Al-Aqsa Mosque

Overview

Al-Aqsa Mosque is a Muslim holy place at the southern end of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Israel. The mosque is a building within the larger sacred precinct; it is neither the entire Temple Mount nor the nearby Dome of the Rock. The latter is a shrine distinguished by its prominent dome, while Al-Aqsa is a congregational mosque. Several other mosques and prayer spaces operate on the Temple Mount, including Al-Marwani and Bab Al-Rahma. Distinguishing the buildings from the precinct matters because religious traditions, rules of access and incidents at one part of the site are often described using the single name Al-Aqsa.

The Temple Mount is Judaism’s holiest site and the location of the First Temple and Second Temple. It is also a major holy place in Islam, whose tradition associates the precinct with Muhammad’s Night Journey. Al-Aqsa Mosque, opened under the Umayyad dynasty in the early eighth century, became a principal place of Muslim worship there. The Western Wall, a surviving retaining wall of the Temple Mount, is a separate Jewish prayer site below the precinct. Jerusalem also contains the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a distinct Christian holy place.

Jerusalem’s Old City, including Al-Aqsa Mosque, has been under Israeli sovereignty since Israel unified Jerusalem in 1967. Israel retained Muslim Waqf administration of the Temple Mount and restricted Jewish prayer there. This arrangement has remained central to access and security policy. Israel has repeatedly affirmed that it will maintain the Temple Mount status quo governing Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.

Biblical and ancient history

Al-Aqsa Mosque stands on ground with a Jewish history extending far earlier than the mosque’s construction. Jewish tradition identifies the Temple Mount with Mount Moriah and the place where Abraham was commanded to offer Isaac. The Hebrew Bible places Solomon’s First Temple in Jerusalem on that mountain. Built as the central sanctuary of ancient Israelite worship, the First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. Jews returning from exile built the Second Temple on the same site. Its later expansion under Herod transformed the surrounding platform and retaining walls, whose remains are part of the visible fabric of Jerusalem today.

The Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE during the Jewish revolt. Its destruction did not end the Temple Mount’s place in Jewish religious life: Jewish prayer continued to face Jerusalem, and remembrance of the Temple remained part of worship and annual observance. The Western Wall’s importance derives from its relationship to the Temple Mount, although the wall was part of the enlarged platform rather than the Temple building. Jews seeking access to the Mount therefore seek access to the site of their ancient temples, not to Al-Aqsa Mosque as a mosque.

Later rulers changed access to the precinct. Following the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in the seventh century, the site was cleared and used for Muslim worship. Umayyad building projects established the two monuments that remain its best-known Islamic structures: the Dome of the Rock on the raised central platform and Al-Aqsa Mosque toward its southern edge. Al-Aqsa opened in 705 CE. Its early eighth-century construction placed a Muslim house of prayer on a site already central to Jewish history. The precinct’s subsequent religious significance to Muslims did not erase the earlier temples or the continuing Jewish attachment to their site.

Later history

Al-Aqsa Mosque changed under successive rulers and through repeated rebuilding. Crusaders who captured Jerusalem in 1099 converted the mosque for Christian use and called it the Temple of Solomon. After Saladin retook Jerusalem in 1187, the building returned to Muslim worship. Its prayer hall, furnishings and surrounding structures were restored or altered over later centuries. Ottoman rule formed another long period in the site’s history, during which access for visitors outside Islam was generally restricted.

A 1927 earthquake severely damaged the mosque’s roof and dome. The Muslim Waqf undertook extensive repairs. Robert Hamilton, an antiquities official under the British Mandate, documented material exposed beneath the mosque floors and above its ceilings while that work proceeded. The repairs illustrate how preservation of a functioning holy place can also reveal evidence from earlier phases of construction.

During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Jordan gained control of Jerusalem’s Old City. Its control lasted from 1948 until the Six-Day War in 1967, when Israel unified Jerusalem. On June 17, 1967, Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan met Muslim Waqf and Supreme Muslim Council leaders inside Al-Aqsa Mosque to establish the postwar Temple Mount arrangement. Israel preserved Waqf administration and restricted Jewish prayer on the Mount, while the Western Wall remained the principal Jewish prayer site. The distinction between Israeli sovereignty, Muslim administration and rules for worship has shaped the site ever since.

On August 21, 1969, Denis Michael Rohan, an Australian Protestant extremist, set fire to Al-Aqsa Mosque. The blaze destroyed large parts of the building and irreplaceable artifacts, including its historic wooden pulpit. Rohan believed his act would hasten the Second Coming of Jesus. Israeli authorities arrested, tried and convicted him. The mosque underwent restoration after the fire, with Jordan’s King Hussein pledging $8.25 million toward work on Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock.

False accounts of the arson persisted despite Rohan’s conviction. Middle Eastern outlets portrayed him as Jewish or blamed Israel for his crime. The Muslim Brotherhood’s web portal and Al-Aqsa Mosque director Sheikh Omar al-Kiswani repeated false identifications of the arsonist. Hamas’s youth wing rejected the finding that Rohan acted alone and described the fire as part of an Israeli campaign against the mosque. In 2022, the Iranian regime’s Arabic-language broadcaster Al-Alam and Jordan’s state broadcaster Jordan TV also falsely described Rohan as Jewish. These claims assign responsibility for an Australian Protestant extremist’s crime to Jews or Israel without evidence.

Archaeology

The Temple Mount contains structures from several periods, and work within or near its boundaries attracts close attention. The southern edge of Al-Aqsa Mosque lies above passages associated with entrances to the expanded Second Temple platform. Repairs after the 1927 earthquake gave Hamilton an opportunity to record material exposed beneath the mosque floors and above its ceilings. Such observations belong to the archaeological record of a site whose religious buildings have been repaired, altered and reused over many centuries.

Two nearby projects have been the subject of claims that Israeli excavations undermine Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Western Wall Tunnels, opened to visitors in 1996, follow the Western Wall and emerge in Jerusalem’s Old City. They do not run beneath the Temple Mount or near Al-Aqsa Mosque. In 2006, Muslim leaders accused Israel of digging beneath the mosque; a foreign journalist investigated the accusation and found no supporting evidence.

In 2007, Israel conducted salvage excavations during repairs to Mughrabi Gate, which leads from the Western Wall Plaza to the Temple Mount. The excavation site was away from Al-Aqsa Mosque and did not endanger it. Israel installed cameras at the work site so observers could see the excavation in real time. The positions of the tunnels, gate and mosque are essential to evaluating claims about their relationship: nearby work should not be described as excavation beneath Al-Aqsa when it took place outside or away from the mosque.

Religious significance

Al-Aqsa Mosque is regarded as one of Islam’s foremost holy places, after the sacred sites of Mecca and Medina. In Islamic tradition, Muhammad’s Night Journey took him from the Sacred Mosque to the farthest sanctuary, associated with Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. The tradition gives the precinct religious meaning for Muslims; the mosque built there under the Umayyads became an enduring focus of prayer. The Dome of the Rock, although part of the same precinct, is a separate shrine rather than another name for Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The name Al-Aqsa also appears in political messages and in the names of organizations and media outlets. That wider use does not change what the mosque is. Hamas, a terrorist organization, has used the holy place as a subject of propaganda. Its Al-Aqsa TV children’s programming in May 2007 used the character Farfour to promote a campaign to seize the mosque. A December 3, 2007, children’s program paired calls to bring Al-Aqsa under Hamas’s control with a threat to wipe out Jews. France later acted to remove Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV from satellite broadcasts over programming that incited hatred or violence.

Other armed groups have invoked the site’s name. Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades carried out attacks against Israelis, while Islamic Jihad and the brigades jointly perpetrated a November 27, 2001, suicide shooting in Afula that killed two people. These organizations are separate from the mosque and its Waqf administrators. Their adoption of its name reflects the symbolic force of Jerusalem’s holy places in political and armed campaigns.

Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif announced the October 7 attacks in an audio broadcast under the name Operation al-Aqsa Flood. On the morning of the attack, Yahya Sinwar announced Hamas’s assault on the group’s Al-Aqsa television channel. Hezbollah later used the same name in propaganda about its involvement in Hamas’s war, including a claim that the campaign would decide sovereignty over Al-Aqsa Mosque and other holy places. The name connected a terrorist assault to a Muslim holy site, even though the mosque was not the target of the October 7 attack.

Access and disputes

The Waqf administers Muslim religious activity on the Temple Mount under the arrangement established after 1967. Non-Muslims may enter the precinct through the Mughrabi Gate during restricted visiting hours from Sunday to Thursday, while Jewish prayer on the Mount remains restricted. Until 2000, visitors outside Islam could enter the Dome of the Rock by purchasing a Waqf ticket. Since 2000, non-Muslims have been barred from entering both the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque. Entry to the wider Temple Mount and entry to its individual buildings therefore follow different rules.

Claims that Al-Aqsa Mosque is in danger have circulated through organized campaigns, including one promoted by the Al-Aqsa Foundation. Claims about the Western Wall Tunnels and the 2007 Mughrabi Gate excavation misstate the work’s location. Those physical facts matter when evaluating assertions that Israel excavated beneath or endangered the mosque. Israeli policy has continued to preserve Waqf administration of the Temple Mount while maintaining security and regulating access.

On July 14, 2017, three Israeli Arab gunmen killed two Israeli police officers in an attack at Al-Aqsa Mosque. Israeli police then canceled Friday prayers at the mosque for the first time in nearly two decades. Hamas’s official account amplified praise for the killings, and the group held a celebratory rally in Gaza. On July 27, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula released a 13-minute propaganda video featuring commander Khalid Batarfi, who urged followers to remove Jews from Al-Aqsa and make sacrifices for Jerusalem.

Incitement spread rapidly online after the 2017 attack. Arabic-language Twitter mentions of Al-Aqsa rose from roughly 150–200 per hour beforehand to nearly 6,400 per hour afterward. Of approximately 117,000 Arabic-language tweets about the attack and subsequent closure, some 26,000 contained threats against Jews or praise for the attackers. Three derogatory descriptions of Jews linked to Al-Aqsa appeared in about 12,400 tweets or reposts. Their use rose from 19 tweets on July 13 to nearly 2,200 on July 14. Those figures describe a surge in threatening and antisemitic speech around the attack; they do not describe Muslim worshippers as a whole.

Violence at the precinct recurred on May 7–10, 2021. Arab rioters stockpiled stone slabs, rocks and fireworks to attack Israeli police and Jews at the Western Wall. Israeli police entered the Temple Mount compound to disperse rioters and restore order. Describing that response as an attack on Al-Aqsa Mosque omits the attacks that prompted it and conflates police action at the wider precinct with an assault on the mosque building. The site’s layered history and shared proximity of holy places make precision about location, access and responsibility especially consequential.