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Temple denial is the claim that the successive Temples in Jerusalem either did not exist or they did exist but were not constructed on the site of the Temple Mount. This claim has been advanced by Islamic political leaders, religious figures, intellectuals, and authors.Yitzhak Reiter (2005), From Jerusalem to Mecca and Back: The Islamic Consolidation of Jerusalem, Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies.
Among Muslims, the whole plaza is revered and it is referred to as "the Noble Sanctuary" or the al-Aqsa Mosque, and it ranks as the third holiest site in Islam. Muslims believe that it is the place from which Muhammad began his Night Journey. The plaza is dominated by two monumental structures originally built during the Rashidun and early Umayyad caliphates after the city's capture in 661 CE:Nicolle, David (1994). Yarmuk AD 636: The Muslim Conquest of Syria. Osprey Publishing. the Qibli Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, near the center of the hill, which was completed in 692 CE, making it one of the oldest extant Islamic structures in the world. It stands where past Jewish temples are commonly believed to have stood.
Early Islam regarded the Foundation Stone as the location of Solomon's Temple, and the construction of the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount sought to glorify Jerusalem by presenting Islam as a continuation of Judaism and Christianity. Muslim interpretations of the Quran agree that the Mount is the site of the Temple originally built by Solomon, considered a prophet in Islam, that was later destroyed."The Farthest Mosque must refer to the site of the Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem on the hill of Moriah, at or near which stands the Dome of the Rock... it was a sacred place to both Jews and Christians... The chief dates in connection with the Temple in Jerusalem are: It was finished by Solomon about 1004 BCE; destroyed by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar about 586 BCE; rebuilt under Ezra and Nehemiah about 515 BCE; turned into a heathen idol temple by one of Alexander the Great's successors, Antiochus Epiphanes, 167 BCE; restored by Herod, 17 BCE to 29; and completely razed to the ground by the Emperor Titus in 70. These ups and downs are among the greater signs in religious history." (Yusuf Ali, Commentary on the Koran, 2168.)Khalek, N. (2011). Jerusalem in Medieval Islamic Tradition. Religion Compass, 5(10), 624–630. doi:10.1111/j.1749-8171.2011.00305.x. "One of the most pressing issues in both medieval and contemporary scholarship related to Jerusalem is whether the city is explicitly referenced in the text of the Qur'an. Sura 17, verse 1, which reads ... has been variously interpreted as referring to the miraculous Night Journey and Ascension of Muhammad, events recorded in medieval sources and known as the isra and miraj. As we will see, this association is a rather late and even a contested one. ... The earliest Muslim work on the Religious Merits of Jerusalem was the Fada'il Bayt al-Maqdis by al-Walid ibn Hammad al-Ramli (d. 912 CE), a text which is recoverable from later works. ... He relates the significance of Jerusalem vis-a-vis the Jewish Temple, conflating 'a collage of biblical narratives' and comments pilgrimage to Jerusalem, a practice which was controversial in later Muslim periods." After the construction, Muslims believe, the temple was used for the worship of the one God by many prophets of Islam, including Jesus."The city of Jerusalem was chosen at the command of Allah by Prophet David in the tenth century BCE. After him his son, the Prophet Solomon built a mosque in Jerusalem according to the revelation that he received from Allah. For several centuries this mosque was used for the worship of Allah by many Prophets and Messengers of Allah. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in the year 586 BCE., but it was soon rebuilt and was rededicated to the worship of Allah in 516 BCE. It continued afterwards for several centuries until the time of Prophet Jesus. After he departed this world, it was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 CE." (Siddiqi, Dr. Muzammil. Status of Al-Aqsa Mosque , IslamOnline, May 21, 2007. Retrieved July 12, 2007.)"Early Muslims regarded the building and destruction of the Temple of Solomon as a major historical and religious event, and accounts of the Temple are offered by many of the early Muslim historians and geographers (including Ibn Qutayba, Ibn al-Faqih, Mas'udi, Muhallabi, and Biruni). Fantastic tales of Solomon's construction of the Temple also appear in the Qisas al-anbiya', the medieval compendia of Muslim legends about the pre-Islamic prophets." (Kramer, Martin. The Temples of Jerusalem in Islam, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, September 18, 2000. Retrieved November 21, 2007.)
A Brief Guide to al-Haram al-Sharif, a booklet published in 1925 (and earlier) by the "Supreme Moslem Council", a body established by the British government to administer Waqf and headed by Hajj Amin al-Husayni during the British Mandate period, states on page 4: "The site is one of the oldest in the world. Its sanctity dates from the earliest (perhaps from pre-historic) times. Its identity with the site of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute. This, too, is the spot, according to universal belief, on which 'David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.'( 2 Samuel 24:25)" Other Muslim scholars have used the Torah (called in Arabic) to expand on the details of the temple.* "The Rock was in the time of Solomon the son of David 12 cubits high and there was a dome over it...It is written in the Tawrat Bible: 'Be happy Jerusalem,' which is Bayt al-Maqdis and the Rock which is called Haykal." al-Wasati, Fada'il al Bayt al-Muqaddas, ed. Izhak Hasson (Jerusalem, 1979) pp. 72ff. The term Bayt al-Maqdis (or Bayt al-Muqaddas) , which frequently appears as a name of Jerusalem in early Islamic sources, is a cognate of the Hebrew term bēt ha-miqdāsh (בית המקדש), the Temple in Jerusalem.Di Cesare, M. (2017). A Lost Inscription from the Dome of the Rock?: the Western Attitude Towards Islamic Epigraphy in 17th-Century Jerusalem. A Lost Inscription from the Dome of the Rock?: the Western Attitude Towards Islamic Epigraphy in 17th-Century Jerusalem, 77-86.Jacobson, D. M. The Enigma of the Name Īliyā (= Aelia) for Jerusalem in Early Islam. Dio, 69, 1.Carrol, James. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How The Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World", 2011. Retrieved on 24 May 2014. Mujir al-Din, a 15th century Jerusalemite chronicler, mentions an earlier tradition related by al-Wasti, according which "after David built many cities and the situation of the Israelites was improved, he wanted to construct Bayt al-Maqdis and build a dome over the rock in the place that Allah sanctified in Aelia."
According to Yitzhak Reiter, "during the twentieth century, against the backdrop of the struggle between the Zionist and the Palestinian-Arab national movements, a new Arab-Muslim trend of denying Jewish attachment to the Temple Mount arose".
According to the New York Times, after the establishment of Israel in 1948, the Waqf's guidebooks have been stripped of references to Solomon's Temple, whose location it had previously described as 'beyond dispute.'"
Ross later wrote about an August 2000 meeting he had with Arafat: "Since we would be discussing the options on the Haram, I anticipated that Arafat might well again declare that the Temple—the most sacred place in Jewish tradition—did not exist in Jerusalem, but was in Nablus. ... I wanted Gamal Helal, a Christian of Copts origin who was originally from Egypt, to tell Arafat that this was an outrageous attempt to delegitimize the Israeli connection to Jerusalem. ... Finally, after nearly ten minutes of increasing invective, I intervened and said 'Mr. Chairman, regardless of what you think, the President of the United States knows that the Temple existed in Jerusalem. If he hears you denying its existence there, he will never again take you seriously. My advice to you is never again raise this issue in his presence.Dennis Ross (2004), The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace, , p. 718
On September 25, 2003, when a delegation of Arab leaders from northern Israel visited the Muqata'a compound in Ramallah to show solidarity during the Second Intifada, they were surprised when Arafat lectured them for approximately a quarter-hour on al-Aqsa, claiming that the Jewish temple was not in Jerusalem, but in Yemen. He claimed to have visited Yemen and been shown the location of Solomon's Temple.
In 2002, Zaki al-Ghul, titular mayor of East Jerusalem, claimed in the Al-Quds conference in Amman that King Solomon reigned over the Arabian Peninsula and erected his Temple there, rather than in Jerusalem.
In 2015, Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, the current Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, said in an interview with Israel's Channel 2 that there has never been a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount, and the site has been home to a mosque "from the creation of the world". He also claimed that "This is the Al-Aqsa Mosque that Adam, peace be upon him, or during his time, the angels built".
David Hazony described the phenomenon as "a campaign of intellectual erasure... aimed at undermining the Jewish claim to any part of the land", and he compared the phenomenon to Holocaust denial.Hazony, David. " Temple Denial In the Holy City ", The New York Sun, March 7, 2007.Gold, pp. 10 ff.
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