Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
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THE WORSHIPFUL ACTS t 229<br />
The Distant Shrine<br />
Why did the Muslims choose that place? If we are willing to jump<br />
<strong>for</strong>ward from the seventh to perhaps the eighth or ninth century,<br />
there are answers in abundance, since by then the traditions on the<br />
subject were well established. The Haram, it was said, was holy <strong>for</strong><br />
two reasons. There were its biblical associations, which, by reason<br />
of the Quran’s certifying them as God’s true revelation, became<br />
Muslim sacred associations as well. The Quran never mentions<br />
Jerusalem by name, neither as such nor by any of the titles by<br />
which it was later referred, The Holy House (al-Bayt al-Maqdis) or<br />
simply The Holy (al-Quds), though it almost certainly is referring<br />
to the city <strong>and</strong> its temple when it speaks of the two destructions<br />
that God visited on it (17:4–8). The Muslim tradition found more<br />
than that, however. It rather quickly understood the Quran’s reference<br />
to “the distant shrine” (al-masjid al-aqsa)to which Muhammad<br />
was miraculously carried by night (17:1) as a allusion to Jerusalem,<br />
<strong>and</strong> the subsequent mention of “the prayer direction you<br />
once had” (2:142, 143) as a reference to Muhammad’s originally<br />
praying toward Jerusalem.<br />
Once <strong>Jews</strong> began to convert to <strong>Islam</strong> <strong>and</strong> open to the Arabs the<br />
riches of Jewish midrashim on the Holy City, Muslims had good<br />
reason to glorify Jerusalem. There stood the temple of Solomon,<br />
one of the Quran’s most tantalizingly interesting <strong>and</strong> mysterious<br />
figures. Be<strong>for</strong>e him David had prayed there in his oratory on the<br />
western side of the city, Jacob had had his vision of God there, <strong>and</strong><br />
Abraham was bade to sacrifice Isaac there. But if the Jerusalem<br />
Haram is biblical <strong>and</strong> there<strong>for</strong>e Muslim, it is also Muhammadan,<br />
as we have just seen, by reason of its connection with the life of the<br />
Prophet. “By night,” sura 17 of the Quran begins, “God carried<br />
His servant from the holy sanctuary [of Mecca] to the distant<br />
shrine.” The Quran says no more about this “Night Journey” or<br />
the location of the shrine, but the Muslim tradition soon enough<br />
identified it with Jerusalem <strong>and</strong>, more precisely, with the plat<strong>for</strong>m<br />
atop the temple mount. It was from this same spot, the tradition<br />
continues, that the Prophet was straightway taken up to the highest<br />
heaven <strong>and</strong> granted a supernal vision.