Talk:Al-Aqsa Mosque

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 10 April 2023

Please add the following passage to section 4.4 Conflicts:

On the morning of 5 April 2023, Israeli forces smashed doors and windows to enter al-Aqsa mosque and deployed stun grenades and rubber bullets once inside. Footage shared on social media showed Israeli officers striking screaming people with batons inside the building. Israeli police said their forces entered the mosque after "hundreds of rioters...barricaded themselves inside." When the police entered, stones were thrown at them and fireworks were fired from inside the mosque. Police arrested more than 350 people in the mosque and at least 12 people were injured during the clash. Later that evening, Israeli forces stormed al-Aqsa again, deployed stun grenades, and ordered Muslim worshippers to leave. Six people were treated for injuries.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/05/middleeast/israel-al-aqsa-mosque-clash-intl-hnk/index.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Neoman2026 (talk • contribs) 17:39, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Another addition for the conflict section, in light of recent events:

Israeli settlers storm Al-Aqsa Mosque complex on fifth day of Sukkot

Ryz (talk) 19:54, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

Aqsa

Al Aqsa (compound) is back in the news today. I have been slowly compiling User talk:Onceinawhile/MAA, a list of pre-modern historical references to the term Masjid Al Aqsa. I still have not found any pre-modern Arabic sources using the term Masjid Al Aqsa to refer to the subject of this article. I proposed at Talk:Temple Mount#Masjid Al Aqsa article that the modern partial application of Masjid Al Aqsa to the southern building may be due to the 1865 Ordnance Survey, and I have yet to find anything to disprove that theory.

I have been working my way through Kaplony's 800-page work on the compound. Of the sources he refers to in the footnote to A084 (page 39 note 3) I have checked a good number and all have failed to help so far [I have not managed to get my hands of all of them yet], and his support for B202.6 is bizarre as he writes "Nasir calls this building al-Masjid al-Aqsà", quoting Le Strange where he read Nasir, yet reading Le Strange's quotation of Nasir it says the exact opposite.[1] All very frustrating work. Onceinawhile (talk) 18:51, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Nasir

Here is a longer translation of Nasir. He is taking us on a tour of the Haram and when he comes to the main building he calls it Al-Masjid Al-'Aqsâ. The "cradle of Jesus" is in the south-east part of the Haram. "Template:Tq" (Marmardji, Textes Géographiques Arabes sur la Palestine, p218). That seems to contradict the description of Le Strange in his book, but in Le Strange's full translation of Nasir in "Diary of a Journey thorough Syria and Palestine" he puts it like this: "Template:Tq" A few sentences later the text refers to the "main building (of the Aksa mosque)", but here it isn't clear whether the parenthetical comment comes from Nasir or Le Strange. Zero^talk 13:52, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

A footnote to this. Nasir refers to the whole compound as "the Masjid", but when he comes to introduce the southern building he says explicitly "It is called Masjid al-Aqsa." With the help of a Persian friend I verified that "Masjid" is the word used in the Persian original as it appears near the top of Persian page 25 in Schefer's edition (page 422 by the archive.org numbering). Zero^talk 01:40, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Template:Ping that is really helpful. Here is an extract of the Persian:

Template:Tq

Now to compare it to the Le Strange quote (1890, p.97): Template:Tq

Onceinawhile (talk) 06:39, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

To understand this you have to realise that Le Strange considers "Aksa Mosque" to mean the compound, so by "main building of the Aksa Mosque" he means "main building of what Le Strange calls the Aksa Mosque". It is true that Nasir refers to the covered part of "the masjid", meaning the covered part of the compound, but it is undeniable that he refers specifically to the building as Masjid al Aqsa. It is near the top of your Persian quote: "When you have left the mosque of the cradle of Jesus, you arrive, following the eastern wall, at the corner of the Haram enclosure. There is another extremely beautiful mosque there, which is twice as large as that of the cradle of Jesus. It bears the name of Masjid el Aqsa." First, the "cradle of Jesus" is itself within the compound yet "Masjid el Aqsa" is being compared to it, and second the compound is vastly more than twice the size of it. Le Strange does not disagree with this reading of the Persian, see the quote from him I gave above, and if you factor in Le Strange's meaning for al Aqsa I don't see a contradiction. For Nasir's name of the whole compound see Shefer's footnote on page 72: "Nasir designates, under the name of Masjid, the enclosure of the temple and all the monuments which have been erected there. I sometimes substitute in the translation for the word Masjid those of Haram or Haram es Sharif which is the term under which we designate the courtyard, the dome of the Sakhrah and the Masjid el Aqsa." I don't know of any instance where Nasir clearly names the compound as Masjid el Aqsa. Zero^talk 09:46, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

The translation of Thackston is equivalent: "Passing out through the door, again on the east wall at a corner of the large sanctuary area, you see another very beautiful mosque, twice as large as Jesus' Cradle Mosque, called al-Aqsa Mosque." and also see the footnote on page 23 that agrees with Schefer. Zero^talk 12:35, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Mujir ad-Din

Mujir ad-Din (ca. 1496) wrote that in his day the name Al-Aksa was most commonly applied to the southern building, even though he disagreed on the grounds that the building is modern. Here are two French translations of the relevant sentence: Marmardji p225: "Template:Tq"; Sauvaire, Historire de Jérusalem et D'Hébron, pp120–121 : "Template:Tq" This proves that the application of the name to only the building is not a modern innovation. Since Mujir ad-Din is referring to something he wrote earlier, we can inspect that place as a check. Marmardji, p247 : "Template:Tq"; Sauvaire, p95 : "Template:Tq" So, according to Mujir ad-Din, in his day "Masjid al-Aqsa" was the common name for the building alone, but he himself disagreed. Zero^talk 03:56, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

I believe the Arabic is here but I'm not going to mine it. Zero^talk 12:06, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Here is a selectable version:[2]

Template:Tq

Onceinawhile (talk) 23:53, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Al-'Umari

Al-'Umarî, ca.1342, from Marmardji p236 : "Template:Tq". Zero^talk 00:21, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

This one is very interesting. A detailed description of the compound is included. A part I didn't notice before is on page 212:

It appears to speak of shrines "included" in al-Masjid al-Aqsa, which may be a usage of that name for the whole compound. Maybe. The important part of what I quoted from Marmardji is on page 222:

("From the door of al-Jami an-Nisa, at a distance of 27 cubits in the easterly direction, is the western door of the Jami now called al-Masjid al-Aqsa.) The use of "Jami" here is very clear. I don't want to analyse it too much without being a scholar of medieval Arabic, but the "now called" which Marmardji uses in his translation is really there. Is it a hint that Umari considers this not the original name?

I also noticed "Haram esh-Sharif" in these pages as a name for the compound, more than once. An example is on page 217. I didn't think that name was in use until later. Zero^talk 11:56, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

This really is very interesting. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:58, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Ibn Batutah

Ibn Batûtah, ca.1347, from Marmardji p244 : "Template:Tq" Zero^talk 13:52, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

In his travelogue know as The Rihla, Ibn Batutah wrote

He describes the compound as a vast and wonderful mosque (masjid), which is not covered except for the part called al-Masjid al-Aqsa. I checked multiple English and French translations, including the English translation of Gibb here and the French translation of Defrémery and Sanguinetti here, which includes the Arabic text. The Arabic uses "المسجد الأقصى" (al-Masjid al-Aqsa) which is split between pages 121 and 122 in the latter source. In all readings, Ibn Battuta identifies al-Masjid al-Aqsa as a part of the compound and not its whole. Note that Ibn Battuta (like many others) may have partly copied from earlier writers; the details are unknowable. Zero^talk 14:26, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Sahin ad-Dahiri

Sâhîn ad-Ḑâhirî, ca.1467, from Marmardi p244-245 : "Template:Tq" Zero^talk 13:52, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Hard to get a clean scan, probably errors:

Here he uses "بالمسجد الاقصى" (at al-Masjid al-Aqsa).

Evliya Çelebi

The Turkish text of relevant parts of Seyahatnâme (1670s) is here and here. The latter is a modern critical edition which notes that the original manuscript of this volume is lost so the text had to be reconstructed from three manuscripts known to have been copied from the original. The observation that Çelebi uses "Masjid Aqsa" to refer to the southern building is proved by his frequent use of "Sahratullah’ı ve Mescid-i Aksayı" (the Dome of the Rock and Masjid Aqsa). As for the whole compound, I found "Mesci̇di̇ Aksa avlusu" (Masjid Aqsa court) and "Mescid-i Aksâ‘nın haremi" (Madjid Aqsa haram) but there might be others. Zero^talk 13:22, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

General remarks

Sorry for the delayed response on this.

I meant to thank you for providing these. Thank you.

I need to find the time to look into each one. The only way to be sure is to read the underlying Arabic.

Onceinawhile (talk) 21:44, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Area

There is something wrong with the description of the mosque's size in section "Architecture". It says 5 ha; that would be 100x500 m but the states length & width are much smaller. 2A02:3030:810:7EB5:6478:226C:C345:7C79 (talk) 07:57, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

To be precise, 5 ha equals 50'000 m2. The stated length & width result in approximately 4000 m2, less than 10%. The Azhar mosque has 15'000 m2 and holds 4 times as many worshippers. 2A02:3030:810:7EB5:6478:226C:C345:7C79 (talk) 08:02, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Right, the stated size is only 0.46 hectares or 1.15 acres. I used the dimensions in feet given in the source, which is not a great source but is close to what I measured on a map so it can't be far off. I changed it. Zero^talk 14:19, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

The 2022 PASSIA guide gives slightly smaller dimensions: 80m by 55m. Zero^talk 14:26, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 19 October 2023

Conflicts

Apply to change to->

Conflicts

Cbls1911 (talk) 11:57, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

File:Yes check.svg Done NotAGenious (talk) 14:34, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

the page needs a more specific name

The current name is confusing for people who have never heard of this place, or heard about it mostly from a non-western perspective. Because, according to most people with strong feelings about a place they call "Al-Aqsa mosque" (those being the people most likely to speak or write about the a place they call Al-Aqsa mosque) this is only part of Al-Aqsa mosque. So if somebody who has no knowledge of this complex hears a news story about "Al-Aqsa mosque", them finding this article will often be telling them about the wrong building.

I can add heaps of examples if you don't believe me about common usage?

The introduction currently does a fairly good job of explaining it, but adding some words like "controversial" or "disputed" could explain to that hypothetical reader why that news story seemed to be about a completely different building.

I think the page probably needs to be moved to avoid confusion, but I only found out this week that some people think "Al-Aqsa mosque" is only this part of it, so I'm still a bit unclear on what a better page title would be.

Also … if the other thing is not a mosque what IS it? (and I mean currently use, not in future or in the distant past.) I don't think a prayer hall by itself is a mosque? A mosque is bigger? The prayer hall at my university (an entire converted 3-bedroom house, not small) was never called a "mosque" just a "prayer room", but that distinction could be administrative rather than architectural.

Irtapil (talk) 12:30, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Template:Ping we have been working on fixing this, on and off, for a couple of years now. I agree that there remains room for improvement. Have you read the article Al-Aqsa? Onceinawhile (talk) 14:09, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

It's a good question about the Dome of the Rock. Certainly it is not currently used as a mosque, but that's not a complete answer. The fact that it has a mihrab (usually given as one of the characteristics of a mosque) complicates the question. Zero^talk 03:12, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 28 April 2024

Template:Edit extended-protected remove "User:CheezDeez ON TOP" El-Beheri (talk) 16:37, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

File:Yes check.svg Done This was caused by a template-vandalising sock. Needed a null edit to reset pages; see Special:Diff/1221201657#Strange bug on Flag of Russia article. Liu1126 (talk) 16:54, 28 April 2024 (UTC)