Al-Aqsa Mosque ( Arabic: Al-Masjid al-Aqsi ), meaning the farthest mosque, is a mosque whose name appears in the first verse of Surah Al-Isra, which refers to the ascension and night journey of the Prophet of Islam from Masjid Al-Haram to Masjid Al-Aqsa.
Glory be to the one who enslaved us at night from the Sacred Mosque to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the one who blessed us around us and showed us one of our verses.
Menzah is the God who guided His servant from Masjid al-Haram to Masjid al-Aqsa at night, which we have blessed around, so that we may show him through our signs that he is the one who hears and sees .
These verses were revealed in the year 621, that is, about 90 years before the construction of a mosque with the same name in Bait al-Maqdis or Jerusalem. This mosque, located in the eastern part of the city of Jerusalem , was built in 710. After migrating to Medina, Muslims used to pray towards Jerusalem until the first year of Hijri .
It should also be noted that mosque is used in the Qur’an in the sense of church and synagogue .
Al- Aqsa Mosque is about 14 kilometers away from Ramallah, the center of the Palestinian Authority. Some Jews living in Jerusalem( Jerusalem ) They believe that the remains of the temple” Body “The temple that Solomon the Prophet built by the order of God and its description is found in the Holy Bible, Old Testament section) is located under the Al-Aqsa Mosque and they are trying to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and revive that temple.. including Michael Deans Rohn’s attempt on August 21, 1969( 30/5/1348) that in this fire, about two hundred square meters of the roof of the mosque was completely destroyed in the southeast part and the dome of the mosque was burnt in five places. Also, one of the blessed works of the mosque and a special pulpit that was 800 years old was also completely destroyed .
But according to more recent research, the possibility has been strengthened that the location of the structure does not match the current location of the mosque and is located in the southeast open space.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque is currently located in the occupied territories of the Zionist regime, and the Zionists, from the very beginning of their aggression in the Middle East, pursued detailed plans to attack this noble mosque and damage its dignity and true status, and even They went to the stage of an obvious attempt to set it on fire. In this regard, for several decades, distorted and deviant material about Al-Aqsa Mosque and its history has been published in traditional and modern audio and visual media all over the world, especially in the Islamic world. The purpose of promoting these materials is to reduce the sensitivity of public opinion towards this holy place so that the main plans of the Zionists to destroy this mosque and replace it with a “Jewish temple” will have lower costs .
One of the biggest deviations about “ Al-Aqsa Mosque” is to replace the image of this mosque with another mosque called “Quba al-Sakhra”. The Dome of the Rock Mosque is located at a very short distance from the Al-Aqsa Mosque and due to its unique and attractive architecture and its very impressive dome with golden color, it shines in the public view of Quds city. For many years, this mosque was introduced as a symbol of the city of Quds and even a symbol of Palestine all over the world, especially in Islamic countries. Even the Zionist regime, in its tourist advertisements, mainly used the images of the Dome of the Rock mosque to introduce “Jerusalem”. This is while at the same time, the institutions of the Zionist regime were engaged in extensive excavations under the “Al-Aqsa Mosque” building and the construction of a “Jewish Temple “ in it, which seriously exposed the infrastructure of this mosque to weakness and the risk of subsidence. Of course, this construction operation is still going on. (In the early years of the victory of the Islamic Revolution, on one of the first banknotes printed by the nascent Islamic government, the image of the Dome of the Rock Mosque was printed with the caption “Masjid al-Aqsa”, which had a significant contribution in fixing such a mistake in the public opinion of Iranians . )
Another lie that has been constantly repeated by the propagandists and even the leaders of the occupying Al-Quds regime in the past few years and tried to plant it in people’s minds is as follows :
“ The verse related to the ascension of the Prophet of Islam, in which Al-Aqsa Mosque is mentioned, was revealed in the year 621 AD, that is, about 90 years before the construction of a mosque with the same name in Jerusalem or Jerusalem, and therefore, except for the similarity of the name, it does not indicate it, and Al-Aqsa Mosque is the desired by Muslims. It is located somewhere other than Jerusalem»
This horned lie has spread mainly after the victory of the Islamic revolution in Iran and the centrality of finding the “ideal of the liberation of Jerusalem” in the Islamic uprising of the Palestinian resistance. The purpose of raising such a baseless suspicion by non-Muslim and even Jewish circles is to deprive this place of sanctity and distort the religious acceptability of the “ideal of liberating the holy city” among Muslims .
The main point of the story is that in the documented and comprehensive narrations of the Muslim consensus, “Masjid Al-Aqsa” is the name of the second mosque that was built by a divine prophet, “Hazrat Sulaiman” (Ali Nabina and peace be upon him). The first mosque in the world was built by the grandfather of “Hazrat Suleiman” (Ali Nabina and peace be upon him) in “Jazeera Arab”, which was called “Masjid al-Haram”. In Islamic beliefs, “Masjid al-Haram” is considered the main pillar of the world of creation, and the name of the second divine mosque, “Al-Aqsa Mosque”, is the distance between this mosque and “Masjid al-Haram” . The meaning of the phrase “Al-Aqsa Mosque” is “a mosque far from…” which means the distance of this mosque from “Masjid al-Haram” .
The first building of “Al-Aqsa Mosque” was gradually destroyed after the death of Hazrat Suleiman (Ali Nabina and peace be upon him) and the destruction of his descendants’ rule over Palestine. After the conquest of Palestine by the Muslims during the time of the second caliph, the caliph personally appeared in the ruins of the Al – Aqsa Mosque and ordered the construction of a new mosque. What the Zionists point to in their suspicions is the construction of a magnificent and large mosque in 710 AD by the Caliph Abdul Malik of that time, which was built instead of the humble and small mosque that was built during the time of the second Caliph. On the other hand, the Zionists have forgotten or deliberately ignore the fact that Muslims consider the place where the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) ascended from there to heaven (known as “ Ascension”) has been recorded with details and even exact address in their historical and religious documents.
Today, due to the weakness of religious studies , Muslims often do not know that the Dome of the Rock mosque In fact, it is built on top of a big rock on which the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) sat before his journey to heaven. This rock, known as the “Rock of Ascension”, is located directly under the golden dome of the “Quba al-Sakhra” mosque, and it has been preserved without being carved or altered, and is one of the most attractive sights in Jerusalem, even for non-Muslims. Considering the distance of several tens of meters between the Dome of the Rock Mosque and the Al-Aqsa MosqueThis is a historical proof that Al-Aqsa Mosque mentioned in the Quran is the current Al-Aqsa Mosque .
Both of the mentioned mosques are surrounded by an old and thick wall that was built during the Ottoman rule, and this entire enclosed area is known as “Haram Sharif”. There is also an opinion that Al-Aqsa Mosque mentioned in the Quran refers to the entire area of “Haram Sharif” .
On August 30, 1348, a part of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Palestine was set on fire by Zionist zealots and considerable damage was done to it. Israel attributed this incident, which aroused the anger and disgust of Muslims all over the world, to an Australian Jewish tourist. “Dennis Michael Rohan”, the Australian tourist whom the Zionists introduced as the cause of setting fire to Al-Aqsa Mosque, was put on trial in a show trial, and subsequently Israeli news sources announced that he was released because he suffered from mental illness. 1
The fire incident in al-Aqsa Mosque took place one year after the capture of the eastern part of Jerusalem by Israeli forces during the 6-day war of June 1967 (Khordad 1346). At that time, Goldameir, a member of the Labor Party of Israel, who had just taken over the government following the death of “Levi Eshkol”, was the Prime Minister of Israel. He was one of the politicians who insisted on exploring the lower parts of the Al-Aqsa Mosque to find what was called “The Temple of Solomon and other holy buildings of the Jews”. From the first days of occupying Jerusalem, the Zionist regime took many measures to remove the Islamic relics and belongings of this city. Among these actions are closing Arab banks, destroying Islamic houses and places, increasing Jewish settlements, collecting Arab money and promoting Israeli money, forcing Arabs to replace Arab birth certificates and convert them into Israeli birth certificates, and other forms of de-identification of the Muslim people of Jerusalem. Was. During the first Arab-Israeli war, as well as the 6-day war of the Zionist regime against Islamic countries, Jerusalem was bombarded several times by Israeli fighters. And in one of the air raids, the central gate of Al-Aqsa Mosque and one of its minarets were damaged. 3 from March 1968 ( March 1346) The Zionists, by means of archeology groups and under the pretext of discovering the remains of Suleiman’s temple, started digging around and under the building of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The purpose of such actions was the gradual destruction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the symbol of the unity of the Palestinian Muslim nation, and then the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple in its place. The incident of setting fire to Al-Aqsa Mosque is another such action that follows the destruction of this building .
In the incident of the Al-Aqsa Mosque fire, at least 200 square meters of the mosque’s roof was completely destroyed, the masjid’s dome was burned in 5 places, and one of the mosque’s works, along with a valuable old pulpit that was 800 years old, was caught in the fire and destroyed. 4 This crime, which provoked the anger of the Muslims of the world, caused many publications of Islamic countries to talk about the necessity of retaliating against the Zionists. This was the biggest crime committed by the Zionists against the Al-Aqsa Mosque during the 10 months that had passed since their capture of East Jerusalem .
In the early years after the death of the Prophet of Islam (PBUH), the city of Baitul-Maqdis came out of the rule of the Romans through peaceful means and was handed over to the Muslims. Al-Aqsa Mosque was built in the same place where the Prophet of Islam ascended in 74 AH. This magnificent mosque was the completion stage of the same small mosque that existed before that in the same place. The historical record and the reverence that has been attached to this holy place for a long time caused the sinister act of the Zionists to set fire to Al-Aqsa Mosque as a religious disaster, and brought an angry international reaction, especially in the Islamic world .
Establishment of the Islamic Conference Organization; The result of the fire in Al-Aqsa Mosque
The fire in Al-Aqsa Mosque was one of the reasons for the formation of the Islamic Conference Organization in Mehr 1348. One month after this incident, the organization announced its existence during a meeting attended by heads of Islamic countries in Rabat, the capital of Morocco .
The defeat of the Arabs against the Zionist regime in the 6-day war, which had crushing effects on the morale of the people and many governments, clearly showed the emptiness of an Islamic organization. In this war, within 6 days, the Israeli forces were able to capture the Sinai desert from Egypt, the Golan from Syria, and the West Bank, including the eastern part of Jerusalem, from Jordan. The establishment of the Islamic Conference organization as a manifestation of the unity and formation of Islamic states was a salve for this Roman wound; Although figures such as the Shah of Iran and King Faisal of Saudi Arabia played the main and leading role in establishing the direction and organization of this conference .
The existence of the Organization of the Islamic Conference was announced at the end of the first meeting of the heads of Islamic governments on the third of Mehr 1348 in Rabat, Morocco. King Hassan II, the former king of Morocco, hosted the meeting and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, opened it. The points that can be considered in this regard were the support of the Western governments for holding this summit and their insistence on not holding the Arab League summit. The West’s opposition to holding a meeting of Arab countries was due to the fact that at that time many Arab governments were under the influence of Gamal Abdul Nasser, and the formation of any meeting that was limited to Arab countries could lead to extremism against Israel due to Nasser’s influence. And America and Europe were against such an event. Therefore, governments like Saudi Arabia and the Shah of Iran took the initiative to hold a neutral meeting without reaction, following the advice of the Westerners. The Rabat meeting, which was opened with the words of the Shah of Iran, was the result of this attitude and the foundation of the organization of the Islamic Conference. In his speech, the Shah did not mention a word about the fire in the Al-Aqsa Mosque and only invited the Islamic governments to understand and sympathize with each other. The Hebrew word “Jerusalem” was used. 5 In this conference, even the proposal of the Palestine Liberation Organization regarding the formation of Islamic countries against Israel and sanctions against the government of Tel Aviv was not allowed to be proposed, and the most extreme position of the Rabat meeting against Israel was the request for this country to return to the borders before the June war. It was 1967 .
Imam Khomeini ‘s reaction
The action of the Zionists in setting fire to Al-Aqsa Mosque was met with a sharp reaction from Imam Khomeini (RA). Imam Khomeini, who resided in Najaf, severely criticized the criminal action of the Zionists and the formation of the Rabat Summit and the policies of the Shah’s regime. “Al-Jumhoriya “ newspaper, published in Baghdad, in its number 588 on 1/8/1348, under the title “Ayatollah Khomeini’s religious authority requested that Al-Aqsa Mosque not be rebuilt” wrote the following:
“Hazrat Ayatollah Khomeini, a religious authority, asked all Muslims to unite their ranks against the enemies. Hazrat Ayatollah said during a conversation with Iraqi news agency: The Islamic conference that was held in Rabat did not serve the benefit of Muslims, but it helped the enemies of Islam because some of the participants in this conference did not have honest intentions and in addition, there were contradictions among the participants in this conference .
Hazrat Ayatollah added: As long as occupied Palestine is not liberated, Muslims should not rebuild Al-Aqsa Mosque . Let the crime of Zionism always be embodied before the eyes of Muslims and become a source of movement for the freedom of Palestine.” 6
Imam Khomeini, while discussing the “Islamic government” in February 1348, also expressed his opinion about the burning of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Zionist and predatory plan that the Shah’s regime pursued under the guise of collecting donations for the renovation of the Al -Aqsa Mosque building.
“… Al-Aqsa Mosque was set on fire, we are shouting that you should let Al-Aqsa Mosque remain half-burnt, don’t destroy this crime, but the Shah’s regime opens an account and keeps a fund and takes money from the people in the name of building Al-Aqsa Mosque, so that the Shah can use this way. fill his pocket and at the same time destroy the traces of Israel’s crime…” 7
Footnote
۱- “The Universe of the Year”; year 1348; World events day by day.
۲Levi Eshkol was the Prime Minister of Israel from June 16, 1963 until his death on February 26, 1969..
۳ – Newspaper of the Islamic Republic, Thursday, April 22, 137, political page.
۴ Imam Khomeini’s movement; Seyyed Hamid Rouhani; first volume; P. 445
۵- The same page 456 .
۶- The same page 459 .
۷- The same p ۴۵۹ .
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