Holy Land - Islam

Islam

In the Qur'an, the term الأرض المقدسة (Al-Ard Al-Muqaddasah, English: "Holy Land") is mentioned at least seven times, once when Moses proclaims to the Children of Israel: "O my people! Enter the holy land which Allah hath assigned unto you, and turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin." (Surah 5:21)

Jerusalem (referred to as Al-Quds, meaning the "Holy") has particular significance in Islam. The Qur'an refers to Muhammad's experiencing the Isra and Mi'raj as "a Journey by night from the Sacred (Mecca) Mosque to the Farthest (al-Aqsa) Mosque, whose precincts We did bless" (17:1). Ahadith associate the "Farthest Mosque" as Al-Quds; for example, as narrated by Abu Huraira: "On the night journey of Allah's Apostle, two cups, one containing wine and the other containing milk, were presented to him at Al-Quds (Jerusalem). He looked at them and took the cup of milk. Angel Gabriel said, "Praise be to Allah, who guided you to Al-Fitrah (the right path); if you had taken (the cup of) wine, your Ummah would have gone astray". However, much modern scholarship argues that the 'Farthest Mosque' (al-Masjid al-Aqsa) was a building or prayer site just outside Medina. The present mosque of that name had not been built in Muhammad's day, nor does the Qur'an contain any reference to Jerusalem, apart from the reference to the change of the qibla from Jerusalem to Mecca. Jerusalem was Islam's first Qibla (direction of prayer), however, this was later changed to the Kaaba in Mecca following a revelation to the Prophet Muhammad by the Archangel Gabriel.

The exact region referred to as "Blessed Land" in the Qur'an verse has been interpreted differently by various scholars: Abdullah Yusuf Ali likens it to a wide land range including, Syria, Palestine and the cities of Tyre and Sidon; Az-Zujaj describes it as, "Damascus, Palestine, and a bit of Jordan"; Qatada claims it to be, "the Levant"; Muadh ibn Jabal as, "the area between al-Arish and the Euphrates"; and Ibn Abbas as, "the land of Jericho". The references to 'Palestine' here, instead of Syria are achronological.