AL Aqsa Mosque

            “Glorified be He Who took His servant (Muhammad) for a journey by night from Al-Masjid Al Haram (at Mecca) to the Al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem), the neighborhood whereof We have blessed, in order that We might show him some of Our signs. Verily, He is the All-Hearer, theAll-Seer”  The Qur'an 17:1.

With these eternal verses, Allah (God), stated in the heart of the Muslim scripture, the Qur'an, the never diminishing significance of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem to Islam and Muslims. Al-Aqsa, right in the heart of the Muslim world, is to where our prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be unto him) journeyed at night in a miraculous manner

from the city of Mecca, where his call to Islam (submission to God) was still in its earliest stages. At Al-Aqsa Mosque, he led all of the prophets of Allah that came before him in prayer and then ascended to heaven to receive Allah's command to the Muslims to pray five times a day.

Eversince, Al-Aqsa Mosque and the city of Jerusalem have been very special to Muslims all over the world. They pray for it and long to pray in it. And today, with Al-Aqsa being under the Israeli occupation for thirty years, all Muslims pray for its liberation and for the freedom of their Palestinian brothers, who have become the soldiers at  the front line of the battle to redeem Al-Aqsa.

Occupation, burning, successive agression, closure and martyr after martyr have become Al-Aqsa'a story in the last thirty years. Al-Aqsa is really a deep wound right in the heart of the Muslim world. In today's unfair reality and materialistic world, Al-Aqsa has become a symbol of the undesired existence of the trouble-making Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims (so they say!).

No wonder then, that when the dream of a historical parasite of opening a tunnel to undermine the foundation of Al-Aqsa Mosque finds its way to reality, Palestinians of all ages and all beliefs spring to the rescue. They are Muslim Palestinians defending their very basic right of existence. Some are Christian Palestinians, also, fighting for the Muslim shrine. Al-Aqsa is more than a building with historical and religious significance, it is an idea, a creed even, that we all  have to stand up for what is right and true.

Muslims love Al-Aqsa, pray for it, fight for it and die for it  because, as they see it, they are fighting for the promise of a new and higher reality. A reality of peace, justice and mutual respect. This promised reality is not an imaginary one. It did exist when the Muslims liberated Al-Aqsa from the European Crusaders, allowing them to evacuate Jerusalem peacefully with their belongings and families. This was the Muslims' response to the brutality of the Crusaders when they massacred the Arab inhabitants of Jerusalem, Muslims and Christians alike.

It is in this spirit of a higher reality, that we can understand why Palestinian soldiers were carrying a wounded Israeli soldier, and were trying to get him to the closest medical team. This was their response to the brutality of the Israeli military machine, which did not hesitate to deploy helicopters against unarmed civilians, trying to kill them and to kill their dream, of freeing Al-Aqsa Mosque.

 We will continue to believe in Islam's message and its symbol, Al-Aqsa. We can see our promised reality of peace and justice to all, in the eyes of the innocent Palestinian children, as they die for Al-Aqsa Mosque.

 Idris El Bakri   

Jerusalem, Palestine

Muslim Student Association Brigham Young University