A recent discovery of an inscription from the early Islamic period has been added to the pile of evidence attesting to a long Jewish connection to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, contrary to recent decisions taken by the United Nations.
The inscription, which was found during the excavation of a mosque in the Palestinian village of Nuba near Hebron, refers to what is now called the Dome of the Rock as “Bait al-Maqdess,” the Arabic version of “Beit Hamikdah,” which is Hebrew for the Temple.
According to Israeli archaeologists Asaf Avraham and Peretz Reuven, the unique inscription dates to the 10th century, and further confirms that for centuries after the Islamic conquest, Muslims continued to link Jerusalem’s Temple Mount to the Jewish Temple of the Bible.
Avraham and Reuven noted in a press conference last Thursday that early Islam drew much from Judaism, leading to the building of the Dome of the Rock where the Temple previously stood.
“At the start of the Muslim period, religious rites were held inside the Dome of the Rock compound that imitated the ceremonies conducted in the Jewish Temple,” Avraham explained.
In more recent years, Arab Muslim leaders in Israel and abroad have vociferously denied any historical connection between the Jews and the Temple Mount, even in the face of their own religion’s documentation. It has been frustrating for Israel to see the UNESCO resolution, despite all the evidence coming to light.
Originally posted at Israel Today Magainze.
