Are Saudi Arabia and the Palestinians on the road to a religious crisis?
• A Saudi publicist claims that the mosque, one of the most important sites in Islam, is not located in Jerusalem - but near Mecca
In the wrong place?
Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, in 2017
Photography:
IPI.
Osama Yamani, a Saudi lawyer and publicist, claims in an article he wrote and published in the local newspaper "Okaz" that the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third site in its sanctity to Islam, is not located on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem - but in Jairana near Mecca.
According to Yamani, the source of the confusion between the sites is that many history books indicate that al-Aqsa is in Jerusalem.
"Jerusalem is not al-Aqsa, because it is not excellent in the mission that Allah gave to Muhammad and the caliphs. Also, Jerusalem is a city and al-Aqsa is a mosque," he wrote in the article.
He added that al-Aqsa was not the first direction of prayer for Muslims.
Among other things, Yamani referred to undisputed historical facts, including that the Fifth Caliph of the Umayyad dynasty, 'Abd al-Malik, built the Dome of the Rock in 691 AD.
This, after Abdullah Ibn al-Zubair rebelled nine years earlier and prevented the locals from fulfilling the Hajj commandment in Mecca.
"At this point he moved the direction of prayer to Jerusalem," Yamani explains.
The lesson, according to Yamani, is that "there are stories that are influenced by political considerations that came to serve the needs of that period, and sometimes claims are made that have nothing to do with faith or observance."