The importance of al-Quds for the Muslims – and do the Jews have any right to it?

Question

Praise be to Allah.

Firstly: with
regard to the importance of Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem), you should know
– may Allaah bless you –that the virtues of Bayt al-Maqdis are many:

-Allaah has
described it in the Qur’aan as being blessed. He said (interpretation
of the meaning): “Glorified
(and Exalted) be He (Allaah) Who took His slave (Muhammad) for a journey
by night from Al-Masjid Al-Haraam (at Makkah) to
Al-Masjid Al-Aqsaa (in Jerusalem), the neighbourhood whereof
We have blessed…” [al-Israa’ 17:1].
Al-Quds is part of the neighbourhood surrounding the mosque and hence it
is blessed.

-Allaah has described
it as being holy, as He says (interpretation of the meaning): “[Moosa
said:] O my people! Enter the holy land (Palestine) which Allaah has
assigned to you…” [al-Maa’idah 5:21]

-In al-Quds there is
al-Masjid al-Aqsaa, and one prayer there is equivalent to two hundred and
fifty prayers elsewhere.

It
was reported that Abu Dharr (may Allaah be pleased with him) said: we were
discussing, in the presence of the Prophet
(peace and blessings of
Allaah be upon him), which of them was more virtuous, the mosque of the
Messenger of Allaah
(peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) or
Bayt al-Maqdis. The Messenger of Allaah
(peace and blessings of
Allaah be upon him) said: One prayer in my mosque is better than four
prayers there, but it is still a good place of prayer. Soon there will
come a time when if a man has a spot of land as big as his horse’s rope
from which he can see Bayt al-Maqdis, that will be better for him than the
whole world. (Narrated and
classed as saheeh by al-Haakim, 4/509. Al-Dhahabi and al-Albaani agreed
with him, as stated in al-Silsilah al-Saheehah, at the end
of the discussion of hadeeth no. 2902).

One
prayer in al-Masjid al-Nabawi is equivalent to one thousand prayers
elsewhere, so one prayer in al-Masjid al-Aqsaa is equivalent to two
hundred and fifty prayers elsewhere.

With regard to
the famous hadeeth which says that prayer in al-Masjid al-Aqsaa is
equivalent to five hundred prayers elsewhere, this is da’eef (weak).
(See Tamaam al-Minnah [?] by Shaykh al-Albaani – may Allaah havemercy on him – p. 292).

-The one-eyed
Dajjaal (“Antichrist”) will not enter it, because of the hadeeth,
“He will prevail over all the earth, apart from al-Haram [in Makkah]
and Bayt al-Maqdis.” (Narrated by Ahmad, 19665. Classed as saheeh by
Ibn Khuzaymah, 2/327, and Ibn Hibbaan, 7/102).

-The Dajjaal will be
killed close to al-Quds. He will be killed by the Messiah ‘Eesa ibn
Maryam (peace be upon him), as was stated in the hadeeth: “The son of
Maryam will kill the Dajjaal at the gates of Ludd.” (Narrated by Muslim,
2937, from the hadeeth of al-Nawwaas ibn Sam’aan). Ludd (Lod) is a place
near Bayt al-Maqdis.

-The Messenger
(peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) was taken to Bayt al-Maqdis on
his Night Journey (al-Israa’) from al-Masjid al-Haraam to
al-Masjid al-Aqsaa. Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning): “Glorified
(and Exalted) be He (Allaah) Who took His slave (Muhammad) for a journey
by night from Al-Masjid Al-Haraam (at Makkah) to
Al-Masjid Al-Aqsaa (in Jerusalem)…” [al-Israa’ 17:1].

-It (al-Quds) was the
first qiblah of the Muslims, as was reported by al-Baraa’ (may Allaah be
pleased with him): the Messenger of Allaah
(peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) prayed in the direction of
Bayt al-Maqdis for sixteen or seventeen months. (Narrated by al-Bukhaari,
41 – this version was narrated by him – and by Muslim, 525).

-It is the place
where Wahy (Revelation) came down, and it is the homeland of the
Prophets. This is well known.

-It is one of the
mosques to which people may travel.

Abu
Hurayrah (may Allaah be pleased with him) reported that the Prophet
(peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “No journey should be
made except to three mosques, al-Masjid al-Haraam, Masjid al-Rasool
(peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) and Masjid al-Aqsaa.”
(Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 1132. Also narrated by Muslim, 827, from the
hadeeth of Abu Sa’eed al-Khudri, with the words, “Do not travel except
to…”).

-The Messenger
(peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) led the Prophets in one prayer
in al-Aqsaa, as reported in the lengthyhadeeth: “… Then the time for prayer came, and I led them
in prayer.” (Narrated by Muslim, 172, from the hadeeth of Abu Hurayrah).

It is not
permissible to travel to any spot on earth for the purpose of worshipping
there, except these three mosques.

Secondly:

The fact that
Ya’qoob (peace be upon him) built al-Masjid al-Aqsaa does not mean that
the Jews have more right to the mosque than the Muslims, because Ya’qoob
was a monotheist and the Jews are mushrikeen. The fact that their father
Ya’qoob built the mosque does not mean that it belongs to them. He built
it for the monotheists to worship in it, even if they were not his
children, and he did not allow the mushrikeen to enter it, even if they
are his children, because the call of the Prophets has nothing to do with
race; it is based on taqwaa (piety, awareness of Allaah).

Thirdly:

Your saying
that the Prophet
(peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him)
led the previous Prophets in prayer to signify the unity of the message
and all divine revelations is correct from the point of view of the origin
of the religion and ‘aqeedah (belief) of the Prophets. All of the
Prophets received their Message from one source, which was the Wahy
(Revelation), and they all had the same ‘aqeedah, which was the belief
in Tawheed (absolute unity of Allaah) and the worship of Allaah Alone,
even though there were differences in the details of their laws. This was
confirmed by our Prophet
(peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him)
when he said: “I am the closest of mankind to ‘Eesaa ibn Maryam in
this world and in the Hereafter. The Prophets are brothers although they
have different mothers, and their religion is one.” (Narrated
by al-Bukhaari, 3259; Muslim, 2365).

Here we would
caution readers against believing that the Jews, Christians and Muslims
are following the same principles nowadays, because the Jews have changed
the religion of their Prophet. Indeed, part of the religion of their
Prophet is that they should follow our Prophet and not reject him, but
they disbelieve in the Prophethood of Muhammad
(peace and
blessings of Allaah be upon him) and associate others in worship with
Allaah.

Fourthly:

The Jews do not have any stake in al-Quds, because even
though they may have lived in the land previously, that land now belongs
to the Muslims from two points of view:

1.The Jews disbelieved and are no longer following the religion of
the believers among the Children of Israel who followed and supported
Moosa and ‘Eesaa (peace be upon them).

2.We Muslims have more right to it than them, because land
does not belong to the people who lived there first, but to those who
establish the laws of Allaah therein. Allaah created the land, and He
created people to worship Allaah in the land and to establish therein the
religion, laws and rulings of Allaah. Allaah says (interpretation of the
meaning): “… Verily, the
earth is Allaah’s. He gives it as a heritage to whom He wills of His
slaves; and the (blessed) end is for the Muttaqoon (the pious).”
[al-A’raaf 7:128]

Hence if some
Arabs came who were not followers of Islam and they ruled the land with
kufr, they would have to be fought until they submitted to the rule of
Islam or were killed.

It is not the
matter of race or ethnicity; it is the matter of Tawheed and Islam.

Here it is
useful to quote the words of one of the researchers:

“History
tells us that the first people to settle in Palestine were the Canaanites,
six thousand years BCE. They were an Arab tribe who came to Palestine from
the Arabian Peninsula, and after their arrival, Palestine was named after
them [i.e., Canaan].”

(al-Suhyooniyyah,
Nash’atuhaa, Tanzeemaatuhaa, Inshitatuhaa, by Ahmad al-‘Awadi, p.
7).

“As for the
Jews, the first time they entered Palestine was approximately six hundred
years after Ibraheem had entered the land, i.e., they entered it
approximately 1400 years BCE. So the Canaanites entered Palestine and
lived there approximately 4500 years before the Jews.”

(Ibid., p. 8)

Hence it is
clear that the Jews have no right to the land, whether according to
religious law or in terms of who lived there first and possessed the land.
They are aggressors who are seizing the land by force. We ask Allaah to
rid Bayt al-Maqdis of them sooner rather than later, for He is Able to do
that and He is Most Generous in answering. Praise be to Allaah, the Lord
of the Worlds.