"Nothing"? Not A Thing?

Wakf allows journalists to enter al-Aksa

The Wakf (Islamic Trust), which administers the Temple Mount, opened the doors of al-Aksa Mosque Wednesday for a rare visit by a group of about 40 journalists, mostly from the foreign press.

But Muhammad Abu Aktesh, the group's guide, said the Wakf had no plans to lift the general prohibition against non-Muslims visiting al-Aksa or the Dome of the Rock imposed eight years ago following then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount and the eruption of the second intifada.

...The rare visit Wednesday was facilitated and accompanied by Amir Cheshin, late Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek's longtime adviser on Arab affairs, and organized by INFO-Mishkenot, a forum which initiates meetings between foreign journalists and Israeli news makers.

Abu Aktesh told the group that the Haram al-Sharif Compound was "holy Muslim land" and that he hoped peace would be attained here soon...

...Before ascending the mount, Cheshin briefed the group from a vantage point above Robinson's Arch, near the junction of the Western and Southern Walls. He described the archeological history of the site, highlighted discoveries relating to the era of the Jewish temples and pointed out the cleared Herodian pavement at the corner of the walls below. He said the best archeological evidence of the Herodian temple was an eight-ton stone, now housed at the Israel Museum, which was unearthed by archeologists at that corner and bore the inscription: "Belonging to the place of the trumpet blowing" - which accords with accounts of priests sounding trumpets from the Temple at the beginning and end of Shabbat.

Abu Aktesh, however, adamantly maintained that "the Jews had nothing here."

Speaking as the group walked around the Dome of the Rock, he said that Muslim rulers had given Jews permission to pray at what he called the "Western wall of al-Aksa" as an act of goodwill - an apparent reference to the dispensation by Suleiman the Magnificent in the late 16th century.

But here's another Muslim voice:-

Recent Palestinian Muslim statements denying a Jewish temple ever existed on the Temple Mount site that now houses the Muslim al-Aqsa Mosque is a distortion of traditional Islamic opinions, according to the Muslim head of Italy's Muslim Association.

Moreover, Abdul Hadi Palazzi told an interfaith meeting..."It is shocking to hear a mufti say that there was never a temple there," Palazzi said. He was referring to recent comments by Jerusalem Mufti Sheikh Ekrima El Sabri in which he said "there is not even the smallest indication of the existence of a Jewish temple on this place in the past. In the whole city (of Jerusalem) there is not even a single stone indicating Jewish history."

"Saying such a thing doesn't just contradict the Bible, it contradicts the Koran," said Palazzi, a lecturer at Italy's University of Velletri and a graduate of Egypt's al-Azhar Islamic University.

...And he said he saw no reason why Jews couldn't be permitted to pray on the mount, in coordination with Muslim authorities, or ultimately even to build another temple alongside the existing Islamic structures.

And more:-

"Today, official Palestinian Authority propaganda denies any connection of the Jews to Jerusalem," Palazzi says. "In doing so, they are not only revising history but also classical Islamic sources. The Koran presents the same history as the Bible. This was clear to Muslim scholars for centuries - Al Aksa and Solomon's Temple are in the same place. When the Caliph Omar first arrived in Jerusalem, he called the city Bayet Al Makdis - Beit Hamikdash or the House of the Temple. This was shortened to Al Quds."

So, who is telling the truth?