An article of mine today, "Israel and the Temple Mount's Five Muslim Rivals," analyzed the "intricate, consequential struggle" over the sanctity between the Palestinian Authority, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Republic of Turkey, and the Kingdom of Morocco. The weblog entry updates the story, as needed, starting with an addendum. (February 7, 2021)
King Abdullah unilaterally announced plans in October 2006 to build a fifth minaret, taller than all the others, on the Temple Mount.
Useful information that I missed in the original article:
- Erdoğan stating in 2015 that "Conquest is Mecca, conquest is Saladin. It means hoisting the Islamic flag over Jerusalem again."
- A June 1, 2020 report that Saudi Arabia and Israel were engaged in secret talks, endorsed by Jordan, for the Saudis to have a representative on the Temple Mount's waqf. The Jordanians had previously objected to Saudi representation but changed their minds as a result of Turkish involvement on the Temple Mount.
Feb. 23, 2021 update: Six Muslim rivals? Algerian television claims tens of thousands properties in Jerusalem, including the Western Wall, belong to the Algerian waqfs.
Mar. 1, 2021 update: Nadav Shragai provides more details on Erdoğan's campaign for Jerusalem. Comments: (1) Contrary to what Shragai asserts, the whole Diyanet was not renamed, just a division within it. (2) I am puzzling how tourists can retake Jerusalem.
Mar. 12, 2021 update: Nadav Shragai reads deeper significance into the flap concerning the cancelation of Prime Minister Netanyahu's flight to the UAE because Jordan's government would not allow his plane to traverse its airspace, and it concerns Jordanian rivalry with the Saudis over the Temple Mount:
Riyadh is looking to create a new status quo at the site and is willing to invest tens of billions of dollars in Jerusalem and the Temple Mount and agree to some form of normalization of ties with Israel to this end. In return, Saudi Arabia wants a senior role, alongside Israel, in running the mount, instead of or alongside Jordan, among other things. ...
Jordan, for its part, is furious at the very notion Saudi Arabia could be given a role at the site. ... It earned recognition for its senior status on the mount through the framework of the peace treaty signed with Israel in 1994 and its active and opinionated involvement in a series of issues concerning the site, from the renovation of walls and joint exercises with Israeli rescue forces on the mount to a veto on Israeli plans for the area around the Temple Mount, including the replacement of the Mughrabi Bridge and the removal of construction debris from the "Little Western Wall."
Shragai introduces a little-known historical fact:
When then-Saudi King Khaled dispatched emissaries in the 1980s to offer Prime Minister Menachem Begin a fortune for the development of a new Middle East in return for a Saudi flag being installed on the Temple Mount, Begin responded by kicking them out.
In contrast, "Netanyahu and his officials are involved in talks on the possibility of affording Riyadh status on the site." This has left Israel with the role of "a kind of traffic cop on the mount ... straddling the divide, maneuvering in the inter-Islamic struggle between Amman and Riyadh, sometimes acting to please the Jordanians, at other times, looking to please the Saudis."
Mar. 16, 2021 update: Who's kidding whom? From a report by Amman-based Osama Al Sharif: "Jordan's custodianship is not being disputed or contested by any third party. It has been supported by the Arab League and recognized by the Palestinian Authority and the Muslim and international community." Presumably the author knows better.
Mar. 18, 2021 update: Edy Cohen adds new information to understanding Jordan's game in the mini-crisis over the crown prince visit:
The seemingly innocent plan to have Jordanian Crown Prince Hussein visit the Temple Mount on March 11 was not arranged by chance. No such visit has taken place since 1967. King Abdullah is attempting to turn his son into a heroic figure and strengthen his image in the Hashemite Kingdom and the Arab world ahead of the day he ascends to the throne. ...
To reflect the importance of the Hashemite connection to Al-Aqsa and its day-to-day management, the visit of the Crown Prince to the Temple Mount was scheduled for an Islamic holy day: the prophet Muhammad's purported night journey to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. However, though the security arrangements for the historic visit had been carefully planned by the two parties, the Israeli authorities were surprised to discover at the time of the visit that the number of armed bodyguards who would be accompanying the prince was significantly greater than previously agreed, and this dispute led to the cancellation of the visit. ...
It appears there were plans to take photos of the armed Jordanian bodyguards accompanying the prince as he triumphantly entered Al-Aqsa so as to project him as a hero and protector of the mosque.
June 11, 2021 update: David Ignatius quotes a Jordanian investigative report to the effect that Bassem Awadallah, a former Jordanian minister and now-confidant of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, "was working to promote the 'deal of the century' and weaken Jordan's position and the [Jordanian] King's position on Palestine and the Hashemite Custodianship of Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem." Ignatius goes on in his own words:
The Hashemite monarchy in Jordan owes much of its legitimacy to its role as custodian of the al-Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem]. Abdullah has described protection of the Muslim holy shrine as a "red line" for Jordan. Over the past three years, Abdullah felt that Trump, Netanyahu and MBS were all trying to displace him from that role, according to an American who knows the king well.
June 16, 2021 update: Another elusive reference: "Hamzah also stressed that Jordanian control over holy sites in Jerusalem was not a priority for him, according to Awadallah's leaked confession."
July 18, 2021 update: James Dorsey ties Jordanian King Abdullah's visit to the White House tomorrow to the intra-Muslim struggle over the Haram ash-Sharif:
From the point of view of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and other interested Muslim parties, Jerusalem is the crown jewel in what amounts to a battle for the soul of Islam. ... The Saudi claim, at a time when it is competing for religious soft power, would be significantly boosted by a stake in the administration of the Temple Mount.
The stakes in the struggle for control of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem sites are high. For Riyadh's ruling Saud family, this is about bolstering its religious claim to leadership of the Muslim world. For Jordan and its Hashemite monarchs, ... maintaining the status quo in Jerusalem—which is expected by most Palestinians to be the capital of a future Palestinian state—is key to ensuring the regime's survival. ...
Jordanian FM Ayman Safadi said during a visit to Washington in May that efforts to broaden administration of the Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount constituted a red line. King Abdullah reiterated Jordan's rejection of any attempt to involve third parties in the administration during a subsequent visit to Amman by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. ...
King Abdullah suspected former Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu of favoring a Saudi role in the administration of the Muslim sites on the Temple Mount. He is uncertain about Netanyahu's successor, PM Naftali Bennett, who rejects the notion of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel and supports Israeli settlement activity.
Jordanian officials denied reports last year in Israel Hayom, a pro-Netanyahu Israeli publication, quoting Saudi diplomats as saying that Jordan was willing to grant Saudi Arabia observer status in the endowment administering the Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount.
Saudi Arabia has not officially declared its desire to wrest control of the Temple Mount from Jordan, but Saudi interest is evident in various moves by the country in recent years.
Flexing the kingdom's financial muscle, Saudi King Salman told an Arab summit in Dhahran in April 2018 that he was donating $150 million to support Islam's holy places in Jerusalem. The donation was in part designed to counter bequests by Turkey, a rival contender for Muslim religious soft power, to Islamic organizations in Jerusalem as well as Turkish efforts to acquire real estate in the city.
Saudi Arabia has since clashed with Jordan in Arab fora over Jordan's exclusive control of the administration of the Jerusalem sites and is believed to have been wooing Palestinian religious dignitaries.
The risk for Saudi Arabia is that broadening the administration of the Jerusalem sites could invigorate latent suggestions that the custodianship of Mecca and Medina should also be internationalized. This proposition, often put forward by Iran, sends chills down Saudi spines.
Writing in Haaretz in 2019, Malik Dahlan, a Saudi-born international lawyer who is believed to be close to Prince Hamza, suggested that the Trump plan for Israel and the Palestinians could work if in the first phase "an agreement on the governance of Jerusalem" was achieved. "This Jerusalem-first approach would involve the idea of 'integrative internationalization,' which, incidentally, I also prescribe for Mecca and Medina," Malik wrote. There was no suggestion that Prince Hamza shared Malik's views on the holy Saudi sites.
Aug. 6, 2021 update: Edy Cohen paid close attention to an address by Muhammad Khalaila, Jordan's minister of Religion: the cost of maintaining Jordanian workers at al-Aqsa Mosque is about 12 million Jordanian dinars and the Ministry of Religion pays for 850 employees at al-Aqsa. Cohen goes on:
This is curious. As anyone visiting the mosque can attest, no more than a few dozen Jordanian Waqf security guards are visible—not hundreds, and certainly nowhere near 850. So who are the others, where are they, and what are they doing?
The most likely hypothesis is that those workers are used as mercenaries of a sort in times of crisis. Many significant gatherings have sprung up almost instantly on the Temple Mount in recent years whenever the site deteriorated into violence—during the recent Gaza war, during the magnetometer riots (July 2017), during the Mercy Gate crisis (March 2019), and in many other violent outbursts. The Jordanian workers might serve as a "rapid incitement force" that increases the volume of the event, stirs up the crowd, and stimulates it to conduct riots, or joins with the crowd to create a sense of "togetherness" against the "occupation." If each of those Jordanians brings along one or two young men, in a short time thousands of rioters can be expected.
This allows the organizers of the riots to put tremendous pressure on the Israeli authorities and render it difficult for them to calm the situation. The road from there to surrender is short.
Nov. 7, 2021 update: The rivalry goes on and on, usually not visible to the outside world. Here's one small example: The Jordanian Engineers Association has raised funds to renovate schools and 338 homes of Palestinian who live near the Temple Mount. The head of the association grandly claimed this step to be "Jordan's answer to the Balfour Declaration" by the "entire Jordanian people."
Apr. 27, 2022 update: The Jordanian authorities submitted (to the U.S. government!) a long list of claims regarding the Temple Mount.
The main demand is to renew what they call the "historic status quo", which the Jordanians claim requires the transfer of responsibility for the Temple Mount, including in the security field, to the Waqf, so that Israeli police officers will not be allowed to ascend the mount even in the event of violence and riots at the site.
Additional demands include:
- Transfer to the Waqf of authority to authorize all visits by non-Muslims to the Temple Mount via prior written request.
- The Waqf have the authority to maintain dress codes for non-Muslims, to ban all prayer aids for non-Muslims at the site, to restrict groups of non-Muslim visitors to the Temple Mount to no more than five people, and to set tour routes of no more than 150 meters in each direction for non-Muslim visitors.
To top it off, Amman claims all this is a return to the "historic status quo" on the Temple Mount, which is nonsense. It would give it far more control than ever before.
May 9, 2022 update: Alan Baker says that these demands "would appear to be at stark variance with Jordan's peace treaty obligations."
May 10, 2022 update: The Israeli Prime Minister's Office replied that it refused the Jordanian demands. "There is no change or new development in the situation on the Temple Mount — Israel's sovereignty is preserved. All decisions will be made by the Israeli government out of considerations of sovereignty, freedom of religion and security, and without pressure from foreign factors or political factors."
May 11, 2022 update: Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi responded by asserting that "Israel has no sovereignty over the holy sites in Jerusalem. Israel has no sovereignty over the Al-Aqsa Mosque. It is a Muslim place of worship, only the Jordanian Waqf has full authority over the management of the compound. This is occupied Palestinian land."
May 13, 2022 update: President Joe Biden met with Jordan's King Abdullah II at the White House and issued a statement afterwards stating that Biden "cited the need to preserve the historic status quo at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount," adding that "The President also recognized the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan's crucial role as the custodian of Muslim holy places in Jerusalem."
May 15, 2022 update: David M. Weinberg writes that "Israel has good reason to fear that Jordanian King Abdullah and US President Joe Biden are cooking up an attempt to impose new pro-Arab arrangements on the Temple Mount, with Biden coming to Israel in late June to ride herd on this issue."
May 20, 2022 update: Nadav Shragai explains that the tacit Israeli government permission for Jewish prayer, begun by Netanyahu and more energetically pursued by Bennett, has caused the current flare-up in tensions over the Temple Mount. He also quotes Pinhas Inbari arguing that because "the legitimacy of the Jordanian royal family depends on its status as the custodian of holy Muslim and Christian sites in Jerusalem," therefore "If they lose the Temple Mount to the Jews, they are finished." If that happens, the "danger to Israel could be enormous."
Jordan would become a major version of the Gaza Strip, with tangible threats of missiles, from the south and the north. Right now, Jordan maintains our longest border and does the work for us there. The peace with Jordan, the understandings, the common interests and the cooperation with the country on a number of security, economic and intelligence matters are all critical, and allow the IDF to focus on sectors and borders where there is no peace. Therefore, we, as a country, have an enormous interest in stability on the Temple Mount and in strengthening Jordan's status there, for our own sakes.
Jan. 7, 2023 update: (1) I offered a specific plan today in the Jerusalem Post:
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman would probably love to add Al-Aqsa to his collection of Islamic sanctities, especially at a time when Tehran challenges Saudi control of Mecca and Medina. How about Israel open negotiations on this topic with Riyadh, offering the jewel in the Palestinian Authority's crown in return for full diplomatic relations and a change in the status quo on the Temple Mount?
(2) Raising the stakes, the Central Bank of Jordan has issued a new 50-dinar banknote featuring King Abdullah II against a background showing the Temple Mount.
 The new Jordanian 50-dinar note. |
Jan. 25, 2023 update: King Abdullah reportedly raised his 2006 plan for a fifth minaret in a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu.
Aug. 14, 2023 update: In an analysis of the news that the Saudi ambassador to Jordan has also been appointed ambassador to the Palestinian Authority and consul general in eastern Jerusalem, Baruch Yedid reports for TPS that Saudi and Palestinian officials told him:
"Saudi Arabia wishes to signal to Jordan that it considers itself entitled to set foot in the Al Aqsa Mosque in east Jerusalem, which would make the crown prince and the Al Saud dynasty responsible for the 3 holy places of Islam: Mecca, Medina and Al Aqsa."
Saudi sources stressed to TPS that the religious issue is critical in the eyes of the Saudi royal palace, which must deal with a large group of Saudi princes and dignitaries who do not look favorably on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's pivot towards the West.
For several years, Saudi Arabia has been signaling to Jordan that it intends to replace Amman as custodian of the Jerusalem's Temple Mount.
Apparently, PA and Jordanian leaders have taken notice and are not pleased:
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas visited Jordan's King Abdullah in Amman on Tuesday and according to Arab reports, the two discussed their concerns about what they consider Saudi encroachment in Jerusalem.
In a conversation with TPS, a Waqf official warned, "The Jordanian weakness since King Abdullah ascended to the throne, is being exploited by the Muslim Brotherhood and by their main patrons, Qatar and Turkey, and it is not liked by the Saudis, who tend to interfere in the management of the holy place for Muslims."
The source added that both the Waqf and the PA are "concerned" and "disturbed" with the way King Abdullah treats his position as custodian of the Temple Mount and his "lack of vigorous action" over the holy sites.
"Unlike his father, King Hussein, [King Abdullah] transferred the Al-Aqsa case to other officials at home. The monarchy, which is unable to be a significant authority, vis-a-vis the Muslim Brotherhood and the Turks, which led to the weakening of the Waqf."
The PA apparently turned to Riyadh for help a few months ago, in response to the Israelis turning to Amman:
Israeli officials had appealed to Amman not to allow Palestinians to spend the night in the mosque, given the prevailing security tensions at the time.
The source also told TPS that "in response to this, officials from eastern Jerusalem previously turned to the Saudis so that they would act as a counterweight to Turkey, which is operating in the Old City and in the holy places."
Aug. 15, 2023 update: Dry Bones poses the question of the moment:
Aug. 22, 2023 update: Zvi Bar'el takes up this possibility at Ha'aretz:
Israeli normalization with Saudi Arabia could exclude the Jordanian monarch's special role on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and give Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed senior status there, despite the provisions of the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty. The Saudi crown prince hasn't hidden his desire to be guardian of all of Islam's holy places, which has caused tension with Jordan's king.
Saudi Arabia's announcement this month of the appointment of its ambassador to Amman to also be its consul to Jerusalem rattled officials in Amman no less than it raised questions in Israel. Is this the price that Prince Mohammed is demanding? Does Israel intend to pay for normalization with Saudi Arabia in Jordanian dinars?
Aug. 24, 2023 update: Mordechai Kedar argues today against any kind of Israeli concession to the Saudis on the Temple Mount. I sympathize but believe that he makes a basic error. No one envisions giving the Saudis sovereignty over the Temple Mount. Rather, a Muslim authority - not the Government of Israel - must run the Islamic sanctities and it makes sense to bargain the details with Riyadh rather than hand it unconditionally over to the PA and Jordan. Aug. 30, 2023 update: Click here for Kedar's article in English.
Sep. 6, 2023 update: Barukh Yadid confirms his earlier report of Saudi interest in the Temple Mount:
The Saudis would also like a peace agreement with Israel to reboot the Temple Mount's status quo and have Riyadh replace Amman as custodian of the Jerusalem holy site.
Sep. 10, 2023 update: In "The internal Islamic struggle over the Temple Mount is once again on the agenda," Nadav Shragai offers much new information. He starts with two historic anecdotes concerning Saudi offers to prime ministers Begin and Rabin. He reviews the interest of the same four Muslim states and the Palestinian Authority that I do in my article. And he bears down on Saudi ambitions:
Saudi Arabia, as in the past, is prepared to invest a considerable amount of money in order to acquire a similar status on the Mount for itself. It knows that Jordan is a poor country, one that lacks financial means and has heavy debts to repay and is thus prepared – in return for some degree of foothold in Al-Aqsa – to provide economic aid to the Hashemite kingdom.
Gaining a foothold in Jerusalem is of great importance to the Saudis as a Sunni power, in view of the historical, theological internal-Islamic feud with its neighboring Shi'ite power of Iran that lies just across the Gulf (and despite the recent rapprochement between the two). This is of the utmost importance to the Saudi Wahhabites in relation to their religious and ideological rivals, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and their ilk, who have turned the Temple Mount into a tool in the struggle against Israel. ... The economic temptation for Jordan is thus quite considerable.
Shragai and I differ mostly in that he envisions a "Muslim directorate" that would control Islamic concerns on the Temple Mount, whereas I see Israel handing everything to the Saudis, thus leaving the Palestinians, Jordanians, Turks, and Moroccans in the cold.
Dec. 7, 2024 update: Aaron Lerner of IMRA has published a document, "Transferring Custodianship of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock to Saudi Arabia." It sees this transfer benefiting
all stakeholders by enhancing management practices, depoliticizing the site, and introducing clarity on the status of its various areas. Importantly, a Saudi-led custodianship could also accommodate Jewish religious needs by recognizing that the broader plaza is distinct from the mosque itself, opening possibilities for shared use.
Jan. 31, 2025 update: Amine Ayoub, a Middle East Forum writing fellow, argues the opposite point at "Why Saudi Arabia Should Not Manage the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf" due to its potential negaative impact on Israel's security.
