Masjid Al Aqsa

Masjid Aqsa Palestine is also known as Al-Aqsa and Bayt al-Muqaddas. It is the third holiest Mosque in Islam and is situated in the Old City of Jerusalem. A site where there is Golden domed mosque also with the Dome of the Rock referred to as al-Haram ash-Sharif or Noble Sanctuary. Muslims believe that the Holy Prophet Muhammad (S.A) had traveled from the Masjid-e-Haram, Makkah to Al-Aqsa Masjid during Shab-e-Miraj the Night Journey. Masjid Al-Aqsa is considered to be Qibla –e-Awal. Muslims used to offer prayers in the direction of Al-Aqsa until seventeen months after the migration. Afterwards, Allah directed them to turn towards the Khana Kaaba – The black cubical building in the centre of Makkah.

This mosque was initially a small prayer house built by caliph Umar (R.A) but was reconstructed and expanded by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik and completed by his son al-Walid in 705 CE. During 746, an earthquake hit the mosque and was completely destroyed and reconstructed by the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur in the year 754, and again renovated in 780 by his successor al-Mahdi. Another earthquake in 1033 destroyed most of al-Aqsa mosque, but within two years the Fatimid caliph Ali az-Zahir constructed another mosque that has stood till the present-day. The periodic renovations were undertaken by the various Islamic Caliphs. They did additions to the mosque and its boundaries; the renovations were made to domes, minbar, facade, minarets and also including the interior structure. When the Christian captured Jerusalem in 1099, they altered the mosque to palace and church, but it was restored as a mosque after the recapture by Saladin Ayyubi in 1187. Some more renovations, repairs, maintenance and additions, were taken in the later centuries by the Mamluks, Ayyubids, Ottomans, Jordan and the Supreme Muslim Council. At the present, the Old City is under the control of Israel, but this mosque is under the administration of the Islamic Waqf led by Jordanian/Palestinian.