In "The Muslim Claim to Jerusalem," I argued that over the course of fourteen centuries, Muslim interest in Jerusalem has tended to be more political than religious in nature. One of my points concerned the complicated sleight-of-hand carried off by the Umayyads in the seventh century A.D., when, to aggrandize the importance of a town under their control, the caliph built a mosque in Jerusalem and called it Al-Aqsa. By doing this, he fulfilled a verse in the Qur'an which tells of the prophet going by night to a place called Al-Aqsa. The trick worked, generating the now-ancient belief that Muhammad's night journey took him to Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
Logically, of course, a mosque built 65 years after the Qur'an was delivered cannot tell us where Muhammad went on the night journey described in the Qur'an. My article notes two places on the Arabian peninsula that are seen as an alternative for Al-Aqsa's location, being Medina and Ji'rana.
That article collects several arguments against Jerusalem being the location of Al-Aqsa in a section titled "Anti-Jerusalem Views." They include suspicions of a "Judaizing error," Ibn Taymiya, Muhammad Abu Zayd, and Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi.
Here follow more recent references to Al-Aqsa being identified outside of Jerusalem:
Ahmad Muhammad 'Arafa, columnist for Al-Qahira, an Egyptian government weekly issued by the Ministry of Culture, published an article, "Was the Prophet Muhammad's Night Journey to Palestine or Medina?" in which he doubts that the Isra' was to Jerusalem. (August 5, 2003)
Ahmad Muhammad 'Arafa argues in another article in Al-Qahira against the dogma that Muhammad traveled to Jerusalem. Recalling earlier interpretations, such as that of fellow Egyptian Muhammad Abu Zayd in the 1930s, 'Arafa instead argues that the miraculous journey took him to Medina. (September 3, 2003)
The mostmerciful.com website, in an undated entry, argues that Muhammad went to "the highest part of Horizon, near the Lote-tree." (June 26, 2008)
Youssef Ziedan, an Egyptian novelist, says that today's Al-Aqsa Mosque is not the one referred to in the Koran. Rather, than one was "on the road from Mecca to Ta'if." Citing al-Waqidi, al-Tabari, and other medieval historians, Ziedan notes that "Al-Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem] did not exist back then, and the city was not called Al-Quds. It was called Aelia and it had no mosques." He attributes the Jerusalem Aqsa Mosque to "a political game by [Caliph] Abd Al-Malik ibn Marwan." According to a television host, this opinion has "caused an uproar in Egyptian religious circles and society." (December 3, 2015)
The Mosque of Umar in Nuba, a village about 26 kilometers (16 miles) southwest of Jerusalem, contains a dedicatory inscription that, hidden in plain sight,
mentions the village as an endowment for the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque. But what's striking is that the Dome of the Rock is referred to in the text as "the rock of the Bayt al-Maqdis" — literally, "The Holy Temple" — a verbatim translation of the Hebrew term for the Jerusalem temple that early Muslims employed to refer to Jerusalem as a whole, and the gold-domed shrine in particular.
(October 31, 2016)
Ahmed Subhy Mansour of the Quranist movement has written The Falsehood of Al-Aqsa Mosque of Jerusalem(translated into English by Ahmed Fathy; Arabic original: كتاب اكذوبة المسجد الأقصى فى القدس) where he argues that the real Al-Aqsa is Mount Al-Tur in the Sinai peninsula of Egypt. (January 30, 2018)
Youssef Ziedan, the Egyptian intellectual quoted above, repeated (according to the Jerusalem Post) that "the phrase 'al-Aqsa' refers to a mosque on the outskirts of the city of Ta'if, west of Mecca. He bases his hypothesis on the teachings of the ancient Muslim historian Al-Waqidi." (October 2, 2018)
Firas Al-Sawwah, a Syrian scholar, argues that the Aqsa Mosque mentioned in the Koran was not in Jerusalem; the caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan decided to build a holy place in Jerusalem and called it Al-Aqsa. (March 3, 2019)
Ahmed Saad Zayed, an Egyptian researcher, writes about Koran 17:1:
The Koranic verse is very clear: "Exalted is He who took His Servant by night from the Sacred Mosque to the farthest Mosque." So, there was a sacred mosque, a mosque where a person can be safe in, and a second one, a faraway mosque. "Aqsa" means far away. There was no Al-Aqsa Mosque back then. The place was a garbage dump. The Christians wanted to upset the Jews, so the area on which the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque were later built. ... The story here is [a figure of] Islamic imagination.
(March 31, 2019)
Osama Yamani, a columnist for Okaz, a Saudi (official) newspaper, wrote today "Where is the Al-Aqsa Mosque?" ("أين يقع المسجد الأقصى؟"). In it, he states that the Aqsa mosque referred to in the Koran is in Ji'rana, on the outskirts of Mecca – and not in Jerusalem. Comment: This article could effectively announce a struggle between Saudis and Palestinians over the location of Al-Aqsa. (November 13, 2020)
 Osama Yamani's business card. |
Wasfi Kilani, executive director of the Hashemite Fund for the Restoration of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, among many others, severely condemned the Yamani article. (November 17, 2020)
Nov. 29, 2020 update: Nadav Shragai assesses the Jerusalem vs Ji'rana issue in Israel Hayom, interviewing three Israeli researchers on this topic, Mordechai Kedar, Yitzhak Reiter, and Eran Tzidkiyahu. In addition, he provides a helpful overview of the topic: Since the Yamani article was published,
Arab social media has been aflutter. Yamani is accused of spreading "perverse nonsense that contradicts the Quran and Sunni Islam." A few claimed he is "sick" or "insane." Some, like the Turkish television station TRT, claim that his remarks were designed to serve the Zionist agenda and attempts by Jewish Middle East scholars to deny that Al-Aqsa is located in Jerusalem and Muhammad's miraculous night flight. Others say the article was published for political reasons – an attempt to pave the way for Saudi normalization with Israel.
The article infuriated several officials in the Palestinian Authority. Mohammad Habash, the PA's highest-ranking Sharia judge, thinks the article was designed to serve "enemies of the nation." Dr. Ali Abu Al-Awar, a Palestinian who wrote his doctorate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Harvard, calls Osama Yamani a "highwayman."
Ahmed Sayed 'Atif wrote in the Saudi daily 'Okaz on Dec. 25, 2020, that the terms "holy land" and "blessed land" in the Koran refer to Mecca and not to Jerusalem or any other place. (January 26, 2021)
Yamani, it should be noted, is not the first to question the identification of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem as the Quranic Al-Aqsa. The Egyptian intellectual Dr. Youssef Ziedan did so in 2015, as did Jordanian researcher Dr. Suleiman al-Tarawneh in 2017.
.Abu Sahih (likely a pseudonym), an Egyptian scholar, explains in an interview how he concluded during his last year of studies at the Shari'a College at Al-Azhar University that Al-Aqsa was originally in Ji'rana. (May 24, 2021)
Ibrahim Issa, a prominent Egyptian editor called the Koranic account of Muhammad's night journey "delusional," leading to widespread condemnation and possible legal action against him. (February 21, 2022)
