Before and After The Prophet

The message of Muhammad (PBUH) only continues and perfects the messages of Ibrahim , Musa , and ‘Isa, which had been corrupted over time. Thus, for Muslims, the Temple of Solomon that was built Jerusalem’s Temple Mount in ancient times was in fact part of their own religious history.

With this mindset, when Muslims conquered the city of Jerusalem in 637 during the caliphate of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, they sought to resurrect Jerusalem as a place of worship. The ancient temple of Jerusalem had been rebuilt numerous times, most recently by Herod around 20 BCE. By 70 CE, however, the Romans destroyed the temple after a Jewish revolt in Palestine. Jews were forbidden from entering the city and Judaism all but died in Jerusalem.

The area where the temple stood remained as a wasteland for the next few hundred years. The Romans used the area as a garbage dump, so when ‘Umar entered the city and went to see where his religious forefathers such as Dawud and Sulayman had worshiped (which was also the place where Muhammad ) PBUH)  had worshiped during the Isra’ wal-Mi’raj)  he found a the area filthy and unusable as a mosque.

Nevertheless, he decided to clean the area and built the al-Aqsa Mosque. As was his custom, he worked alongside average Muslims in cleaning and purifying the area. They erected a basic mosque that could fit about 3000 people at the southern end of the Temple Mount, now known by the Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary. A contemporary Christian pilgrim described the mosque as a large wooden structure built upon earlier ruins.

For the Muslims, they did not see this as trampling on the holy sites of other religions. Since the same prophets that are mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible are accepted as Muslim prophets, the new mosque was seen as a continuation of those earlier places of worship. This went in line with one of the central themes of Islam – that it was the perfection of earlier monotheistic faiths.

To be continued............

http://www.onislam.net/english/culture-and-entertainment/history/479823-the-al-aqsa-mosque-through-the-ages-.html

http://300035.dotdothktrade.tech/en/artical/24195/aqsa-mosque-ages-1