Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland

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