Al-Aqsa sanctuary is a living Muslim temple in Jerusalem. It is the center of Palestinian spiritual life and the Palestinian experience. Its mosques and their sounds have dominated Jerusalem for around one thousand four hundred years. Along with the mosques in Mecca and Madina it contends for primacy in Islam as the Holiest of Holies, and on three occasions it was treated as such in popular Muslim thinking. First in early Islam when it was the direction of prayer, then in the final throes of the crusades, and now.
This diary is about my private spiritual perspective on al-Aqsa temple. This of course is inevitably influenced by the facts that I am meticulously secular in my private life and my family is ethnically Christian from the villages that surround Nazareth and the Lake of Tiberius in the Galilee. Indeed, there is recurrent tension between Galileans like myself whose universe is centered around Nazareth and Nablus and the other Palestinians to whom Jerusalem and al-Aqsa sanctuary is focal.
A joyous living temple
In Jerusalem the Christians have The Church of The Holy Sepulchre commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus. The Jews have the Kottel and its associated heartbreak. The Muslims have al-Aqsa---a spiritual celebration.
The al-Aqsa sanctuary is distinguished among the holy places in Jerusalem in that it is a joyous place, a liberating place. It is not a place of mourning but a place were humor is exchanged, where Jerusalemites play, where young people craft their poetry or laze around in a triumphant spiritual sanctuary. I have heard the very best Palestinian jokes and humorous stories at its gates.
The Al-Aqsa Sanctuary
The Noble Sanctuary, al-Haram al-Sharif or Beit al-Maqdas, comprises around a sixth of the walled city of Jerusalem. The entire area is regarded as a mosque. At its center is the Dome of the Rock and the revered al-Aqsa Mosque is in its southern end. It includes a number of important domes, the Golden Gate and the Marwani Mosque, which is a subterranean mosque built during the umayyad Islamic dynasty, and is commonly refereed to as Solomon's Stables.
It is acres of fountains, gardens, buildings and domes.
Dome of the Rock
In 685AD the Umayyad Khalif, 'Abdul Malik ibn Marwan built the Dome of the Rock. It is essentially unchanged for more than thirteen centuries. It is the treasure of Islamic architecture.
In Islam it is believed to be the site of the Night Journey of the Prophet Muhammad. It and the whole al-Aqsa sanctuary have been on this site at the center of Palestinian Muslim spirituality for longer than the first and second temple periods combined. It is an unchanging part of the status quo of Jerusalem's religious life.
Al-Aqsa Mosque
The Dome of the Rock commemorates Muhammad's Night Journey. However, the most important mosque in the sanctuary is the Al-Aqsa Mosque. It is historically a faculty of Islamic scholarship.
It was built around 700 AD by Abdul Malik ibn Marwan and his son al-Walid on the site of a wooden mosque commissioned by the khalipha Umar ibn al-Khattab one of the most important figures in Sunni Islam and the liberator of Jerusalem from the Eastern Roman Empire.
In 1969 it was set ablaze in an arson attack by a Christian fundamentalist. This was the subject of the UNSC Resolution 271 on Al-Aqsa arson attack that grieved at the extensive damage caused by arson to the Holy Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on 21 August 1969 under the military occupation.
Al-Marwani Mosque
Under the paved courtyard in the southeast corner of the al-Aqsa Sanctuary lies al-Marwani prayer area, which is used to provide space for the overflow of worshippers. It was built in the eighth century by the Umayyad Khaliphate and its purpose was to level al-Aqsa courtyard. It was dubbed Solomon's Stables by the crusaders.
The Dome of the Chain
There are a number of important structures in the Sanctuary. These include the Dome of the Chain, which lies at the geographic center of the compound and which was built one thousand three hundred years ago. There are also the Dome of the Prophet, the Dome of the Miraj, and the Dome of al-Nahawiah.
For me the most significant structure is the Golden Gate which dates back to the time of the Dome of the Rock and in which the great theologian Imam al-Ghazali is said to have written his Revival of the Religious Sciences--part of a refutation of the Andalusian secularist thinking.
Getting there through the alleyways
There are a number of ways that Palestinians get to their temple. The method depends on their designation in the population registry. If you are registered in the population registry as either a citizen or a resident of inner Jerusalem, then you can try and get to the temple via one of the beautiful allies in Jerusalem's old city. I like to walk from the bus station to Salah al-Din Street and make my way through a cacophony of crowded Palestinian shop into the old city.
I'm typically stopped for an ID check by the Army in the old city, which is full of Palestinian homes and shops. Should the Army wish, they can prevent me from continuing my pilgrimage. One must never mention al-Aqsa and thankfully my language is good enough to fein privilege and my English is good enough to mimic a tourist.
Getting there through the wall
If you happen to be registered as a resident of the villages and refugee camps neighboring Jerusalem but not of a settlement in the area or the settler compounds in your city, then you must find a way of crossing the wall that surrounds your community. This wall is a high concrete barrier with observation posts.
If you decide to take that rout to the Palestinian temple, then my advice is to wear clean underwear to prevent embarrassment at the checkpoint. I once happened to find myself in that situation and am glad that I was wearing the new red briefs my mother bought me for Christmas.
Getting there over the fence
The Clinton plan envisioned underground tunnels connecting the Palestinian refugee camps and villages to al-Aqsa temple. The idea is to reduce friction between Palestinians and the settlers whose communities provide a natural barrier between the Palestinian camps and their temple. It is said that Hafez al-Assad the late Syrian leader remarked to Arafat that it is perhaps unacceptable to treat the Arabs as vermin who need to traverse a subterranean tunnel from their camps in Palestine to the Holy of Holies in Palestine.
The tunnels are yet to be built and may never be built. So many Palestinians living inside the prison walls attempt to climb over the walls from their part of Palestine to the part that contains the temple. Short of a catastrophe the Army cannot prevent this mode of travel especially in the Ramadan season when I have seen literally hundreds of young men and women climb the wall to get access to Jerusalem. It has become a Ramadan thing.
Praying with al-Aqsa
Most Palestinians are barred from praying in their temple. Talking about it has become an obsession in Gaza and in the refugee camps not directly connected to Jerusalem. However, if you are a young adult under say forty five you are sometimes prevented from praying in al-Aqsa for security reasons, even if you are a Muslim citizen or a resident of Jerusalem. So when visiting Jerusalem on Friday you can occasionally see Palestinians praying in the streets beside al-Aqsa sanctuary. Look closely and you will see an obsessive determination on these people's faces. As though the mere act of praying is an act of civil disobedience in this intergenerational struggle for Palestinian civil rights and a dignified life.
The future
Though I am entirely secular and ethnically Galilean Christian from the villages surrounding Nazareth, I hope that the day will come when the wall and tanks fencing us into our camps fall. I hope that our tragedy ends. I hope for the day when the indigenous people of Palestine, weak and landless herded into crowded camps, will be able to freely pray in al-Aqsa temple. Free from brutality, and free to quench their spiritual thirst in the Muslim compound. Free to pray in what we call Beit al-Maqdas, the Muslim Holy of Holies.
We are not beasts to be herded through checkpoints, we are not vermin to access our temple through Clinton's tunnels, the walls surrounding our prison's will fall.
Let my people pray, bring down the wall in Palestine.
al-athan call for prayer
For many centuries the call for prayer has emanated from al-Aqsa menanrates. For centuries the call has dominated the winds of Jerusalem. The Palestinians being weak without facilities to effectively resist see in the morning athan call for prayer a defiance. We shall one day be treated with dignity. We are human.