Islamo-rage and the myth of the Muslim claim to Jerusalem's Temple Mount

In 1996, Israel's opening of an archaeological tunnel near al-Haram al-Sharif sparked Palestinian Arab violence - known as the Hasmonean Tunnel Riots - in which 61 Arabs and 15 Israeli soldiers were killed. Under the premiership of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel opened an exit to an already existing tunnel by the Western Wall. It caused a riot by the local Arabs, and was condemned worldwide. Yet, that tunnel door has remained open for years with no earth-shattering consequence.

About that mosque that is being used as an excuse for Muslims to incite war against Israel? Mohammed could never have had the Al-Aqsa mosque in mind when he compiled the Koran, since it did not exist for another three generations after his death.

At the time of Mohammed, who died in 632 AD, Jerusalem was a Christian city within the Byzantine Empire. Jerusalem was captured by Khalif Omar only in 638 AD, six years after Mohammed's death. Throughout all this time there were only churches in Jerusalem, and a church stood on the Temple Mount, called the Church of Saint Mary of Justinian, built in the Byzantine architectural style. They did this by force and against any godly and human law.

The Dome of the Rock was built in 691 AD. The Muslim claim to Jerusalem is based on what is written in the Koran. Unfortunately for Muslims, the city in the Koran is never mentioned by name. The closest it comes to a reference is in Sura 17:1, which refers to the "furthest mosque." Twenty years later, the Church of Saint Mary was converted into a mosque with the familiar dome on top. It was named Al Aqsa, so it would sound like the "furthest mosque" mentioned in the koran.

In or around 711 AD, or about 80 years after Mohammed died, Abd El-Wahd - who ruled from 705-715 AD - reconstructed the Christian- Byzantine Church of St. Mary and converted it into a mosque. He left the structure as it was and added a dome on top of the building to make it look like a mosque. He then
named it Al-Aksa, so it would sound like the one mentioned in the Koran.

Known to Muslims as Haram as-Sharif or the Noble Sanctuary, the site is now home to the Aqsa and Dome of the Rock mosques and is revered by Muslims as the place where the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.
Click here and here for more evidence and details of Islamo-rage and the myth of the Muslim claim to Jerusalem's Temple Mount.

See, folks, appeasement doesn't merely fail to prevent catastrophe, it provokes catastrophe. According to Lebanese Arab journalist Joseph Farah, it is not true that "

the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem represent Islam's third most holy sites. In fact, the Koran says nothing about Jerusalem. It mentions Mecca hundreds of times. It mentions Medina countless times. It never mentions Jerusalem! With good reason. There is no historical evidence to suggest Mohammed ever visited Jerusalem. So how did Jerusalem become the third holiest site of Islam? Muslims today cite a vague passage in the Koran, the seventeenth Sura, entitled "The Night Journey." It relates that in a dream or a vision Mohammed was carried by night "from the sacred temple to the temple that is most remote, whose precinct we have blessed, that we might show him our signs." In the seventh century, some Muslims identified the two temples mentioned in this verse as being in Mecca and Jerusalem. And that's as close as Islam's connection with Jerusalem gets -- myth, fantasy, wishful thinking.

And Farah concludes, "Meanwhile, Jews can trace their roots in Jerusalem back to the days of Abraham.

More about it on Masada2000.