Unleashing the Beast

140 / U NLEASHING THE B EAST

magazine, the Islamic world has an interest in building the world's largest mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Most Muslims do not believe that the two Jewish Temples, built by Solomon and rebuilt after the Babylonian captivity, ever sat on the Temple Mount. In fact, Yasser Arafat stated the Jewish Temple once existed in Nablus. (He is probably alluding to the temple Jesus referred to in John 4:20, 21, that the Samaritans built on Mount Gerizim.) Islamic spiritual leader Ekrima Sabri, the Arafat appointed Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine, announced that the Palestinian Authority is drawing up plans for a new mosque, larger than the one in Mecca, to be built on the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. According to Islamic tradition, Mohammed ascended to heaven on his horse from the stone inside the Dome of the Rock, therefore Jerusalem's Temple Mount is the third holiest site to the Islamic religion. The German newspaper Die Welt quoted Sabri in an interview about the history of the Temple Mount: There is not the slightest proof that there ever has been a Jewish Temple on the mount. Not a single stone in the whole city of Jerusalem points to any evidence of Jewish history, not even the Western Wall. The only things that archaeologists have been able to find are the remains of buildings from the Arab and Muslim times. The Jews have no valid claim on the Western Wall or the Temple