Myths and facts about Jerusalem and Temple Mount being Islam's "3rd Holiest Site"
God Has an Eternal Covenant With Israel?
Let’s talk about some Myths and facts regarding Jerusalem and Temple Mount.
One of the most popular lies that has become universally accepted as if it were an indisputable truth is the myth about Jerusalem being the third sacred place to Islam.
It is quite rare to hear the honest truth, that Jerusalem is the first and Only Holiest place to Judaism! As a matter of fact, Jerusalem is not mentioned at all in the Koran, and Muhammad has never been there (perhaps he did not even know about the existence of Jerusalem!).
The tale about his dream flight has been related with Jerusalem in a very recent time for political strategy purposes.
1) The Islamic claim to the Temple Mount is very recent; Jerusalem's role as "The Third Holiest Site in Islam" in mainstream Islamic writings does not precede the 1930s. It was created by the grand mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini. Most of the problems surrounding Jerusalem can be traced to two areas of dispute: the political area that asks Jerusalem to be the capital of both Israel and the hypothetic Palestine; the other and most contentious problem is the holiness of Temple Mount to both Judaism and Islam. The role Jerusalem has in the Hebrew Holy Scriptures is well known and not open to debate; however, there are varying opinions on the holiness of Jerusalem, specifically Temple Mount to Islam. Many, if not most,
opinions that counter Islam's claim point out that Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Qur'an and did not occupy any special role in Islam until recent political exigencies transformed Jerusalem into Islam's "third holy site." This falsehood was created by the grand mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini. The mufti knew that nationalist slogans alone would not succeed in uniting the masses against arriving Jewish refugees; he therefore turned the struggle into a religious conflict. He addressed the masses clearly, calling for a holy war. Since the moment when he was appointed to the position of mufti, Haj Amin worked vigorously to raise Jerusalem's status as an Islamic holy centre.
2) The Islamic claim to Jerusalem is false. There were no mosques in Jerusalem in 632 c.e., at the death of Muhammad. Jerusalem was [then] a Christian-occupied city, according to Dr. Manfred R. Lehmann, writer for the Algemeiner Journal. Excerpts of the article originally published in