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Al-Masjid
Al-Aqsa
Jerusalem,
Palestine
Al Masjid Al-Aqsa was founded forty (days or
months or years) next to
the Ka`bah. Historians believe that Prophet Ibrahim, peace and
blessings be upon him, was the one who built or ordered Al-Aqsa to
be built. It was demolished during the conquests of Jerusalem.
`Umar Ibn Al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, is the first
one then who restored Al-Aqsa. He recognized the sight but nothing
was built. When abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan held the office in the year
66 A.H., he rebuilt Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock.
Al-Aqsa is
one of the largest and most important mosques in the Muslim world,
and the earliest in Palestine.
Its construction
was probably the architectural expression of the destination of
Muhammad’s Night Journey and of the place where his ascension to
heaven occurred. The mosque was beautiful and vast twice the size
of today’s structure.
The original mosque was destroyed in an
earthquake in the middle of the eighth century and restored by the
Abbasids toward the end of that century. Other than a few pieces of
wood bearing carvings of floral images, nothing remains of the
decorations of the original mosque. Most of those in today’s
mosque date from medieval times.
Related
links:
The
History of Masjid Al-Aqsa
Status
of Al-Aqsa Mosque
Confusion
about Al-Aqsa Mosque
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