PALESTINE

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious and Most Merciful

Palestine in the ancient world was part of the region known as Canaan and, later, the region where the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah were located. Palestine is a designation of an area of land, which the Philistines occupied a very small part of (the Canaanites/Phonecians and the Israelites, among others, having established themselves in the area much earlier). The name `Palestine’ is thought to derive from either the word “plesheth” (meaning `root palash’, an edible concocotion carried by migratory tribes which came to symbolize nomadic peoples) or as a Greek designation for the nomadic Philistines. The author Tom Robbins, and others, have suggested the name originates from the ancient androgynous god Pales who was widely worshipped in the region known as Palestine. If this is so then the name of the region means `Land of Pales’. That there was an androgynous god with the head of a donkey who was popularly recognized as Pales by the Canaanites, Israelites and Philistines is known but there exists no firm documentation from ancient times linking the god to the name of the region and, most likely, the name derives from the Greek for `the Land of the Philistines’. 

The mosque was originally a small prayer house built by the Rashidun caliph Umar, but was rebuilt and expanded by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik and finished by his son al-Walid in 705 CE. After an earthquake in 746, the mosque was completely destroyed and rebuilt by the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur in 754, and again rebuilt by his successor al-Mahdi in 780. Another earthquake destroyed most of al-Aqsa in 1033, but two years later the Fatimid caliph Ali az-Zahir built another mosque which has stood to the present-day. During the periodic renovations undertaken, the various ruling dynasties of the Islamic Caliphate constructed additions to the mosque and its precincts, such as its dome, facade, its minbar, minarets and the interior structure. When the Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099, they used the mosque as a palace and church, but its function as a mosque was restored after its recapture by Saladin in 1187. More renovations, repairs and additions were undertaken in the later centuries by the Ayyubids, Mamluks, Ottomans, the Supreme Muslim Council, and Jordan. Today, the Old City is under Israeli control, but the mosque remains under the administration of the Jordanian/Palestinian.