Holy deadlock
DANNY RUBINSTEIN
Haaretz, 8 October 2002
Last Friday, the 27th day in the month of Rajab, according to the Muslim calendar, was marked by the Islamic world as the day on which the Prophet Mohammed went on his miraculous Night Journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and then ascended to heaven - the events of al-isra al-miraj. In Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount - which Muslims call Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary) - the event was marked by a special assembly at dusk on Thursday. The event is not a holiday, as Muslim religious law recognizes only two holy days: the Feast of the sacrifice (Id al-Adha) and Id al-Fitr (the end of the holy month of Ramadan).
However, most of the Islamic states mark various other religious commemorative days, such as the birthday of the Prophet and the new year, and in some Muslim states many public institutions are closed on these days (Saudi Arabia is an exception in this regard, as the Wahabi school of Islam that is practiced in the desert kingdom recognizes only the two official holy days).
One of the best-known popular sayings among Muslims is that Judaism and Christianity, which preceded Islam, arrogated to themselves all the holidays, leaving Muslims with only the leftovers of two days. The day of the journey (al-isra) and the ascent to heaven (al-miraj) is based on the famous opening of Surah 17 in the Koran, entitled "Bani Isra'il" (Israelites): "Glory to (Allah) who did take his Servant for a Journey by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque."
Since the end of the early Islamic period (late seventh century), a connection has been drawn between the Night Journey of the Prophet and Jerusalem. The "Sacred Mosque" is Mecca and the "Farthest Mosque" ("al masjid al Aqsa") is in Jerusalem, the place of worship farthest west that was known to the Arabs in the time of Mohammed.
Just three weeks ago, Dr. Nissim Dana caused a furor in broad Islamic circles when he published an article in the daily Yedioth Ahronoth in which he referred to the fact that the city of Jerusalem is not mentioned by name in the Koran. The organ of the Islamic Movement in Israel accused him of fraud and of falsifying history.
As in other religions, the traditions in Islam were often set according to political circumstances in certain periods. One scholar of Islam was once asked why the Prophet Mohammed had to go from Mecca to Jerusalem, of all places, in order to ascend to heaven. Couldn't he have made the journey to heaven directly from Mecca? His reply was that in our time the explanation would probably be that direct flights to heaven are available only from Jerusalem, not from Mecca.
Because Jerusalem and its holy places continues to be a the primary stumbling block in attempts to find a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, events around and involving the Temple Mount, as well as the publications and studies about the site, are of cardinal importance. In a book on the impact of the mix of religion and politics on attitudes toward the Temple Mount (published, in Hebrew, by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies), Dr. Yitzhak Reiter, the book's editor, analyzes this mix.
In the period of Jordanian rule in Jerusalem (1948-1967), for example, the Temple Mount / Haram al-Sharif possessed an inferior status owing to the political weakness of the Kingdom of Jordan, which the Islamic world considered a satellite of despised Western imperialism. The Arab states did not accord legitimization to Jordan's control of the holy places in Jerusalem, and the lowly status of Haram al-Sharif was reflected in a paucity of visitors and meager donations to the mosques. These holy sites were neglected and their physical condition deteriorated.
After Israel's conquest of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) began to describe Al-Aqsa Mosque within the Arab world as a place that "was taken captive by the Jews," and the Palestinian national movement began to challenge and defy the Jordanian administration (the authorities of the Muslim religious trust, or Waqf), which continued to manage the site.
Against this political background, the tremendous interest taken by the Muslim world in developments involving Al-Aqsa since 1967 becomes understandable. The Jordanians had already introduced a special service on the day of al-isra wal-miraj in order to draw the attention of Muslims around the world to Jerusalem; in recent years the day has become a quasi-holiday and an official day off in the Palestinian Authority and Jordan. In any event, pious Muslims everywhere invoke the sanctity of Jerusalem on the occasion of this day, and for Islamic zealots among the Palestinians it has become one of the important dates on the calendar.
Yitzhak Reiter's essay, together with additional writings on the subject that appear in an English-language collection on the future of Jerusalem edited by Ora Achimeir and Marshal Berger from the Jerusalem Institute of Israel Studies, leads one to reflect that the difficulty of resolving the problems related to Jerusalem surpasses even the difficulty of finding a solution to the refugee question. The explanation is simple: when it comes to the refugees, there is an absolute Israeli refusal to recognize the right of the 1948 refugees to return to their former property in what is now the State of Israel.
The Palestinian leadership is fully aware of this and understands that in order to deal with the problem, it will have to persuade the refugee families to seek arrangements involving rehabilitation and financial compensation. When it comes to Jerusalem, though, the Palestinian leaders have to cope not only with their refugees, but also with the world's one billion Muslims, who are scattered in dozens of countries in which the rulers are also Muslims.
At least three Arab states - Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Morocco - claim status on Haram al-Sharif, and many Arab rulers consider the Islamic holy places in Jerusalem the property of the entire nation of Islam. They constantly make it clear to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat that Al-Aqsa is not his private property, nor the property of the Palestinian people, and that he therefore has no right to make even the slightest concession in Jerusalem.
Thus, although a modicum of Palestinian compromise is possible on the refugee question, Arab-Muslim pressure on the Palestinians rules out any possibility of a compromise on Jerusalem. The issue is further discussed in another new book published by the Jerusalem Institute of Israel Studies, which focuses on the Old City of Jerusalem. Prof. Ruth Lapidoth, the book's editor, writes that if the recommendation to establish a special regime for the holy places in Jerusalem is accepted, it will be necessary to decide the precise definition of a "holy place."
It turns out that an interesting phenomenon exists in this connection: in certain political circumstances, the holy places tend to be fruitful and multiply. If in 1949 the United Nations compiled a list of 30 holy places in Jerusalem, a study conducted in 2000 (which appears in a collection of articles edited by Professors Sari Nusseibeh and Moshe Maoz) cites 326 holy places in the city. This proliferation is due, of course, to political struggles, and the more acute the struggles, the more holy places the sides are inclined to adopt or invent.
The familiar subject of politics and the sacred intertwined is reflected in the day-to-day events in the mosques on the Temple Mount. The Palestinian media reports daily on what happens around Al-Aqsa. Is there a danger, for example, that the southern wall will collapse? The Waqf last weekend accused the government of Ariel Sharon of placing obstacles in the way of the Waqf staff who were making repairs to the wall. The area in question is mainly the eastern section of the southern wall, which is the wall that supports "Solomon's Stables."
A few years ago, the Waqf prepared a huge space for worship in Solomon's Stables, and a disaster could ensue should large numbers of Muslims gather there to pray during Ramadan. Palestinian spokesmen also constantly address demands heard in Israel to allow Jews to visit the Temple Mount. Since the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada two years ago, the Israeli government has prohibited non-Muslims from visiting the site. The ban applies not only to Jews or Israelis, but also to Christian visitors. Has the time come to rescind it?
The Waqf and the Palestinian Authority are vehemently opposed to this. From their point of view, all the Israeli activity in connection with the Temple Mount is intended to make possible a Jewish takeover of Al-Aqsa similar to the Jewish control of the mosque in the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, which has become an Israeli military facility and, effectively, a Jewish synagogue.
Palestinian society, in common with Arab and other communities around the world, is becoming more religious, especially after the collapse of the social ideologies that were represented by the socialist regimes of Eastern Europe. Therefore, it is perhaps not an accident that the current blood-drenched crisis bears the name of a holy site, Al-Aqsa.