6. What is the duty of Muslims
towards Al-Aqsa Mosque?
According to Islam, there is no duty that Muslims have towards the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Mosque which can be seen in Jerusalem today with the name of ‘Al-Aqsa’ was actually built many years after the death of Prophet Muhammad by the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik and later finished and expanded by his son al-Walid in 705 AD. It was originally erected as a small prayer house by the second caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab.
The name ‘Masjid al-Aqsa’ was given to the newly-built monument by Muslims because of the reference found in the following verse of the Quran:
Holy is He who took His servant by night from al-Masjid al-Haram to al-masjid al-aqsa. (Quran 17:1)
The misconception many have today is that they think that the present-day Masjid Al-Aqsa is the same ‘masjid al-aqsa’ mentioned in the Quran. In reality, Masjid al-Aqsa did not have any physical existence at the time of the Prophet. In the verse quoted above, ‘Masjid al-Haram’ is a proper noun and refers to the Kabah in Makkah, while ‘masjid al-aqsa’ is only used as an adverb. The literal meaning of the term ‘masjid al-aqsa’ in this verse is ‘a far-off masjid’ (‘far’, because it was far from Makkah – the place from where the Prophet started his night journey). This far-off masjid was the sight at Jerusalem where the Prophet was taken during his night journey and is said to have prayed. So, the place where he prayed was just a space and had no physical building in the form of a mosque. This is why the term ‘masjid al-aqsa’ in the above verse is not a proper noun, referring to a physical mosque which existed when the Prophet went there, rather, it means a far-off place (which was Jerusalem) where the Prophet prayed.
It was only later on, after the death of the Prophet, that Muslims constructed a physical mosque at this sight in Jerusalem where the Prophet had prayed during his night journey. After construction, Muslims gave it the name ‘Masjid Al-Aqsa’. Thus, the accurate translation of the verse would be:
Holy is He who took His servant by night from al-Masjid al-Haram to a far-off masjid.
The above verse just refers to a far-off place where the Prophet prayed during his night journey, it does not refer to the particular physical structure of the mosque that presently exists in Jerusalem. God has bestowed no duty to Muslims towards the present Masjid Al-Aqsa.
