The Prophet's Night Journey to Jerusalem

by Daniel Pipes
Wed, 3 Sep 2003

Send

Comment

RSS

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 Al-Aqsa mosque. 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.

This history comes to mind because, in an article published in the weekly Al-Qahira (and translated by MEMRI), Columnist Ahmad Muhammad 'Arafa argues 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. One wonders what sort of traction this argument will have; or what sort of price 'Arafa will pay for his dissent. (September 3, 2002)

TrackBack URL for this post: http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/trackback.php/85/ccbe6/681

Reader comments on this weblog entry

Title	By	Date
Islam's Claim to the site of Dome of the Rock [154 words]	Peter G Jones	Jan 9, 2006 19:05
↔ locales not yet part of their domain: How about the Moon ? [107 words]	RobW	Dec 31, 2007 08:35

Comment on this weblog entry

Name:	Email Address: Email me if someone replies to my comment
Title of Comments:
Comments:
Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Comments are screened for relevance, substance, and tone, and in some cases edited, before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome, but not hostile, libelous, or otherwise objectionable statements. Original writing only, please. For complete regulations, see Guidelines for Comments. Top 25 recent comments Daniel Pipes Blog Homepage

Daniel Pipes Blog Homepage

ADVERTISEMENTS