Grand mufti: There was never a Jewish Temple on Temple Mount
Strong criticism was leveled on Monday at Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, who claimed on Sunday that a Jewish Temple never existed on the Temple Mount.
Asked in a interview with Channel 2 if he accepts that the Jewish Temple existed at the site, the mufti said “the Aksa Mosque was an Islamic mosque since the world was created.”
He added, “It was never anything other than a mosque.”
Hussein was appointed as mufti by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in 2006.
His comments come against the background of several weeks of terrorist attacks by Palestinians, and in one incident an Arab Israeli, against Israeli citizens, violence which the government says is spawned by increased incitement by Palestinian officials and in Palestinian social media regarding the Temple Mount.
The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism and is believed to have been the location of the First and Second Temples of antiquity. It is also a holy site in Islam, where al-Aksa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock shrine are located.
Rabbi Chaim Richman, international director of the Temple Institute educational and activist organization, said the mufti’s comments were the latest example of attempts by the Jordanian Islamic Wakf, which administers the site, to deny its Jewish history.
“The phenomena of Temple denial is not new to the Wakf. They have been attempting to physically and rhetorically deny Jewish history on the Temple Mount for decades,” said Richman.