ARAB NEWS Wednesday, May 29, 2019 3

SpotlightA Palestinian state will not be created, not

like the one people are talking about.

Benjamin NetanyahuIsraeli prime minister

I have to reach understandings with

Israelis, our neighbors, but not at any cost.

Mahmoud AbbasPalestinian president

ISLAM

Why Al-Aqsa Mosque mattersDaoud Kuttab Amman Zayyad told Arab News. “I like it

for the high level of energy and spirituality that can be felt while praying inside it.”

His views are echoed by Ahmad Budeiri, a former BBC staffer, who was born in Jerusalem and has spent all his life there. “I enter the mosque to experience the beauty of its architecture,” he said. “Then I go down to the cave and I get the feeling that all the spiri-tual meaning in the mosque is condensed in that small space.”

Abla Rweis, a mother of three from Nablus, told Arab News that her favorite spot is the mosque itself. “It has a special holiness to it as it is where Prophet Muhammad spent the night on his ascent to heaven.”

Rweis is talking about Al-Isra wa Al-Miraj, the two parts of a Night Journey that Prophet Muhammad took. In Islam, Al-Isra wa Al-Miraj signifies both a physical and spiri-tual journey.

A little more than a decade on, Caliph Omar was in Jerusalem and he began building the first Al-Aqsa Mosque. Al-Aqsa means “the farthest,” a reference to the distance of Islam’s third holiest

shrine from Makkah and Madinah in Saudi Arabia.

For Khalil Attiyeh, a Jorda-nian parliamentarian, the feeling while going down the stairs from the Dome of the Rock to Al-Aqsa Mosque is special. But for many worshipers and visitors, the entire 144 dunum (144,000sq meters) of the Al-Aqsa compound is sacred.

Political activist Hazem H. Kawasmi said that his favorite spot is across from the water fountain, where worshipers come for the ritual washing. “I have been coming to Al-Aqsa since I was a child. I love to sit on the stairs

across from the mosque and gaze at the water fountain,” he said.

For Arafat Amro, the Islamic Museum located within the compound is special because of its priceless contents. “It is a window to civilizations and history,” said Amro, who is also the musuem’s director.

“Everything here, from parch-ments, wooden works and metal items to stone carvings, reflects different times. Visitors who came to this mosque down the ages from different locations went back with the history of their Arab and Muslim forefathers etched in their memories.”

The Islamic Museum is located close to both Al-Buraq Wall and a gate through which groups of Jewish extremists often make uninvited incursions with an armed Israeli security escort.

The area was cleared of Palestin-ians soon after the capture in 1967 of East Jerusalem by Israel, marking the beginning of the occupation.

For Hazem Shunnar, a respected Palestinian economist, Al-Buraq wall is what he often thinks about “because the Israelis took it by force.”

“There is a spot just in the center of Al-Qibli Mosque where you feel so light when you stand in it.”

This is the way Wasfi Kailani, of the Hashemite Fund for the Restora-tion of Al-Aqsa Mosque, describes his favorite spot within Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, the UNESCO World Heritage site also known to Muslims and Palestinians as Al-Haram Al-Sharif.

The spot that Kailani refers to is not far from Saladin’s pulpit, rebuilt by King Abdullah II of Jordan after it was destroyed in a 1969 arson attack.

“I feel that the holiest spot in the entire compound is in the center of the mosque,” he told Arab News. “It is the place from where Prophet Muhammad ascended to the heavens to meet God Almighty with all the prophets with him.”

For Ziad Khalil Abu Zayyad, a spokesman for Fatah, the Pales-tinian political party, the most special spot is a small room under the Dome of the Rock mosque.

“It is called the Souls Cave,” Abu

LIVINGHISTORY638 AD Al-Aqsa Mosque built by Caliph Umar

690-691 Mosque rebuilt, expanded and Dome of the Rock added by Caliph Abd Al-Malik

706-714 Al-Aqsa as we know it today constructed

1099 Captured by Crusaders during First Crusade

1187 Repair after recapture of Jerusa-lem by Saladin

1922 Renovations by Supreme Muslim Council

1948 UN General Assembly Resolution 194 bans interfer-ence with Palestin-ian holy sites

1967 Administration handed to Islamic Waqf trust run by Jordanian

government after Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem. First Israeli excavations under Al-Haram Ash-Sharif

1968 Excavation of a tunnel along Al-Buraq Wall by Is-rael. UNESCO issues strong condemna-tion of excavations.

1969 Arson attack destroys Saladin’s pulpit

1970 Third stage of Israeli excavations under Al-Haram Ash-Sharif launched

2000 Second intifa-da after Israeli poli-

tician Ariel Sharon visits complex with security entourage

2004 Jewish incur-sions into Al-Aqsa compound escalate

2007 Saladin’s pulpit rebuilt by Jor-dan’s King Abdullah

2013 Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas confirms Hashemite custo-dianship over holy sites in Jerusalem, especially Al-Aqsa Mosque

2014 King Abdullah (right), US Secretary of State John Kerry, and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reach understanding that Al-Aqsa is for Muslims to pray in and all others to visit

Source: Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs

The emotional epicenter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at once sacred and unique to Muslims