The Significance of Al-Aqsa
The fact that this momentous occasion took place in Jerusalem is also of significance. This is the land of the Prophets of God; this is the land of Abraham, Isaac, Moses and Jesus. God was forging a link between his Holy House in Mecca and Masjid Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem. God was also linking the so-called cradle of religion, the Holy Land around Jerusalem, with the land of Arabia, the birthplace of the religion designed by the Creator, for all of humanity - Islam.
God established Al-Aqsa as one of the three Holy Masjids in Islam. The Holy Masjid in Mecca, the Prophet Muhammad’s Masjid, yet to be established in Medina, and this Masjid in this blessed neighbourhood of Jerusalem. It is only to these three Masjids to which Muslims can travel for the purpose of worship. One prayer in Masjid Al-Aqsa is worth 250 prayers elsewhere, excluding the Prophet’s Masjid where one prayer is the equivalent of 1,000 prayers and the Holy Masjid in Mecca where one prayer contains the reward of 100,000 prayers. God emphasized the significance and sacredness of Masjid Al-Aqsa, and for this reason it plays an important role in a Muslim’s life. Therefore it is guarded and protected zealously.
Al-Aqsa was the first qiblah (the direction in which a Muslim turns to pray) in Islam, but this direction was later changed to Holy Masjid in Mecca. Establishing the exact date for this change is difficult, but from the evidence, we can discover approximately when this occurred because the mission of Prophet Muhammad is divided into two distinct periods. The Meccan period, defined by calling the people to the religion of Islam, and the Medinan period, defined by the establishment of the Muslim state. Prophet Muhammad and the majority of his followers migrated to the city of Medina in the 14th year of Prophethood.
The Night Journey and Ascension took place late in the Meccan period, while the qiblah changed to Mecca around 15 months after the Prophet’s migration to Medina. From this, we can infer that the Muslims faced Al-Aqsa when praying for approximately three years before God changed the direction to Mecca. This by no means diminished the significance of Jerusalem or Masjid Al-Aqsa, it merely represented another step in the establishment of the message for all of humanity. The Holy Masjid in Mecca was fixed as the central point in Islam.
Miracle Continues
While still in the sacred precincts of Masjid Al-Aqsa, the Angel Gabriel presented Prophet Muhammad with two cups. One was filled with milk, the other with wine, and both offered to the Prophet. Prophet Muhammad chose and drank the milk. Angel Gabriel then said to him “Thanks be to God, who guided you to the fitrah; if you had taken the wine, your followers would have gone astray”. It is difficult to translate the Arabic word fitrah into English; it denotes the natural and pure state in which one is born, an innate feeling that guides one to do the “right” thing. Prophet Muhammad instinctively chose right over wrong, good over evil, and the Straight Path rather than the crooked path to Hell.
It was from the Holy city of Jerusalem, in the sacred precincts of Masjid Al-Aqsa that Prophet Muhammad commenced the next stage of his miraculous Night Journey. Prophet Muhammad ascended to the lowest heaven from a rock. This rock can be found inside the Dome of the Rock, the most famous symbol of Jerusalem. It should not be confused with the actual Masjid building, which is on the other side of the Al-Aqsa compound. The entire precinct is the masjid, but many separate buildings exist there. It is important to remember that although the Dome of the Rock is inside the Masjid compound, it is not Masjid Al-Aqsa and it is not the place of prostration where Prophet Muhammad led the previous Prophets in prayer. From the rock, now covered by the familiar golden dome, Prophet Muhammad ascended to the lowest heaven in the company of Angel Gabriel.
The Rock Inside Al-Aqsa Mosque – What’s It All About?
The Dome of the Rock (Qubbah al-Sakhrah) in Jerusalem built, as commonly perceived, between 65 H/684 CA and 72 H/691 CA within the precincts of the original al-Aqsa Mosque (al-Haram al-Sharif or Noble Sanctuary) is one of the earliest existing monuments of Islamic art and architecture. Its significance lies in its religious, civilizational, geographical and historical contexts.
Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque: The Same?
The Dome of the Rock is located on an artificial platform, approximately in the center of the al-Haram al-Sharif or the original al-Aqsa Mosque.
According to Creswell, it is “an annular building and consists in its ultimate analysis of a wooden dome 20.44 m. in diameter, set on a high drum, pierced with sixteen windows and resting on four piers and twelve columns, placed in a circle just large enough to surround the Rock, and so arranged that three columns alternate with each pier.
A central cylinder is thus formed, of height about equal to its diameter. This circle of supports is placed in the center of a large octagon averaging about 20.59 m. a side, formed by eight walls 9.50 in height (excluding the parapet, which measures 2.60 m.).
Externally there are seven bays in each side, but those next the corners – that is to say the bay at each end of each side, or sixteen in all – are treated as blind panels. The remainder are each pierced in their upper part by a window.”
The Night Journey - Why Exclusively for Muhammad?
The Rock (Sakhrah), which the domed edifice (the Dome of the Rock) shelters, is the highest point in the al-Haram or the Al-Aqsa Noble Sanctuary.
It is a bluish rock. It stands about one and a half meters above the floor – or about the height of an average man – at its highest part and is approximately eighteen by thirteen meters in area. Beneath it is a cave about four and a half meters square, in the roof of which there is a hole about a meter in diameter.
Much extraordinary reverence is attached to the Rock, which, nevertheless, is rooted in little or no truth.
Why Was the Qiblah Changed From Jerusalem to Makkah?
In the main, such reverence is based on copious groundless legends and myths that are either work of some Muslims who have been contriving and propagating them in different ages, under different circumstances and for different purposes, or are no more than the re-creation or even re-telling of the same as found in the Jewish tradition.
Indeed, the Rock bears no special importance in Islam. It is significant in as much as it constitutes a part of the original Al-Aqsa Mosque or Noble Sanctuary, the second mosque on earth established forty years after the construction of the Ka’bah or Al-Masjid al-Haram.
In no way can the Rock be more important and as such more revered than the other parts of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
By the same token, everything that the Holy Quran and the Prophet (peace be upon him) have said about Al-Aqsa Mosque applied as much to the Rock as to the rest of the sections of the Mosque.
