Al-Quds | September 13, 2004

The arabic name of Jerusalem is Al-Quds. It is one of the three most holy cities and focus of Pilgrimages in Islam, after Mecca and Medina. The first Mosque in Medina was directed towards Jerusalem in the North and not towards Mecca in the south. It was only later, that the direction of prayer was changed towards Mecca. The Miraj, the miraculous midhight journey of the prophet, took place from the "further mosque" or the Masjid al-Aqsa, which popular sources associated with the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. And in the later seventh century there was constructed on the Temple Mount the Shrine of the Dome of the Rock.