We are reproducing in original Urdu and in English and Hindi translations a widely syndicated article in India’s Urdu Press by Maulanama Nadeemul Wajidi of Deoband seminary detailing Muslims’s love for and claims toHaram Ash-Sharif Baitul Muqaddas and Masjid-e-Aqsa, also known alternatively as Temple Mountand Solomon’s Temple or First Temple in Jerusalem. Muslim Press the world over is constantly full of Muslim lamentation over the loss of full control over Baitul Muqaddas and Masjid-e-Aqsa since Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem. Fighting an occupation is one thing. All Justice-loving people in the world are with Palestinians on that issue. But world Muslim community making an ideological claim over a building complex that God told us belongs to our religious cousins, the Ahl-Kitab Jews and Christians, is something quite another.
Muslims revere these structures as their first Qibla, as it was this direction they faced in their prayers in the formative phase of Islam when Prophet was still hoping for reconciliation with and acceptability as a Biblical prophet by the Jews and Christians. Even though the Prophet and other Meccans always wanted to useKaaba Shareef as their Qibla, this was one of the concessions they were willing to make as per God’s advice in the interest of wider acceptability by other Biblical religions. However, when all these attempts failed and Jews had to be expelled because of their perfidy in times of war which would not be acceptable to any besieged city, the Prophet and the Muslims from Mecca started looking towards Heaven for permission to change their Qibla from Baitul Muqaddas to Kaaba Shareef.
