A thousand women..!! Yes, a thousand women..they were stationed in the premises of Al-Aqsa Mosque, worshipers, piety, scholars and educated people, repelling the most heinous barbaric attack targeting Al-Aqsa Mosque in its history!! We are not talking about the storming of the Zionist General Ariel Sharon (d. 1435 AH / 2014 AD) to the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Mosque in the year 1421 AH / 2000 AD, and therefore we are not talking about the struggles of the Almoravids and the Mourabitat today in defense of Al-Aqsa against the occupation, which are transmitted moment by moment by satellite channels!
We are talking about the bloody Crusader attack on Al-Aqsa Mosque nearly a thousand years ago; As Imam al-Qadi Ibn al-Arabi al-Andalusi (d. 543 AH / 1148 AD) tells us, at Al-Aqsa at that time there was a “rabati organization” that consisted of about a thousand women who belonged to one feminist scientific leadership, and they turned, in that terrible moment of aggression, into fierce defenders of Al-Aqsa when the Crusaders stormed its courtyards. They were steadfast in their defense of him until they were all martyred while they were patient and steadfast!!
This
The first thing that draws attention in the history of Al-Aqsa Mosque is how the decision was taken to implement the first project to develop its construction in Islamic history! The Dome of the Rock in Al-Aqsa Mosque was erected on the advice of the Caliph at the time from the Muslims, so its construction came with the participation of the Ummah and perhaps with a “unanimity” from them at the time.
Another noteworthy thing in the history of Al-Aqsa is the association of its name with the concept of “rabat”! And the ribat is originally those ascetic jihadist incubators that worshipers establish on the open borders with enemies, thus embodying “the monasticism of the night and the chivalry of the day.” Of these Almoravids – in the massacre of the old Crusader colonialism – three thousand scholars and righteous people who were the adornment of the corridors of Al-Aqsa Mosque and its blessed coffins were martyred!!
At the forefront of these Almoravids was Imam Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali (d. 505 AH / 1111 AD), and although he did not witness the Al-Aqsa massacre of the Crusaders, he wrote – according to one of the narrations – in his vast book “The Revival of the Sciences of Religion”, which accompanied the mujahideen wherever they went, and raised thousands with it. of the warriors in the Zangid, Ayyubid and Mamluk states; Those countries that presented the greatest projects of liberation and resistance in the nation’s history.
At a time when the aggression against Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa continues in a Zionist mold that was made and empowered by Crusader forces; The call of the station to defend the gaps in the sanctities is still loud in the sky of Al-Aqsa, stressing – as evidenced by the events of the recent “Sword of Jerusalem” battle – that his story is still the central issue with a “unanimity” of the nation!! This is what this article seeks to reveal its evidence and manifestations in its history.
firm credit
Al-Aqsa Mosque is the second mosque built for people on earth after the Grand Mosque in Makkah; Al-Bukhari (d. 256 AH / 870 AD) narrated on the authority of Abu Dhar Al-Ghafari (d. 32 AH / 654 AD) – may God be pleased with him – that he said: “I said, O Messenger of God, which mosque was placed on the ground first? He said: “The Sacred Mosque.” He said: I said: Then which? He said: Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Al-Aqsa Mosque is also a verse in the Book of God Almighty: {Glory be to Him who took His servant by night from the Sacred Mosque to the al-Aqsa Mosque, who blessed him.}
And if the hadiths and legal effects have been repeated on the virtue of Al-Aqsa Mosque; What concerns us in this article is an attempt to monitor the practical evidence of that virtue in the history of Muslims through the ages, and how its manifestations were manifested in their lives when they made it an incubator for worship, science and education, and an outpost for stationing and jihad.
Perhaps the first thing that is mentioned about the practical status of Al-Aqsa Mosque in the hearts of Muslims is the nobility of what Muslim scholars composed about the virtue of Al-Aqsa Mosque; The authorship on the virtues of Bayt al-Maqdis is a companion to the entire history of Islamic codification. The first book on this was compiled by Bishr ibn Ishaq al-Balkhi (d. 206 AH / 831 AD) entitled: “Futuh Bayt al-Maqdis”, which is older than the two books of Azraqi (d. 250 AH / 864 AD) and Al-Fakihi (d. 272 AH). /885 AD) the two bloggers in the honorable Makkah News.
As for the first book that was classified under the name of “The Virtues of Bait Al-Maqdis” it is by Al-Walid bin Hammad Al-Ramli (d. about 300 AH / 912 AD), and it is contemporary with the authors of the Six Books, and Imam al-Dhahabi (d. 748 AH / 1347 AD) was translated to him in “Sir of the Nobles” and described him as “the preserver… And he was divine.” Then the books on the merits and history of Bait Al-Maqdis and its history continued, reaching an uncountable number.
unique precedent
This was from the moral, historical and intellectual care of Bayt Al-Maqdis; As for the practical aspect, the first thing that is mentioned in the status of Bayt Al-Maqdis in the hearts of Muslims is what was done in its construction, architecture and decoration. In the first moment in which the Caliph Omar al-Faruq (d. 23 AH / 645 AD) received Jerusalem as the conquest of the year 16 AH / 638 AD; He walked to the place of the rock, “and found on the rock a lot of dung that the Romans had thrown out in anger to the Children of Israel, so Omar spread his cloak and started to sweep that dung, and the Muslims were swept with him.” According to the historian Mujir al-Din al-Ulaymi (d. 928 AH / 1522 AD) in ‘The Galilee People on the History of Jerusalem and Hebron’.
What is recorded here for Al-Aqsa Mosque is that the first development project to build it was built by a decision of the nation, and the authority was not alone in the honor of building it; Imam Sibt Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 654 AH / 1256 AD) – in ‘Mirrat al-Zaman’ – stated that “when Abd al-Malik (Ben Marwan d. 86 AH / 706 AD) decided to build it (= Dome of the Rock), he wrote to the people of the cities who are in his obedience. .: As for what follows, the Commander of the Faithful had resolved to build a dome on the rock of Bayt al-Maqdis, which would be a shade and a shelter for Muslims.. And he hated to embark on that before consulting the people of opinion.. And the grace of his subjects; God Almighty said: {And he consulted with them in the matter. {[Al-Imran: 159] So let them write to him what they have of what he has resolved to do! So they wrote to him: that the Commander of the Faithful may complete what he has resolved to build the Holy House of God and decorate the Al-Aqsa Mosque, may God perform good deeds on his hands.”
Although historians saw that Abdul Malik’s intention to consult the nation stemmed from the weakness of his internal front due to the dispute over the succession with the great companion Abdullah bin Al-Zubayr (d. 73 AH / 693 AD); This does not challenge the fact that Al-Aqsa Mosque was built by the exceptional collective will of the nation at the time of the forced king!
Abd al-Malik assigned two of his finest men: the modern jurist Rajaa bin Haywa (d. 112 AH / 731 AD) and Yazid bin Salam (Male of the Caliph, d. after 72 AH / 692 AD) to supervise the construction, but he was nevertheless concerned with the most accurate details of the construction before starting it. Sobt Ibn al-Jawzi tells us that Abd al-Malik “gathered craftsmen and engineers from the horizons, and ordered them to paint the dome before it was built, so they photographed it for him in the courtyard of the mosque, and he liked it!” This is similar to the idea of what is known today – in the field of engineering building designs – as the “architectural model” (maquette) that is placed for construction before its implementation!!
And the tribe of Ibn al-Jawzi adds that Abd al-Malik “built for money (= construction budget) a house east of the dome and charged it with money, and ordered Raja and Yazid to empty the money and not stop at anything [from the matter of architecture], so construction was completed on the dome that is standing today.” Al-Ulaimi informs us – in “The Galilee” – with an estimate of those expenses; He says that Abd al-Malik “save a lot of money for architecture, it is said that it is the tax of Egypt for seven years!”
Nothing was returned from the money earmarked for the construction of Al-Aqsa Mosque and its dome to the treasury. Rather, Abd al-Malik instructed his workers, in the thousands of dinars that remained after the completion of construction, to “empty it on the dome and the doors! !
That gold remained on the mosque for decades, then later became an asset for the renovation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque; In the year 131 AH / 750 AD, an earthquake hit Bait al-Maqdis and severely destroyed the Al-Aqsa Mosque. I am rebuilding him today, but take off these plates on the dome and the doors, and rebuild him with them! So they did.” According to the tribe of Ibn al-Jawzi.
increased care
We find with Imam Ibn Katheer – in ‘The Beginning and the End’ – a documentation of the date of the completion of the construction of the Dome of the Rock; He says that “when the construction was completed, they wrote on the dome – from what follows the Qibli door from the al-Aqsa side – with the text after the basmalah: “This dome was built by Abdullah Abd al-Malik, the Commander of the Faithful, in the year seventy-two of the Prophet’s migration (72 AH / 692 AD).”
and since then; And the care of Al-Aqsa Mosque is growing and increasing, until Al-Ulaymi asserts that Al-Aqsa Mosque is superior to all the mosques of its time in terms of area and construction. He held a chapter entitled: “Remembering the description of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and what it is in our time,” and he said: “Know… that the Noble Al-Aqsa Mosque..has no equal under the sky, and no mosque is built in its attribute or capacity!!” This was confirmed a century and a half earlier by the traveler Ibn Battuta (d. 779 AH / 1377 AD), who visited Jerusalem and described Al-Aqsa as “there is no mosque on the face of the earth greater than it”!!
No wonder they asserted this. The area of Al-Aqsa Mosque inside the old wall is 144,000 square meters, and until the fifties of the last century its area was several times the size of the Two Holy Mosques. According to Saudi official data; The area of the Grand Mosque in Makkah before the year 1376 AH / 1956 AD was estimated at about 28 thousand square meters. As for the Prophet’s Mosque, its area before the year 1372 AH / 1952 AD was slightly more than 10 thousand square meters; Then the condition of the two mosques continued to expand, and Al-Aqsa remained under the Zionist occupation as it was until they exceeded it.
since its construction; Al-Aqsa Mosque was decorated with huge numbers of lamps suspended on gold and silver chains of various sizes and weights, and this remained the case until a relatively late period, the ninth century AH / 15th century AD; Shams al-Din al-Asyouti (d. 880 AH / 1475 AD) – in ‘Ithaf al-Khassa with the virtues of al-Aqsa Mosque’ – states that “of the chains for lamps there are four hundred chains except fifteen, of which two hundred chains and thirty chains are in the mosque, and the rest are in the Dome of the Rock, and the length of the chains is four thousand.” An arm (the arm = approximately 53 cm), and its weight is forty-three thousand pounds in Shami (= about 1900 grams), and five thousand of the jellyfish are!!
These lanterns of gold and silver were not mere lighting or adornment, but were considered a wealth in themselves. The invaders did not neglect their value, so they plundered them in every occupation that plagues Al-Aqsa and Al-Quds Al-Sharif. Abu al-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 597 AH / 1201 AD) mentions, for example – in ‘Al Muntazim’ – that when the Crusaders occupied Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa in 492 AH/1099 AD, “they took from the rock more than forty silver lamps, each lamp weighing three thousand six hundred dirhams (= its value today is 4500). about a dollar), and they took a silver tandoor weighing forty pounds in Shami, and they took more than twenty lanterns of gold!!
private management
As for the Dome of the Rock; Since the completion of its construction, it has been provided by the superior parish and the great services that befit it, including its perfume and evaporation in a ceremony of great beauty and wonder, at the hands of a team of employees dedicated to serving and caring for it; The imam historian Ibn Kathir (d. 774 AH / 1372 AD) tells us – in ‘The Beginning and the End’ – that when he built the Dome of the Rock, Abd al-Malik bin Marwan dedicated “a custodian and servants to it.”
Sibt Ibn al-Jawzi – in the mirror of time – tells us that this management team had its own uniform, and its work was very precise and orderly; He says: “The gardeners used to dissolve musk, amber, rosemary and saffron every Monday and Thursday, and they used it expensively (= good) with rose water, and it was brewed at night. = perfume) So they take off their clothes, put on the clothes of the washi, and tie their waists with gold-encrusted areas.
And he adds – speaking about how they perfumed the Dome of the Rock – that they “create (= sweeten) the rock, then incense was placed in gold and silver incense burners, and in it [the lunar oud] covered with musk, and the linden loosened the covers, then the rocks were lifted, and the rocks were eroded. The curtains, and that smell comes out until it fills the whole city, then a caller calls out: The rock has opened, so whoever wants to visit, let him come! People come running to it, and they pray and go out, and whoever smells of incense, it was said: This was today in the rock!!
The rock and its mosque were the focus of the sultans’ attention later on, and care increased about it after its liberation from the Crusaders; Imad al-Din al-Isfahani (d. 597 AH / 1201 AD) – in ‘Al-Fath al-Qassi’ – stated that “the Sultan [Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (d. 589 AH / 1193 AD)] arranged in the Dome of the Rock an imam of the best recited, decorated them with talwa, and gave them a voice, and named them in the Religion has a reputation, and I know them with the seven readings, rather the ten.. He stood over him as a house, land and garden, and he showed him a house and a kindness.”
Al-Isfahani then spoke of what Salah al-Din had observed from the holdings and management of the dome and mosque architecture; He said, “He was brought to it and to the mihrab of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, copies of Qur’an and seals, and quadrants (= copies of the Qur’an distributed in 30 parts) in ostentatious…, and he arranged for this dome in particular and for the Holy House in general a group (= employees) to include its interests, and the only arranged are those who know the devotion, and those who stand in worship; How delightful the night is when the crowds have come! And the candles have blossomed (= lit)! And reverence has been revealed! Submission is condemned! And tears have flowed from the righteous! Because of the heavy traffic and the turnout at the Dome of the Rock and the mosque, “the most people who realize to pray two rak’ahs, and the least of them are four”; According to Al-Ulaymi in Anas Al-Jalil.
Immortal landmarks
As for the most important urban landmarks of Al-Aqsa; If the Al-Aqsa Mosque is mentioned today, the first thing that comes to mind is the image of the honorable blue Dome of the Rock mosque with a golden dome, except for the common people of Jerusalem, who turn their minds to the “Qibli Mosque” with the lead dome. The truth is to the contrary. Al-Olaymi says that “it is common knowledge among the people that Al-Aqsa – from the direction of the qiblah – is the mosque built in the chest of the mosque, which contains the pulpit and the great mihrab.
This is what Al-Ulaimi said is the one that is adopted today by specialists, and it has become known to many of the public because of the repeated awareness of it. The following is an attempt to describe the most important features of the Al-Aqsa Mosque between yesterday and today, based on the wonderful detailed description deposited by Al-Alimi in his book “The Galilee”:
1- Al-Qibli Mosque: Al-Ulaymi said in his description: “The mosque that is in its chest (= the chest of Al-Aqsa Mosque) at the direction of the qiblah, in which Friday is held, and it is known to the people that it is Al-Aqsa Mosque, it includes a great building with a high dome decorated with colored lobes. Under the dome is the pulpit and the mihrab, and on the dome is “lead from its surface” as it looks until now, and this building is still the central mosque, and in it is the pulpit of Salah al-Din / Nur al-Din Zangi (d. 569 AH / 1173 AD) on which the preacher stands every Friday.
2- Dome of the Rock Mosque: It is the octagonal mosque with the famous golden dome. It was previously mentioned that Abdul Malik ordered hundreds of thousands of dinars to be poured on it, so it was really golden, not just gold-plated. Although Friday is not held in the Dome of the Rock mosque, it was during the ancient era that “the feast and the rain” were “prayed.” According to al-Ulaymi.
It is understood from the words of al-Ulaimi and others that the Dome of the Rock had an independent imam; It has been translated for other than one as “the imam of the rock mosque”. but now; No independent prayer is held in the Rock Mosque, but prayer in it is a follow-up to prayer in the Al-Qibli Mosque, and women usually pray there, especially in Fridays and seasons.
3- Dome of the Chain: There are many domes in Al-Aqsa Mosque except for the two famous domes, all of which are smaller than them. The most famous of these is the Dome of the Chain, which al-Ulaymi described as “a very circumstantial dome on pillars of marble.” It was built to be a miniature model of the Dome of the Rock before its construction, and therefore it is “in the manner of the Dome of the Rock”; According to Al-Olaymi.
4- The old Al-Aqsa and Al-Marwani Mosque: Both are located to the east of the “Al-Masjid Al-Qibli”, while the “old Al-Aqsa” is located under the Al-Qibli Mosque from the side of the mihrab, and next to it is the “Al-Masjid Al-Marwani” mosque. Al-Ulaimi said: “And the bottom (= the bottom) of the mosque – from the direction of the qiblah – is a large knotted place (= built), and it has walls that support the roof.., and this lower place is called “last Aqsa of the old” .., and beside this place – also the bottom of the mosque under The side where the trees and the olives – a great knotted place.” This place is known today as the “Marwani Mosque”.
5- Al-Buraq Wall: It is the western wall of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, in which is located the “Mughrabi Gate” from which the Prophet, peace be upon him, is believed to have entered Al-Aqsa Mosque on the night of the Night Journey, “so he descended there and prayed with the prophets as an imam, and linked Al-Buraq to the ring of the door of the mosque”; According to the narration of Imam Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 752 AH / 1351 AD) in ‘Zad al-Ma’ad’. And the western wall of the mosque [Al-Buraq Wall] is what the Zionists today call the Wailing Wall.
6- The doors: Al-Aqsa Mosque – apart from the Mughrabi Gate – has fifteen doors, some of which are open and the other closed. The most famous open doors are: “Bab al-Silsilah” and “Bab al-Sakina,” about which al-Ulaimi says: “And from them he goes out to the greatest street.. They are the pillars of the mosque’s doors, and most of the people’s penetration (= entry) into the mosque is from them!” These two gates are still of such importance, and people’s dependence on them increased after the closure of the Mughrabi Gate since 1387 AH / 1967 AD.