By Nicole Sivan
Roman, Muslim and Crusader Jerusalem
After the destruction of the Second Temple, the Romans renamed Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina and eventually rebuilt the city in 130 A.D. Over the ruins of the Second Temple the Roman Emperor Hadrian constructed a smaller temple to the God Jupiter where the Romans sacrificed pigs and worshiped idols. Circumcision, a sacred act for Jewish men, was prohibited by the Romans, causing the Jews to again rebel in a second revolt known as the Bar Kochba Revolt. This revolt also failed and the Romans banned the remaining Jewish population from entering Jerusalem.
Through the 3rd-7th centuries AD, during the time when the Roman Empire adopted Christianity, the site of Jewish Temple was neglected and the Temple Mount became a garbage dump for the city. In 637 AD, Caliph Omar, leading the newly established Muslim army from Arabia, conquered the city. The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built to commemorate Jesus’ crucifixion, went personally to Omar to hand him the key to the city. He then invited Omar into the Church to pray. Omar declined the invitation and insisted on praying next to the church instead, telling the Patriarch he did not wish to endanger the status of the structure as a Christian site. Only half a century later the Mosque of Omar was built to memorialize the site where he prayed.
Omar asked a local guide for a tour of holy sites in the city. The guide led him to the Temple Mount and told him it was the location of Muhammad’s accession into heaven to the farthest mosque, which is Muhammad’s famous night journey into heaven.
Glory to (Allah) Who did take His Servant for a Journey by night from the Sacred Mosque to
the Farthest Mosque (Masjid al-Aqsa), whose precincts We did bless,- in order that We
might show him some of Our Signs: for He is the One Who heareth and seeth (all things). Sura.
17:1
To honor the connection between Muhammad and the Temple Mount, Omar commissioned the construction of the Al-Asqa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, the latter which was completed by 692 CE, making it one of the oldest standing Islamic structures in the world. The Dome of the Rock was built over a part of Mt. Moriah believed to be the foundation stone, and where perhaps the Holy of the Holies in the Jewish Temple was located. Thanks to its construction over this solid bedrock, the building holds up well during the regional earthquakes. The Al Aqsa Mosque, on the other hand, has suffered damages over the centuries due to its construction on the southern end of the Temple Mount. The south end of the Mount is the area Herod built using earthen fill: it is not solid ground and this unstable foundation has left the Mosque susceptible to intense shaking during earthquakes.
In 1071, the Crusaders conquered the city, brutally slaughtering every man, woman and child, Muslim and Jew. Once calm took hold, one order of knights set up their headquarters in the Al Aqsa Mosque, believing the mosque was the ruins of Solomon’s Temple. Their order even adopted the name “Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon” or the “Templar” Knights.
The rule of the Crusaders over Jerusalem was short-lived, and the Muslims, under the leadership of Saladin, again re-conquered the area in 1171, expelling the Crusaders from the land. However, Saladin was a fair ruler, and unlike the Roman or Crusader conquerors, he practiced religious tolerance, allowing Christians and Jews to reside in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem we see today began to take shape during Saladin’s rule and the rule of his successors and the city was divided into four quarters, known today as the Jewish Quarter, the Muslim Quarter, the Christian Quarter, and the Armenian Quarter. Like the Temple Mount itself, the Muslim Quarter was constructed on an elevated platform built using a series of arches and vaults above the ruins of Second Temple period Jerusalem. This elevation allows the neighborhood to be level with the Temple Mount, and has inadvertently helped to preserve parts of ancient Jerusalem. If one were to visit Jerusalem today and descend into the Western Wall Tunnel he will travel through the layers of Jerusalem into the Second Temple period, walking beneath the modern Muslim Quarter above.
Stay tuned for part 3 of this article: Modern Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.
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