
The Temple Mount (Hebrew: הַר הַבַּיִת, Har HaBáyit, "Mount of the House (of God, i.e. the Temple in Jerusalem)"), known to Muslims as the Haram esh-Sharif (Arabic: الحرم الشريف, al-Ḥaram al-Šarīf, "the Noble Sanctuary", or الحرم القدسي الشريف, al-Ḥaram al-Qudsī al-Šarīf, "the Noble Sanctuary of Jerusalem") and the Al Aqsa Compound is a hill located in the Old City of Jerusalem. For thousands of years it has been venerated as a holy site in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam alike.
In light of conflicting historical claims on the Mount by both Judaism and Islam, it is one of the most contested religious sites in the world. Since the Crusades, the Muslim community of Jerusalem has managed the site as a Waqf. The Temple Mount is within the Old City, which has been controlled by Israel since 1967. After the Six-Day War, Israel handed administration of the site back to the Waqf under Jordanian custodianship, while maintaining Israeli security control. It remains a major focal point of the Arab–Israeli conflict. In an attempt to keep the status quo, the Israeli government enforces a controversial ban on prayer by non-Muslims, with the exception of the Western Wall, where Jewish worship is permitted.
Temple Mount in Alpha and Omega[]
Continued administration of the Temple Mount by the Waqf was extremely frustrating to right-wing Jews who felt that the Messiah would have arrived if the Dome of the Rock had been dynamited and construction of the Third Temple had been begun. One such group was the Reconstruction Alliance and the archaeologist Yoram Louvish who worked with them. They had a hidden tunnel dug from a passageway to the Western Wall that went deep into the lower levels of the Mount. At the end of the tunnel old stonework dating from before the Babylonian conquest was discovered. This made it from the period of the First Temple.[1]
References[]
- ↑ Alpha and Omega, pgs. 22-26.
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