Palestine Reimagined #07 What is the Temple of Solomon

What do we know of the Jewish claim

that beneath Al Masjid Al Aqsa, the Aqsa

Mosque, lays the ruins of the Temple of

Solomon or so they claim?

According to Jewish tradition, the one who lay

the foundations

for the temple was David, prophet Dawood.

And the one who actually built it was

his son Suleiman or Solomon.

The temple was destroyed for the first time

by the Babylonian ruler, Nebuchadnezzar,

in 586

BC.

They supposedly rebuilt it years later, but was

then yet again destroyed at the hands of

Titus, the son of the Roman Emperor Vespasian,

in the year 17 CE.

So that the Jews would not,

forget the temple, so that it would remain

alive in their memories, the rabbis introduced rituals

and ceremonies that every Jew performs in order

to remember the temple,

and its destruction.

At the time of birth, at the time

of death, at the time of marriage, when

painting the house there's always a ceremony to

remember the temple.

Now today the Jewish claim is that Al

Masjid Al Aqsa is built on top of

the ruins of this temple.

And Al Aqsa mosque is currently being controlled

by the Israeli army

for the ever increasing use of Israeli settlers

and for the preparation of the building of

the temple.

This means that there is of course no

alternative to destroying

Masjid Al Aqsa in order to rebuild to

the temple,

and that the kingdom of the Jews cannot

be established until that happens.

Because to them, Israel is nothing without Jerusalem,

and Jerusalem is nothing without the Temple of

Solomon.

Now from our perspective,

the very first step to the dismantling of

this allegation is to note that Al Masjid

Al Aqsa

was built 100 of years before the very

birth of prophet Solomon.

You see, scholars, they have 3 different views

about the identity of the first to construct

Al Masjid Al Aqsa. I'm gonna present in

chronological order.

The first theory suggests that angels

initially constructed Al Masjid Al Haram in Mecca,

followed by the building of Al Masjid Al

Aqsa in Palestine 40 years later.

The second opinion is that prophet Adam was

the pioneer of al Masjid al Haram in

Mecca, and then afterwards he established al Masjid

al Aqsa again 40 years 40 year

gap. According to the 3rd opinion,

the initial foundations of Al Masjid Al Haram

in Mecca were already laid there, and they

were raised by prophet Ibrahim,

who then went over to Palestine to construct

Al Masjid Al

also 40 years later. So

what does that tell you?

It tells you that even if we were

to take the 3rd opinion,

and that the first to have built Al

Majid Al Aqsa was prophet Ibrahim,

it's clear that he predates prophet Sunayman by

centuries.

So Muslims argue,

how can the claim be made that Al

Aqsa mosque is built above the remains of

a temple

of Solomon,

a Solomon who came into being many 100

of years after the original builder,

Abraham.

Having said that,

prophet Suleiman

did in fact play a significant role in

the history of Admetrokh Al Asad. Though not

by initially constructing it as we have established,

but rather by renovating it, by enhancing it.

Ibn Utemi and others, they've said,

He said Al Aqsa Mosque

has existed since the time of Abraham,

peace be upon him. But Sulayman

was the one who rebuilt it magnificently.

So, al Masjid al Aqsa had already been

a place of worship

long before

Suleyman's

era

And the building which he did eventually

rebuild

and refurbish

was none other than Al Masjid Al Aqsa

itself

not a separate place of worship that we

need to search for beneath it.

This was also confirmed by the Christian historian

Ibn al Abri, who died in the year

12/86,

who said

in the 4th year of his reign,

Solomon began to build

Baytul Maqdis, which is known as Al Masjid

Al Aqsa.

So the temple of Solomon is Al Masjid

Al Aqsa.

Nevertheless,

certain Jewish groups

who don't believe this, continue to argue otherwise,

As they try to justify risky excavations beneath

the Masjid, which has consistently

yielded zero evidence of a colossal

structure that once apparently occupied the space as

described in the Bible.

In 1961 Israeli authorities claimed to have discovered

what they termed the Stables of Solomon.

They enlisted Kathleen Kenyon, who is a distinguished

British archaeologist. To conduct a thorough investigation

in Palestine

near Al Masjid Al Aqsa.

After 6 years of extensive

excavations in Jerusalem, Kenyan concluded that these so

called stables were totally

impractical

for holding horses,

debunking the initial claims.

And then periodically

items such as stones or tablets are unearthed

during excavations and

promptly presented to the world as evidence of

the temple's remnants beneath Al Aqsa mosque. But

then again these findings are discovered to be

fraudulent

forgeries.

An example of this is the Jehoash inscription

discovered in 2003.

It's a stone tablet,

it bears Hebrew inscription that mirrored the biblical

description of Solomon's Temple.

And it seemed to be initially at least

very significant

archaeological

find. But then subsequent examinations revealed it to

be a forgery, to fetch millions for museum

collectors, and to bolster Zionist convictions about the

temple's historical authenticity.

And of course, you've got the Jewish archaeologist,

Israel Finkelstein,

who stated that the archaeologist did not find

any archaeological evidence indicating that the temple actually

existed, I. E. As described in the Bible.

And he regarded the idea of the existence

of the temple as a mere myth that

did not exist. And that the writers of

the Torah in the 3rd century added stories

that did not happen.

Putting all of this aside for a moment,

even if remnants of a different structure was

to be unearthed at any point from beneath

Al Mas'ud Al Aqsa,

that still wouldn't pose an issue for Muslims.

It simply would be remnants of Al Masjid

Al Aqsa of back then that has been

restored and refurbished all throughout the ages.

It's important to remember that the terms temple,

mosque,

masjid,

house should not distract us from the fact

that prophet Suleiman

was a messenger of Allah.

And that these names are in reference to

the same thing essentially, places

dedicated to the worship of the one Allah

alone.

And regardless of all of this.

Anything of the construction of prophets Dawood

or Surayman

or prophet Ibrahim before them.

Our belief is that we

the Muslims today

hold the strongest claim to it.

After all these prophets according to the Quran

were Muslims

knitters to Allah, worshippers of him alone who

never committed idolatry or obscene sins

as is attributed to them.

It is the Muslims today who are upon

their religion.

Muslims who do not associate partners with Allah

like them.

The Muslims who honor all of the prophets,

Moses and Jesus and those before them and

prophet Muhammad

We believe in them all. We do not

deem them as mere kings as others do.

We therefore lay claim to these prophets. We

lay claim to the places of worship that

they built, And we lay claim to being

time.

time.