Heresy of Denying Sanctity of Jerusalem

 

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

الصلاة والسلام عليك يا سيدي يا رسول الله

وعلى آلك واصحابك يا سيدي يا نور الله

فداك ابي وامي يا رسول الله

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

Allah, Holy and Exalted is He, says:

سُبۡحٰنَ الَّذِیۡۤ اَسۡرٰی بِعَبۡدِہٖ لَیۡلًا مِّنَ الۡمَسۡجِدِ الۡحَرَامِ اِلَی الۡمَسۡجِدِ الۡاَقۡصَا الَّذِیۡ بٰرَکۡنَا حَوۡلَہٗ لِنُرِیَہٗ مِنۡ اٰیٰتِنَا

Holy is He Who took His servant by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Distant Mosque, the precincts of which We have blessed, that We might show him some of Our Signs

(Surah 17, Ayah 1)

This event is known as the Isra or mystical night journey of the Holy Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم when he was carried on the Angelic vehicle called Buraq from the Sacred Mosque in Mecca to the Distant Mosque in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem, which is called al-Quds, and the place of the Temple which we call Bait al-Maqdis, containing Masjid al-Aqsa, is the third most sacred place in Islam.

The evil of Zionism seeks to claim Jerusalem and the surrounding Holy Land of Palestine for the cursed Jewish nation. Among its arguments is that Islam has falsely laid claim to Jerusalem and the Holy Land when in fact the sacred places of Islam are limited to Mecca and Medina in Arabia. Therefore, one must consider any group or individual emerging from within the Muslim Ummah that seeks to distance Islam from Jerusalem as being in league with the Zionists if not outright a conspiracy hatched by the latter. Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, who authored the ridiculous Hagarism theorized that Islam inherits the legacy of Samaritan religion which denies the sanctity of Jerusalem and the makes little if any mention of the Jerusalem Prophets. This of course is clearly contrary to the facts; the Quran celebrates King David and his son King Solomon, with whom the city of Jerusalem is foremost associated with and speaks of Ezekiel, called Dhal-Kifl, and Zechariah. Zechariah was a Prophet and Priest who entered the Sanctuary of the Temple, called the Holy of Holies (referred to as the Mihrab in the Quran) where he had vision of Angels giving him glad tidings of a pure son.

And it was the Manifest Destiny of the Ummah of Muhammad to liberate Jerusalem and settle therein, reviving worship at the Temple Mount that is Masjid al-Aqsa. A house of prayer was constructed upon it in the time of the second Caliph Umar رضى الله عنه which became known as the Musalla al-Qibli, while the hexagonal structure known as the Dome of the Rock was constructed by the Umayyad ruler Abd al-Malik bin Marwan to cover the Foundation Stone upon which the Ark of the Covenant used to be placed in ancient times.

In the 20^th century, a heretic named Ghulam Ahmad Parwez dissented from the unanimity of the Muslim Ummah concerning the sanctity of Jerusalem and the location of Masjid al-Aqsa. He put forward a novel heresy that the Isra mentioned in the first Ayah of Surat Bani Israel was not the Prophet’s mystical night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem but rather a reference to his Hijrah or migration from Mecca to Medina, and therefore that the Distant Mosque refers to the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina:

اپنے بندے کو راتوں رات بیت الحرام (مکۃ) سے نکال کر (مدینہ کی) کشادہ سرزمین کی طرف لے گیا

Limitless glory to Allah who moved his devotee one night from the sacred mosque of Makkah to the farthest mosque in Madinah (Mafhum ul-Quran, p.626)

Currently, another heretic from Pakistan, Muhammad Shaikh, affirms this heresy and teaches that the true Masjid al-Aqsa is in Medina not Jerusalem. Undoubtedly, this is a diabolical conspiracy to detach the Muslims from Jerusalem and Bait al-Maqdis.