The Temple Mount

Monday we went to the Temple Mount. It is open only a few hours each day (7:30 to 10 AM and 12:30 to 1:30 PM). After they checked our passports, (you must take them with you wherever you go) we were allowed to walk the wooden bridge up to the area of the Temple Mount which is located very close to the Western Wall.

The Temple Mount is holy to both Muslims, Jews and also to Christians. It is a trapezoid-shaped, walled-in area of 35 acres in the Southeastern corner of the Old City of Jerusalem. The four walls surrounding it date back, at least in their lower parts, to the time of the Second Jewish Temple, built at the end of first century B.C.E. These huge supporting walls, partly buried underground, were built around the summit of the Eastern hill identified as Mount Moriah, the site traditionally viewed as the location of where Abraham offered his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice and the known location of the two Jewish Temples. As we walked across the bridge to the Temple Mount, we looked down and could see Jews at the Wailing Wall. When we were in Jerusalem in 1971, there was no bridge.

In about 1000 B.C., King Solomon built the First Temple there. That structure was destroyed by the Babylonians and the Second Temple was built in 516 B.C. which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. The inner sanctuary of the temple, which housed the Ark of the Covenant, was called the Holy of Holies, a place where only the high priest was allowed to set foot. Since nobody knows exactly where the sanctuary stood, religious Jews are forbidden even today from entering the entire compound. They pray instead at the Western Wall, a remnant of the Second Temple's outer courtyard. The first structure we found at the site was the Al-Aqsa Mosque. A group of Muslim women were outside.

It is customary for a Muslim to wash his feet and hands before praying and entering a mosque and the same is true for Jews at the Wailing Wall.

Why is it holy to Muslims? Called the "Noble Sanctuary" by Muslims, the site is the third holiest place in Islam, after Mecca and Medina. The Qur'an says that the Prophet Mohammed took a miraculous night journey to Jerusalem on a winged horse in 621. There he ascended to heaven and spoke with Allah before returning to Mecca the same night. It was on this journey that Mohammed received from Allah many of the main tenets of Islam, such as the requirement to pray five times a day. After the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in 637, the Al-Aqsa Mosque was built and also the beautiful Dome of the Rock. The Al-Aqsa Mosque is mentioned in the Qur'an. The gold-domed structure is Jerusalem's most recognizable monument on the site and one we view from our apartment at the Jerusalem Center. Christians also revere it as a place frequently visited by Jesus and some believe it will play a major role in His coming.

The whole time we were at this most holy place for Muslims, I thought of Omer Mohammed. He is a devout Muslim who came to the US in 2005 as a refugee from Sudan. We have taken Omer under our wing and into our family and we love him as one of our own. So, Omer, this part of our blog is for you. Please know that you were very close in our hearts and thoughts as we walked the grounds of a place we know you would love to visit. I hope it gives you pleasure as you view the photos we took. I kept thinking how thrilled you would be to be walking in our shoes but perhaps you will have some satisfaction as we share what we saw on this blog.

If you look in the far distance up on Mount Scopus you will see the Jerusalem Center. There is a school for boys on the property where Muslim boys attend school They were coming out and playing outside and delighted I wanted to take their photo in the tree.

The Dome of the Rock was originally built as a shrine and is not a typical mosque. The name of the dome was derived from its golden dome, and "rock" is named after the "foundation rock". The rock is in the center of the mosque, and as previously mentioned, was the place where Abraham came to sacrifice his son, Isaac. The rock, according to Muslims is the center of the world. The Dome is in the shape of a Byzantine martyrium, a structure intended to display/house saintly relics and is an excellent example of middle Byzantine art. It has been said that surplus funds consisting of 100,000 gold dinar coins were melted down and cast on the dome's exterior, “which at the time had a strong glitter that no eye could look straight at."

In 1998, the golden dome covering was refurbished following a donation of $8.2 million by King Hussein of Jordan, who sold one of his houses in London to fund the 80 kilograms of gold required. As we looked the direction of the Jerusalem Center, we could see the Jewish cemetery to the south.

It was time to leave so here is one last look at the Dome of the Rock. After already living one month in Israel, we were finally able to visit this amazing site.

Note: guards in the background which are on watch 24/7.