Jerusalem in the Quran

qrrgprgua

I see that the Places Mecca and Medina are mentioned quiet a few times by name in the Quran. But I can't find Jerusalem mentioned by name. I asked from Muslim friends and they said it was.. but when we tried to find it in the Quran there were references to "this town" as being Jerusalem,, But not the word Jerusalem at all. أُورُشَلِيمَ Ūršalīm.

Just strange that the 3rd most important city in Islam is not even mentioned in the Quran by name? Yet Medina and Mecca are.

hivizman

qrrgprgua wrote: »

I see that the Places Mecca and Medina are mentioned quite a few times by name in the Quran. But I can't find Jerusalem mentioned by name. I asked from Muslim friends and they said it was.. but when we tried to find it in the Quran there were references to "this town" as being Jerusalem,, But not the word Jerusalem at all. أُورُشَلِيمَ Ūršalīm.

Just strange that the 3rd most important city in Islam is not even mentioned in the Quran by name? Yet Medina and Mecca are.

This is probably a reflection of the allusive style of the Qur'an, which actually refers to Mecca (Makkah) only once by name (in Surat al-Fath 48:24), and once in the alternative spelling Bakkah (in Surat Ahl-Imran 3:96). The latter verse reads (in Muhammad Asad's translation): "Behold, the first Temple ever set up for mankind was indeed the one at Bakkah: rich in blessing and a guidance unto all the worlds." All commentators equate "Bakkah" with "Makkah". Mecca is alluded to in various verses. For example, Surat al-'An'aam 6:92 refers to "the mother of all towns", which commentators take to refer to Mecca.

Medina (Madinah - which means "city" in Arabic) is referred to once by its older name Yathrib (Surat al-'Ahzaab 33:13). The word "madinah" appears in the Qur'an in various forms 17 times, but only four of these refer unambiguously to Madinah - the others refer to cities in general or to unnamed cities mentioned in various narratives.

What about Jerusalem? This is not referred to in the Qur'an in either a straight transliterated form (أُورُشَلِيمَ Ūršalīm) or as Al-Quds (القُدس), the most common Arabic name today. The reference most often taken as referring to Jerusalem is in Surat al-'Israa 17:1, which reads (in Muhammad Asad's translation): "Limitless in His glory is He who transported His servant by night from the Inviolable House of Worship [at Mecca - in Arabic al-Masjid al-Haram] to the Remote House of Worship [at Jerusalem - in Arabic al-Masjid al-Aqsa] - the environs of which We had blessed - so that We might show him some of Our symbols: for, verily, He alone is all-hearing, all-seeing."

There are more references to Jerusalem in the hadith collections, but even then the references are often allusions rather than direct namings. For example, reference is made to the Bayt al-Maqdis or Bayt al-Muqaddas (House of Holiness), which is considered by interpreters of hadith to stand for Jerusalem.

In the article "Jerusalem" in The Qur'an: An Encyclopedia (Routledge: 2006), Oliver Leaman notes: "If we examine the wording of the Qur'an we find no explicit references to Jerusalem by name or by any of its alternative names, such as al-Quds, Bayt al-Muqaddas or Ursalim. . . . It is sometimes claimed that it was only after the Islamic conquest of Jerusalem in 637 CE that the view became established that the mosque called 'the most remote' [al-Aqsa] was the Temple of Jerusalem." Leaman explains that Surat ar-Rum 30:1 refers to the Romans (Byzantines) having been defeated in a battle that is considered to have taken place near Jerusalem, in a place described as "the nearby land". This seems to contradict the idea that the "remote" or "furthest" mosque was in Jerusalem.

But overall, the lack of explicit references to Jerusalem in the Qur'an is consistent with its style rather than an indication that Jerusalem wasn't actually important.

qrrgprgua

Remote House of Worship [at Jerusalem - in Arabic al-Masjid al-Aqsa]. That is the interpretation. But Jerusalem by name is not mentioned. Neither was there a temple in Jerusalem as it had been destroyed several hundred years before.

Remote House of Worship, Is probably a reference to Hagia Sofia which during the time of Mohammed was the remote house of Worship and most famous. Indeed it was the largest temple.

hivizman

qrrgprgua wrote: »

Remote House of Worship [at Jerusalem - in Arabic al-Masjid al-Aqsa]. That is the interpretation. But Jerusalem by name is not mentioned. Neither was there a temple in Jerusalem as it had been destroyed several hundred years before.

Remote House of Worship, Is probably a reference to Hagia Sofia which during the time of Mohammed was the remote house of Worship and most famous. Indeed it was the largest temple.

Another name used in the core Islamic texts for Jerusalem is "Ilya", derived from "Aelia Capitolina", the name imposed on Jerusalem after the expulsion of the Jews following the Bar Kochba revolt in 132-136 CE. This name appears in various hadiths (e.g. Bukhari 1:1:6, 4:52:191) relating to the letter sent by Muhammad to the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius around 630 CE. This was after Heraclius recaptured Jerusalem from the Persians, who had taken Jerusalem in 614.

By coincidence, a couple of nights ago I was watching the opening scenes of the movie The Message (released in 1976, starring Anthony Quinn), which tells the story of the revelation of the Qur'an. Right at the beginning, we see a messenger arriving at the court of Heraclius, but the location in the film appears to be Hagia Sophia, which does not fit with the hadith traditions.

The association of the Masjid al-Aqsa with Jerusalem is a very old one, and it's important to remember that "Masjid" literally means "place of prostration (sujud)", so there is no need for there to be an actual building in place at the time of the revelation of the Qur'an. However, Bukhari (4:55:585) reports a hadith where Muhammad, in response to a question as to which mosques were built first and second, replies that the Masjid Al-Haram (in Makkah) was built first and the Masjid al-Aqsa was built about 40 years later.

Appparently, some of the earliest Muslim scholars were unsure that the reference in the Qur'an to the "Remote House of Worship" was to Jerusalem, but I am not aware of any claims that it was actually Constantinople. One reason working against such a view is the qibla, the direction of prayer. Muslim tradition is that, when prayer was established in Madinah, the original direction of prayer was Jerusalem, but that this changed to Makkah after a year or so. Scholars suggest that the initial direction of the qibla reflected the large Jewish population of Madinah at that time, and the change came as Muhammad was establishing Islam as distinct from the "religions of the book" that had gone before. Constantinople was never a direction of prayer for Christians, and certainly not for Jews, so this rules out Constantinople as the site of the Masjid al-Aqsa.

A paper by Abdallah El-Khatib "Jerusalem in the Qur'an" British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 28, No. 1, 2001, pp. 25-53, may be worth studying for more on this issue, but unfortunately I don't have access to this journal from home.

qrrgprgua

Thanks very good response. I was on the temple mount last week and the Islamic and Jewish versions of they mount greatly differ... The Jews were quick to point out the lack of evidence of Jerusalem in the Quran. Very contentious spot.. Good us Christians have no claim over the temple mount.

hivizman

I have been able to get on-line access to the paper by El-Khatib "Jerusalem in the Qur'an" that I referred to earlier.

The author notes as many as 70 passages in the Qur'an where subsequent scholars have claimed that reference is being made to Jerusalem. However, virtually all of these are questioned by either a minority or a majority of commentators. Some references are to "The Holy Land", and others are general references to the place where various actions of David and Solomon took place (these may be located in Jerusalem in the Bible, but not explicitly so in the Qur'an).

According to El-Khatib, the only reference that commentators unanimously locate as Jerusalem is the reference to the Masjid al-Aqsa in Surat al-'Israa 17:1, and here the evidence is based on hadiths that state that Muhammad's miraculous flight from Makkah went to Jerusalem and that this was the starting point for his ascent to heaven (the Mi'raj). Even then the hadiths tend to use names such as Bayt al-Muqdis (House of Holiness) rather than name Jerusalem directly.

This seems to be an example of a not entirely uncommon phenomenon in studying Islam where the actual wording of the core documents (Qur'an and canonical hadith collections) is more ambiguous than the interpretations of subsequent commentators.

El-Khatib concludes by stating: "Since Jerusalem (al-Quds), the holy sanctuary, as it is firmly established in the Qur'an and the Sunna of the Prophet, and Islamic history, occupies the highest status in every Muslim's belief, mind and heart, any future settlement and negotiation on the fate of this city has to take into account this important issue in order to achieve lasting peace. Indeed, 'there must be adequate recognition of the special interest of the three religions in the Holy places of Jerusalem, and its future should be determined by negotiations'. Our hope, still, is that justice and a comprehensive peace will prevail in this prestigious city, and that cooperation among the followers of the three religions will also prevail."

donaghs

qrrgprgua wrote: »

Thanks very good response. I was on the temple mount last week and the Islamic and Jewish versions of they mount greatly differ... The Jews were quick to point out the lack of evidence of Jerusalem in the Quran. Very contentious spot.. Good us Christians have no claim over the temple mount.

Very interesting thread. Never realised the Jerusalem/Koran/Islam connection was so weak. From a dispassionate scholarly intellectual point of view, the "farthest mosque" is clearly a tad vague. Equally the decision that the "night journey" finished there seems rather speculative.

Christians don't seem that fixated with the place, although there is evidence of a Byzantine Church there pre-dating the Islamic invasion. Again, during the Crusades there was a Church on the site. I saw on a TV documentary that Saladin had the stones scrubbed with rosewater to remove the stain of the Crusaders, after recapturing Jerusalem.

Interesting also how after the 1967 war, many Jews wanted to turn the Temple Mount into a Jewish shrine, Moshe Dayan overruled them, and gave it back to a Muslim council.

qrrgprgua

@donaghs.. Yes there was a lot of discussion with my Jewish friends on the temple mount. But the Posts above by Hivisman are very good at getting an understanding as to why Jerusalem in not named by name. Jerusalem goes without saying it was mentioned many many times in Torah and Bible.

I don't think there is much that Jews can do to regain the temple mount,, it would simply be unthinkable that Muslim nations would allow the temple mount to be touched.

But to Jews its the central most holy place of worship... While for Muslims its not as important ans Mecca & Medina.

golden lane

jeru-salem.....the town of jeru................does not sound arabic.................so probably has another name........

hivizman

golden lane wrote: »

jeru-salem.....the town of jeru................does not sound arabic.................so probably has another name........

The Wikipedia article names of Jerusalem is quite comprehensive, discussing various different names and their forms in different languages.