Ancient mosque inscription confirms Jerusalem Temple

The Mosque of Umar, located in the village of Nuba, about 16 miles south of Jerusalem, is believed by locals to have been built by Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab, under whose rule Arab armies conquered Jerusalem and the rest of Byzantine Palestine in the mid-7th century, reported the Times of Israel. His successor, Abd al-Malik, the fifth caliph, built the better-known Dome of the Rock atop the Temple Mount in A.D. 691.

A recently studied limestone dedicatory plaque in the Nuba mosque describes the village as an endowment for the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, but what is notable is it refers to the Dome of the Rock as “the rock of the Bayt al-Maqdis” – “Holy Temple” – the literal translation of the Hebrew term used by early Muslims for the city of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount’s gold-dome shrine.

The stone bearing the inscription sits above the mosque’s niche that faces toward Mecca.

It reads: “In the name of God the merciful, the compassionate, this territory, Nuba, and all its boundaries and its entire area, is an endowment to the Rock of Bayt al-Maqdis and the al-Aqsa Mosque, as it was dedicated by the Commander of the Faithful, Umar ibn al-Khattab for the glory of Allah.”

 

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