al-aqsa mosque

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al-aqsa mosque
Coordinates : 31 ° 46 '34.4 "  N , 35 ° 14' 7.6"  E Coordinates: 31 ° 46 '34.4 "  N , 35 ° 14' 7.6"  E
place Jerusalem
Laying of the foundation stone 706
opening 717
Direction / grouping Islam
Architectural information
Details
capacity 5,000
Couple 2
Minarets 4th
Minaret height 37 m

The al-Aqsa Mosque ( Arabic المسجد الأقصى al-masjid al-aqsa , DMG al-masǧid al-ʾaqṣā  'the distant place of worship '; Hebrew מִסְגַּד אַל-אַקְצָא Misgad al-Aqzā ) is a mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City . It is considered the third most important mosque in Islam after the al-Haram mosque with the central sanctuary of the Kaaba in Mecca and the Prophet's Mosque with the tomb of the Islamic prophet Mohammed in Medina . The mosque has four minarets .

Surname

The current name al-masjid al-aqsā ("the distant place of worship") refers to the first verse of the 17th sura of the Koran , which Rudi Paret translates as follows:

"Praise be to him who traveled with his servant (i.e. Mohammed) by night from the holy place of worship (in Mecca) to the distant place of worship (in Jerusalem), the vicinity of which we have blessed [...]"

The al-Aqsa mosque was understood as the "distant place of worship" called in the Koran. In fact, however, it was only built around 90 years after the event described in the Koran.

In the present day it is paraphrased in Arabic as follows: the first of the two directions of prayer (i.e. Jerusalem before Mecca) and the third of the two holy places (i.e. after Mecca and Medina) .

prehistory

In the area of ​​the mosque was the Herodian Temple , which King Herod had built around 20 BC. And was destroyed in the Jewish War in 70 AD by the Romans under Titus . Today only the western retaining wall, the so-called wailing wall , remains of the temple . The Byzantine Emperor Justinian I had a Christian church built on the Temple Mount around 530, which was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin . This church was destroyed in the year 614 during the conquest of Jerusalem by the Sassanid great king Chosrau II and was left as a ruin after the reconquest of the city by the Byzantines in 628. During repairs after the 1927 earthquake, the British archaeologist Robert William Hamilton (1905–1995) discovered a mosaic from the Byzantine period, which was only rediscovered and published in 2008.

After the conquest of Jerusalem by the caliph Umar ibn al-Chattab in 638, he had the first wooden mosque built on the site of today's al-Aqsa mosque.

history

Baldwin II hands the mosque over to the Templars; Miniature from the 13th century

After Caliph Abd al-Malik had the Dome of the Rock completed around 692 , he also had the previous wooden building demolished and the stone al-Aqsa mosque built in its place. Papyri from Aphrodito in Upper Egypt indicate that the work took place between 706 and 717.

When Jerusalem was conquered in 1099, the army of the First Crusade killed numerous people here who had sought protection in the mosque. The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem used the building temporarily as a royal palace from 1104, before a new palace was completed near the Tower of David . During this time the foundations were expanded to make room for stables and storage rooms. After the move of the royal palace, King Baldwin II of Jerusalem gave a wing of the building to the newly founded Order of the "Poor Knights of Christ" under Hugo von Payns and Gottfried von Saint-Omer as headquarters, which soon after this place was called the Knights Templar and expanded it for his purposes.

After the reconquest of Jerusalem by Saladin , the building was transformed back into a mosque. Saladin took part in a great thanksgiving service on October 9, 1187. After the Peace of Jaffa between Frederick II and al-Kamil in 1229 , when the Crusaders took possession of Jerusalem again, the mosque and the entire temple district with the Dome of the Rock remained in Muslim hands.

In 1969 the Australian tourist Denis Michael Rohan carried out an arson attack on the al-Aqsa mosque, which severely damaged the decoration of the mihrab in the south wall and destroyed the minbar with its inlay work made of cedar wood, both gifts from Sultan Saladin. Rohan was evidently guided by a religious madness in his act .

Since the second Jewish temple once stood at the site of the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, radical Jewish groups are calling for the temple to be rebuilt there, even if this would mean the demolition of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. This is rejected by large sections of the Israeli population and by respected rabbis.

Non-Muslims (as of 2003) are only allowed to stay in the al-Aqsa mosque with a special permit from the Waqf authority in Jerusalem for pious foundations - it is generally undesirable.

gallery

  • al-Aqsa Mosque, 2007

  • al-Aqsa mosque, around 1900

  • Interior, around 1920

  • Interior, 2016

  • Part of the 2018 dome

  • left aisle of the interior, 2018

  • al-Kas (fountain), 2007

  • al-Aqsa, entrance area on the north side, 1981

Web links

Commons : al-Aqsa mosque  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Kohlhammer 10th edition 2010, p. 196 in the Google book search.
  2. ↑ wa-huwa ūlā ʾl-qiblatain wa-ṯāliṯu ʾl-ḥaramain: al-mausūʿa al-fiqhiyya . 1st edition. Kuwait 1997. Vol. 37. p. 231
  3. ^ Temple of Herod in Jewish Encyclopedia
  4. ↑ Catholic Encyclopedia
  5. ↑ Third Jewish mikveh and a Byzantine mosaic floor discovered on the Temple Mount
  6. ↑ See Al-Aqsa Mosque at Noble Sanctuary Online Guide
  7. ^ Moshe Gil : A History of Palestine 634-1099 , Cambridge University Press 1997, p. 95.
  8. ↑ Cf. Alain Demurger, Wolfgang Kaiser: Die Templer. Rise and Fall 1120–1314. CH Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 978-3-406-52367-0 , pp. 17 f., 56 ff.
  9. ↑ Video on YouTube
  10. ^ Tense times at Jerusalem holy site , Martin Asser, BBC News, September 1, 2003