusalem by name sufficient justification for building the prime symbol of Islamic imperialism on the most significant Jewish holy site?
The third factor, says Nasr, is the Muslim belief in the Second Coming of Christ to Jerusalem. Therefore the city is sacred to Muslims and to Christians—according to Nasr. But this is misleading, for Muslim theology says that Jesus will return as a leader of Muslims and break the cross to show how wrong Christians have been, in following their Lord (Bukhari here, here and here; and Muslim no. 289). Also, these hadiths say nothing about Jerusalem. Rather, traditional belief says that he is supposed to return to Damascus, as this Islamic website asserts.
The political implications of these three non-empirical factors (the qiblah, the Night Vision, and the Second Coming) are enormous: For Muslims, they justify, even require ownership over Jerusalem. With these three factors combined, Jerusalem is now the third holiest site for Muslims and therefore a place of pilgrimage and alleged ownership.
According to this dubious epistemology (a term that means the study of how we acquire our knowledge), revelation takes priority over historical facts; indeed, revelation makes or creates history. Even Nasr accepts this disembodied, ephemeral epistemology:
Not all the Palestinians nor all the Arabs nor even all the over one billion two hundred million Muslims now living in the world could give Jerusalem away for no matter what amount of wealth, power, land, or any other worldly compensation. The attachment to Jerusalem is permanent and will last as long as human history itself. (p. 234)
His inference makes three controversial claims.
First, the words “Muslims living all over the world now living could not give Jerusalem away” assume that Jerusalem is in fact naturally be owned by the Muslims. Nasr is following the path or sunna of Muhammad, as the Prophet claimed Mecca before he actually owned it.
Second, those same words assume that “Muslims living all over the world” actually worry about Jerusalem and who controls it. However, more evidence of this worry needs to be offered. Do the millions in Indonesia or Malaysia, for example, care about not giving it away for any “amount of wealth, power, and, or any other worldly compensation.” Nasr speaks for too many people.
Third, Nasr brings up “human history” in the last sentence, but it is precisely this element that is missing in his three factors. Jerusalem is sacred to Muslims supposedly all over the world mainly due to non-empirical revelations that not everyone agrees on and that cannot be verified in history. And military conquest, which is embedded in history, is fleeting because another army may take over.
Accordingly, Waleed El-Ansary draws this outlandish conclusion about Jerusalem:
Perhaps the only ways to achieve peace in the Middle East would be for Jerusalem to be depoliticized. It should not be a political capital of either Israel or Palestine, but be given a unique status as a spiritually sovereign entity under a theocracy of the traditional representatives of the Abrahamic religions . . . . (“The Economics of Terrorism,” in Islam, Fundamentalism, and the Betrayal of Tradition, ed. J.E.B Lumbard, Bloomington: World Wisdom, 2004, p. 216).
However noble and lofty his conclusion may sound, it has never crossed my mind, as a Christian, that Jews should relinquish control of Jerusalem and let a representative theocracy rule over it. Why not?
A Christian perspective on Jerusalem
No evidence shows Jesus transforming Jerusalem (or any other city) into a holy site, and certainly not in the way Muhammad did to Mecca in AD 630—by the sword—nor did Jesus institute a required pilgrimage to a holy site.
It is true that Jesus wept over Jerusalem because as a whole she did not accept his comfort (Luke 19:38-44); and that he cleansed the Temple there with a whip (Luke 19:45-46), but he did this by himself, which shows he was making only a theological statement, not a military one. If his intentions were military, then he had enough disciples and crowds to call them to a holy war to try to conquer Jerusalem. It is also true that he foretold her destruction (Luke 21:20); that he instituted the first Eucharist there (Luke 22:7-23); that he died there (Luke 23:26-49); and that he was resurrected there (Luke 24:1-12).
All of these events are historically and empirically verifiable, as opposed to non-empirical revelations. Despite all of these events that are rooted in earth and not floating in the air, Jesus never once turned Jerusalem or declared that it should belong forever to his followers, the Christians.
Thus, Nasr misses the mark widely when he writes:
... [B]y virtue of accepting Christianity, Christians are duty bound to have a special attachment to Jerusalem as did their forefathers who even fought bloody wars known as the Crusades for over a century with the declared intention of regaining control of the holy city, who oriented their churches in Europe in its direction and who have made pilgrimage to the holy city during the past two millennia. (p. 234)
The key words are “duty bound.” Why does Nasr impose that duty? Bloody wars? Oriented European Medieval churches? Free-will pilgrimages? These are not nearly sufficient for the average Evangelical Christian anywhere in the world. It is difficult to imagine that Thai or Korean evangelicals, for example, ever feel duty bound for those reasons, and certainly not for non-existent New Testament reasons. Most American Christians do not feel duty bound.
It is one thing for a devout Christian to follow his heart on a personal pilgrimage to Jerusalem in order to derive spiritual benefit, but it is quite another to follow one’s alleged bound duty or command to go on one and to insist that Jerusalem should come under the political control of Christians, especially to the point of bloodshed.
And as to the Christian doctrine of the Second Coming (Nasr’s third factor in the previous section), Christians believe that Christ will return when the Father pleases. Whoever is squabbling over Jerusalem at that time will have to submit to his reign. True, professional Bible prophecy teachers believe that the Bible teaches Jews own Jerusalem, but they do so for a simpler reason than reading current events and matching them up with the Bible.
American Evangelicals, including Bible prophecy teachers, are faced with two grounds of epistemology on which to make some choices: (1) history, which says that the Jews own Jerusalem; (2) the non-evidence in the New Testament that says Christians should own Jerusalem. What later followers like the Crusaders did is another matter, for they do not set the genetic code for Christianity; only Christ and the New Testament authors do.
The vast majority of Evangelicals in America choose the first epistemological option simply because the Bible and history outside the Bible agree that Jews have lived there long before Christians and Muslims arrived on the scene.
It is true that King David took Jerusalem to unite the nation religiously (2 Samuel 5:1-9; 1 Chronicles 11:1-9), but what happened when the great empires marched over little Israel as a footpath when they were waging war on each other and other opponents? Assyria, Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, Romans, and Byzantines treated Israel as a side issue on the world stage, as they fought for global domination. In all that time, Jews remained in the land, and for a short while under Roman occupation the Jews were exiled from Jerusalem. But back they came. Why do not the northern Iraqis (ancient Assyrians) wish to immigrate to Israel today, in order to “reclaim” an ancient land? Why do not the Egyptians today immigrate to Israel? Why not southern Iraqis (ancient Babylonians)? Greeks? Italians? During all the long history of the holy city and land, Jews alone returned, while others remained—the remnant. If any people have a “mystical” claim on Jerusalem, it is Jews. Clear and simple history favors them, which is always easier to analyze and quantify than mysticism.
After an assortment of Islamic dynasties fought with each other and the Byzantines, eventually Israel became a mere outlying province (not an independent state or nation) of Turkey for centuries, until the Ottomans fought on the wrong side in World War I. They forfeited their ownership to the victors—Great Britain, in this case. Then in 1948 the ancient land of Israel became an independent Jewish nation with UN approval, thus restoring the land to its historical owners. Again Jews returned to their land and city, though some never left—the remnant.
However, even though Muhammad never set foot in Jerusalem in a verifiable way and even though the Quran never mentions this city by name, Christians and Jews should respect later Islamic revelation—respecting is different from agreeing on it—that says Jerusalem is a place of pilgrimage for Muslims. Fulfilling a pledge to take a non-violent pilgrimage to the Jewish sacred city harms no one materially or politically.
Muslims should understand why Bible-educated and Bible-believing Christians claim that the ownership of Jerusalem belongs to Jews. History trumps revelation, which is always better epistemologically when a revelation and its inferences can become politically charged and are not believed by everyone. Conclusion
Islam’s militant and mystical claim on Jerusalem falls short. This religion comes too late in history to assert ownership over the sacred city. Military victories are fleeting, so they are insufficient by themselves. And non-empirical revelations that lay claim over a city, but never mention the city by name, are also shaky and suspect—and they would be such even if they did name the city. Muhammad never set foot in Jerusalem in a down-to-earth way. Revelations should not trump verifiable and ancient historical facts. So Islam is on the wrong side of history.
As for New Testament Christianity, even though Jesus did indeed walk through Jerusalem in a down-to-earth way and was himself a Jew, we Christians are looking for a New Jerusalem in heaven (Revelation 21), instead of an earthly Jerusalem. We are on a pilgrimage to the City of God (as Augustine calls it), not to a mundane city. Therefore, it is not hard for us, following Jesus, to let plain ole history take priority over earth-bound and geopolitical “revelations.”
Christianity and Islam—two latecomers on the world stage—should therefore back off from any claim over Jerusalem (and the holy land, for that matter). Longstanding history does not favor them.
However, unvarnished, unembellished history says that Jews should be able to live in and govern their holy city in peace.
This article has a companion piece that may be read here.
[1] For a timeline of the Islamic Crusades and for explanations on why Muslims launched their Crusades in the first place and on why people converted to this late religion, go to this article.
Phooey!
It might have been even more interesting, had the author of the posted piece mentioned Ezekiel, chapters 36-45. ...especially 44 and 45. Even the offshoots of the Alexandrian text (the 70, the Septuagint) agree as to who Jerusalem belongs to, noting that the "son of man" spoken to in that case was Ezekiel.
Sounds like something straight out of the "Sopranos"
bookmark
And the Jewish "claim" pre-dates the Islamofacists. Does this justify the fact? This is Jewish territory plain and simple. If the Muslim faith wishes to claim it as a holy site then, as they always have, the Jewish people will allow free access to these sites for the Muslim pilgrims to make the journey. Give the Islamofacists control and any other religion that attempts to make a pilgrimmage there will be taxed and/or persecuted. Or maybe they'll just start tearing down the JEwish temples to build over them and re-write history again.
"You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!"
OK, first I hate Islamazis because they are a threat to humanity...in all the current world conflicts, 90% are Islamazis doing what Islamazi do best...slaughter and kill in Allah (MHNBC!)'a name! Funny that for a religion of "peace", there's a lot of blood flowing in it's name!
Second, as to your garbage "equivalency" crap...try this...
Amazing discovery in heart of biblical Jerusalem
"In what many archaeologists hail as the potential find of the century, remains of a massive structure dating to the time of King David have been discovered in the heart of biblical Jerusalem."
So, all that you and your Islamazi brethren have lied about and denied comes back to smack you in the face. Your "Islamazi" claim on Jerusalem as a "holy place" that was NEVER vistied/used/claimed/THOUGHT OF by Muhammed (MHNBC!) is as valid as Hitler's claim on the Sudetenland!
Israel IS Jewish homeland...it was NEVER the home of the bedouin, camel-humping bandits that later became the "PaleSimians" thanks to the Romans...(so I guess Rome was asn Islamazi holy site too?) it is the home of David....Solomon, and is the very heart of Judaism and Christianity....so, naturally the Islamazis have to squat on it and claim it theirs to deny others what is rightfully owned!
Give it up....your "boys" started World War III or IV (depending on your point of view) on 9/11/01....time to face the facts that al-Taqiyya don't FLY anymore!
Gloves are off, and I know who is my enemy, and how they operate....as do all those willing to take off the blinders.
the Jewish "claim" pre-dates the Islamofacists. Does this justify the fact?
+___There is a valid Jewish claim, of course. No dispute about that.
But the timeline can't be used as the sole basis. After all, the land once belonged to non-Jewish tribes...such as the Canaanites...and for most of the last 2000 years, it was under Arab domination.
This is Jewish territory plain and simple. If the Muslim faith wishes to claim it as a holy site then, as they always have, the Jewish people will allow free access to these sites for the Muslim pilgrims to make the journey. Give the Islamofacists control
____No one is advocating "control." But the UN once designated Jerusalem as an international city...and the UN was correct then..now it is firmly Israeli and that is permanent, but a opiece of Arab Jerusalem might be allowed as a symbolic capital for a Palestinian state.
and any other religion that attempts to make a pilgrimmage there will be taxed and/or persecuted. Or maybe they'll just start tearing down the JEwish temples to build over them and re-write history again
_____This is pure paranoia.
Really?
When Arabs had control 1948-1967, Jews weren't allowed anywhere near the Western Wall. It was made a garbage dunp.
Not to mention the desecration to any and every other Jewish holy site and cemetery under Arab control.
_____This is pure paranoia.
Really?
When Arabs had control 1948-1967, Jews weren't allowed anywhere near the Western Wall. It was made a garbage dunp.
____Because the Arabs are not ever going to get that sort of control again. Giving them a shred of the Arab section of Jerusalem is not going to threaten the holy sites.
So Islam claims Jerusalem; whatever Islam is, it sure isn't a country that has the ability to claim any territory. China has claimed the entire planet, at least China is a country. The US, Russia, and Great Britain have claimed the entire universe. Jerusalem wouldn't be as big in any mystical mind as the whole world is, not to mention the whole universe, which, BTW, include Jerusalem. Sure we can go swedenborgian on this, but nobody would listen.
History- and common sense- calls you a liar.
Bushbacker
History- and common sense- calls you a liar.
_+__Usual vituperation. Glad Sharon and Peres and Bush aren't
listening to such as you.
Yeah.
Several dead Israelis today must be glad too. And so too their families. And all decent people.
The Muslims used to charge a tax for non-believers', not to mention the abuses suffered by those who didn't convert. Their own histories have documented the fact (al Qatb, I believe). To say nothing of their treatment of the greenhouses and the synagogues left in Gaza.
Several dead Israelis today must be glad too. And so too their families. And all decent people.
____The usual "Agree-with-me-about-Israel-or-you're-in-favor-of-dead-Israelis.
Very low-down...and anyway, what does this all have to do with American conservatism?
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