Jews have no legitimate claim to Al-Buraq Wall
Egypt-Israel, Politics, 4/28/2001

Egyptian Minister of Waqfs (religious endowments) Mahmoud Hamdi Zakzouk said the city of Jerusalem enjoyed perfect stability and peace for 13 centuries under the Muslim rule. This period of time was interrupted during the crusades until Salah Eddin liberated the city and other parts of Palestine from its occupier.

The Minister fiercely condemned the Israeli attempts to Judaise the holy city, asserting that there was no shred of historical evidence supporting their claim that the alleged Solomon Temple existed anywhere in the city. He also emphasised that the Western Wall in Jerusalem, known for Jews as the Wailing Wall, was not even a Jewish holy site.

Last February, Egypt's top Muslim authority, the Mufti Nasr Fradid Wassel, has decreed that the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City remain an Islamic endowment for ever.

The Mufti Nasr Farid Wassel said Al-Buraq Wall (the Muslim name for the wall) is a part of the western wall of the Aqsa Mosque. He added that the wall would belong to Muslims all over the world "until the end of earth".

The wall was captured by Israel along with the rest of Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel then annexed that part of the city in a move not recognised internationally.

Jewish worshippers pray at the wall, which they revere as part of a biblical temple. It forms part of a raised esplanade that Jews call Temple Mount and regard as their holiest site.

The compound is known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) and contains the Dome of the Rock and Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest shrine.

Prophet Mohammad flew from Mecca to Jerusalem in the seventh century AD and tied his two-winged animal, al-Buraq, to the wall before ascending to heaven from a rock which now forms the centrepiece of the Dome of the Rock.

The fate of the compound, which has been administered by the Waqf, Islamic endowments, since 1967, is one of the thorniest issues in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Wassel said Muslims and the media should stop referring to the wall as the Wailing Wall. "It is not religiously allowed that the Wailing Wall be used instead of Buraq Wall," he said.

Wassel said there could be no recognition of Israeli control over the wall. "The de facto ownership by Israeli authorities is an act of occupation that does not give them any legal power".

Previous Stories:
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  Sharon's statehood proposal as card- stacking ploy   (4/17/2001)
  Egypt slams the Israeli attacks on Lebanon   (4/17/2001)

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