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The city of Jerusalem is sacred to many religious traditions, including the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam which consider it a holy city. [1] Some of the most sacred places for each of these religions are found in Jerusalem, most prominently, the Temple Mount/Haram Al-Sharif. [2]
Jerusalem has been the holiest city in Judaism and the ancestral and spiritual homeland of the Jewish people since the 10th century BCE. [3] During classical antiquity, Jerusalem was considered the center of the world, where God resided. [4]
The city of Jerusalem is given special status in Jewish religious law. In particular, Jews outside Jerusalem pray facing its direction, and the maaser sheni, revai and First Fruits must be eaten in Jerusalem. Any expansion of the city for these purposes must be approved by the Sanhedrin. [ citation needed ] Also, when the Temple in Jerusalem was standing, Jerusalem observed special laws regarding the Four Species on Sukkot, and the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah.
And God said: "Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah [Jerusalem]; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains [Temple Mount] which I will tell thee of."
— Genesis 22:2
Jerusalem has long been embedded into Jewish religious consciousness. Jews have studied and personalized the struggle by King David to capture Jerusalem and his desire to build the Jewish temple there, as described in the Book of Samuel and the Book of Psalms. Many of King David's yearnings about Jerusalem have been adapted into popular prayers and songs.
Jerusalem appears in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) 669 times and Zion (which usually means Jerusalem, sometimes the Land of Israel) appears 154 times. The first section, the Torah, only mentions Moriah, the mountain range believed to be the location of the binding of Isaac and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and in later parts of the Tanakh the city is written explicitly. The Tanakh (or Old Testament), is a text sacred to both Judaism and Christianity. In Judaism it is considered the Written Law, the basis for the Oral Law (Mishnah, Talmud and Shulkhan Arukh) studied, practiced and treasured by Jews and Judaism for three millennia. [5] The Talmud elaborates in great depth the Jewish connection with the city.
According to the Hebrew Bible, the First Temple, at the site known as the Temple Mount today, was built by King Solomon and finished in 930 BC, [6] and Mount Moriah is where Abraham almost sacrificed his son and talked to God. When the Babylonians captured the city in 587/6 BC, they destroyed the temple and sent the Jews into exile. [7] That is, all worshiping was practiced in the temple and only the temple. From the Babylonian capture, Judaism was codified. [8] The Tanakh (Old Testament) laid the foundation for both Christianity and Islam.
In Christian faith, Jerusalem's place in the life of Jesus gives it great importance, in addition to its place in the Old Testament. Jerusalem is the place where Jesus was brought as a child, to be "presented" at the Temple (Luke 2:22) and to attend festivals (Luke 2:41). According to the Gospels, Jesus preached and healed in Jerusalem, especially in the Temple courts. There is also an account of Jesus' "cleansing" of the Temple, chasing various traders out of the sacred precincts (Mark 11:15). At the end of each of the Gospels, there are accounts of Jesus' Last Supper in an "upper room" in Jerusalem, his arrest in Gethsemane, his trial, his crucifixion at Golgotha, his burial nearby and his resurrection and ascension. Jerusalem is generally considered the cradle of Christianity. [10]
The earliest Christians were outcast and used the Ichthys fish symbol as a way to know if someone was Christian. This would prevent prosecution or death from the Romans. [11] Christianity became more popular over time, but made a huge expansion when the Roman Emperor Constantine claimed Christianity as his religion and thus the religion of the Roman Empire. [12] Jerusalem is mostly important to Christianity because it is where Jesus Christ was brought occasionally as a child, preached to the poor in his adult life, crucified at the end of his life, and resurrected by God. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is said to have been built over the location where Jesus was crucified and where the tomb was buried. [13] The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is generally considered the most important church in Christendom. [14]
In Christianity, the Jewish connection with the city is considered as the account of God's relationship with His chosen people—the original covenant—and the essential prelude to the events narrated in the New Testament, including both universal commandments (e.g. the Ten Commandments) and obsolete or Judaism-specific ones[ citation needed ]. In medieval times, Christians thought Jerusalem was the center of the world (Latin: umbilicus mundi, Greek: Omphalos), and was so represented in the so-called T and O maps [ citation needed ]. Byzantine hymns speak of the Cross being "planted in the center of the earth," and the imagery is tied to the concept of the Death and resurrection of Jesus being for the benefit of all mankind. Medieval maps of Europe usually placed the east ("orient")—Jerusalem—at the top, and this arrangement led to the use of the term "to orient" to mean to align a map with actual compass directions[ citation needed ].
In Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city after Mecca and Medina. [17] [18] Muslims believe that Muhammad was transported to Jerusalem during his Night Journey (Isra and Mi'raj). [19] The Qur'an describes how the prophet was taken by the miraculous steed Buraq from the Great Mosque of Mecca to Al-Aqsa ('"the farthest place of prayer") where he prayed, and then to visit heaven in a single night in the year 621. [20] [19]
Glory be to the One Who took His servant ˹Muḥammad˺ by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque whose surroundings We have blessed, so that We may show him some of Our signs. Indeed, He alone is the All-Hearing, All-Seeing.
Although the city of Jerusalem is not mentioned by any of its names in the Qur'an, it is mentioned in later Islamic literature as the place of Muhammad's Night Journey. [21] The story of Muhammad's ascension from Al-Aqsa Mosque was understood as relating to the Temple in Jerusalem (referred to as Bayt Al-Maqdis). [22] The Al-Aqsa Mosque is specified of being in Jerusalem in numerous hadith (prophetic traditions):
When the people of Quraish did not believe me (i.e. the story of my Night Journey), I stood up in Al-Hijr and Allah displayed Jerusalem in front of me, and I began describing it to them while I was looking at it.
The most holy spot [al-quds] on earth is Syria; the most holy spot in Syria is Palestine; the most holy spot in Palestine is Jerusalem [Bayt al-maqdis]; the most holy spot in Jerusalem is the Mountain; the most holy spot in Jerusalem is the place of worship [al-masjid], and the most holy spot in the place of worship is the Dome
Zayd ibn Thabit reports that the Prophet said, "How blessed is al-Sham! The Companions around asked: "Why is that?" The Messenger replied, "I see the angels of Allah spread their wings over al-Sham". lbn Abbas added, "and the Prophets lived in it. There is not a single inch in al-Quds (Jerusalem) where a Prophet has not prayed or an angel not stood".
The spiritual importance of Jerusalem in Islam is further emphasized due to its status as the first Qibla (direction of prayer). Islamic tradition holds that Muhammad led prayers towards Jerusalem until the 16th or 17th month after his migration from Mecca to Medina, when Allah directed him to instead turn towards the Kaaba in Mecca. [19] [Quran 2:142-151] Another part of Jerusalem's significance and holiness to Muslims derives from its strong association with Abraham, David, Solomon, and Jesus. They are all regarded as Prophets of Islam and their stories are mentioned in the Qur'an. [26]
Today, the Temple Mount is dominated by three monumental structures from the early Umayyad period – the Dome of the Rock (691 CE), the Dome of the Chain (691-692 CE) and the al-Aqsa Mosque (705-715 CE). [27]
According to Jorunn J. Buckley, Mandaeans see themselves to be former Judeans based in Jerusalem and she believes Mandaeism to be of Judean or Israelite origin. [28] Mandaeans believe their chief prophet, John the Baptist, was born in Jerusalem. According to the Haran Gawaita, the Mandaeans loved the Lord Adonai until the birth of Jesus and had to flee Jerusalem due to persecution in the 1st Century CE. [29] : 3
James F. McGrath counts 45 mentions of Jerusalem in the Ginza Rabba and 84 in the Mandaean Book of John, noting that this is a higher frequency of mentions per page than the 274 mentions in the longer Babylonian Talmud. Accounts about Jerusalem mention John the Baptist, Miriai, Jacob and Benjamin, and visits by the uthras Anush Uthra and Hibil Ziwa. McGrath notes that the accounts of the destruction of Jerusalem in the Right Ginza portray it as justice for the persecution of Mandaeans, and suggests this to be evidence for a coherent proto-Mandaean community in Jerusalem prior to its destruction. This is similar to the Christian account that viewed the destruction of Jerusalem as vengeance for the persecution of Jesus and his followers. McGrath also adds that no other city in Mandaean literature is given as much attention as Jerusalem. [30]
was housed in the most important church in Christendom, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
was housed in the most important church in Christendom, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The Night Journey made Jerusalem the third holiest city in Islam
The third holiest city of Islam—Jerusalem—is also very much in the center...
Jerusalem has always enjoyed a prominent place in Islam. Jerusalem is often referred to as the third holiest city in Islam...
The Quran speaks about Hebrew patriarchs and prophets such as Abraham, Isaac, David, Solomon, and Jesus, who lived in the city or passed through it.
Jerusalem is a city in West Asia, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the oldest cities in the world, and is considered holy to the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Both the State of Israel and Palestine claim Jerusalem as their capital; Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions there, and Palestine ultimately foresees it as its seat of power. Neither claim, however, is widely recognized internationally.
The Temple in Jerusalem, or alternatively the Holy Temple, refers to the two religious structures that served as the central places of worship for Israelites and Jews on the modern-day Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. According to the Hebrew Bible, the First Temple was built in the 10th century BCE, during the reign of Solomon over the United Kingdom of Israel. It stood until c. 587 BCE, when it was destroyed during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem. Almost a century later, the First Temple was replaced by the Second Temple, which was built after the Neo-Babylonian Empire was conquered by the Achaemenid Persian Empire. While the Second Temple stood for a longer period of time than the First Temple, it was likewise destroyed during the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE.
The Temple Mount, also known as Haram al-Sharif, al-Aqsa Mosque compound, or simply al-Aqsa, and sometimes as Jerusalem's holyesplanade, is a hill in the Old City of Jerusalem that has been venerated as a holy site in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam for thousands of years.
The Dome of the Rock is an Islamic shrine at the center of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. It is the world's oldest surviving work of Islamic architecture, the earliest archaeologically attested religious structure to be built by a Muslim ruler and its inscriptions contain the earliest epigraphic proclamations of Islam and of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
The Holy Land is an area roughly located between the Mediterranean Sea and the eastern bank of the Jordan River, traditionally synonymous both with the biblical Land of Israel and with the region of Palestine. Today, the term "Holy Land" usually refers to a territory roughly corresponding to the modern states of Israel and Palestine. Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Baháʼís regard it as holy.
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The Old City of Jerusalem is a 0.9-square-kilometre (0.35 sq mi) walled area in East Jerusalem.
This is a timeline of major events in the history of Jerusalem; a city that had been fought over sixteen times in its history. During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times.
During its long history, Jerusalem has been attacked 52 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, besieged 23 times, and destroyed twice. The oldest part of the city was settled in the 4th millennium BCE, making Jerusalem one of the oldest cities in the world.
The "Third Temple" refers to a hypothetical rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem. It would succeed Solomon's Temple and the Second Temple, the former having been destroyed during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in c. 587 BCE and the latter having been destroyed during the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The notion of and desire for the Third Temple is sacred in Judaism, particularly in Orthodox Judaism. It would be the most sacred place of worship for Jews. The Hebrew Bible holds that Jewish prophets called for its construction prior to, or in tandem with, the Messianic Age. The building of the Third Temple also plays a major role in some interpretations of Christian eschatology.
Religion in Israel is manifested primarily in Judaism, the ethnic religion of the Jewish people. The State of Israel declares itself as a "Jewish and democratic state" and is the only country in the world with a Jewish-majority population. Other faiths in the country include Islam, Christianity and the religion of the Druze people. Religion plays a central role in national and civil life, and almost all Israeli citizens are automatically registered as members of the state's 14 official religious communities, which exercise control over several matters of personal status, especially marriage. These recognized communities are Orthodox Judaism, Islam, the Druze faith, the Catholic Church, Greek Orthodox Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Armenian Apostolic Church, Anglicanism, and the Baháʼí Faith.
The holiest sites in Islam are predominantly located in the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant. While the significance of most places typically varies depending on the Islamic sect, there is a consensus across all mainstream branches of the religion that affirms three cities as having the highest degree of holiness, in descending order: Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. Mecca's Al-Masjid al-Haram, Al-Masjid an-Nabawi in Medina and Al-Masjid al-Aqsa in Jerusalem are all revered by Muslims as sites of great importance.
The Temple Mount, a holy site in the Old City of Jerusalem, also known as the al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf or Al-Aqsa, contains twelve gates. One of the gates, Bab as-Sarai, is currently closed to the public but was open under Ottoman rule. There are also six other sealed gates. This does not include the Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem which circumscribe the external walls except on the east side.
The term Abrahamic religion is a category to group the three major religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam together, due to their historical coexistence and competition, based around the figure Abraham, mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible, and the Quran. It is used to show similarities between those religions and put them in contrast to Indian religions, Iranian religions, and the East Asian religions, although other religions and belief systems may refer to Abraham as well. Furthermore, some religions categorized as "Abrahamic religion" can also share aspects with elements from other categories, such as Indian religions, for example, Islam with Eastern religions.
Temple denial is the claim that the successive Temples in Jerusalem either did not exist or they did exist but were not constructed on the site of the Temple Mount, a claim which has been advanced by Islamic political leaders, religious figures, intellectuals, and authors.
In 2009, clashes between Muslim Palestinians and Israeli police erupted on September 27, 2009, and continued to late October. Violence spread through East Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank, and included throwing of Molotov cocktails and stones at Israeli security forces and civilians. Israeli police responded with arrests of rioters and sporadic age-based restriction of access to the Temple Mount. Several dozen rioters, police and Israeli civilians have been injured.
The Islamization of Jerusalem refers to the process through which Jerusalem and its Old City acquired an Islamic character and, eventually, a significant Muslim presence. The foundation for Jerusalem's Islamization was laid by the Muslim conquest of the Levant, and began shortly after the city was besieged and captured in 638 CE by the Rashidun Caliphate under Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second Rashidun caliph. The second wave of Islamization occurred after the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, a Christian state that was established after the First Crusade, at the Battle of Hattin in 1187. The eventual fall of the Crusader states by 1291 led to a period of almost-uninterrupted Muslim rule that lasted for seven centuries, and a dominant Islamic culture was consolidated in the region during the Ayyubid, Mamluk and early Ottoman periods. Beginning in the late Ottoman era, Jerusalem’s demographics turned increasingly multicultural, and regained a Jewish-majority character during the late-19th and early-20th centuries that had not been seen since the Roman period, which largely ended the Jewish presence in the region.
Hashemite custodianship refers to the Jordanian royal family's role in tending Muslim and Christian holy sites in the city of Jerusalem. The legacy traces back to 1924 when the Supreme Muslim Council, the highest Muslim body in charge of Muslim community affairs in Mandatory Palestine, chose Hussein bin Ali as custodian of Al-Aqsa. The custodianship became a Hashemite legacy administered by consecutive Jordanian kings.
On 15 April 2022, clashes erupted between Palestinians and Israeli Security Forces on the Al-Aqsa Compound in the Old City of Jerusalem. According to the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, the clashes began when Palestinians threw stones, firecrackers, and other heavy objects at Israeli police officers. The policemen used tear gas shells, stun grenades and police batons against the Palestinians. Some Palestinians afterwards barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque and proceeded to throw stones at the officers. In response, police raided the mosque, arresting those who had barricaded themselves inside. In addition, some damage was done to the mosque's structure.