Dim Gold Glow - 9/13/17
Marhabaan! That's "hello" in Arabic. My name is Maren, and today I was fortunate enough to set foot on of one of the holiest sites in Islam -- the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Getting there was easy. We plodded through the Old City in the morning in order to beat the heat. Stepping into the plaza area of Temple Mount, we watched as the sun glinted off of the gold-tiled dome. And on the far side of the courtyard lay a smaller, simpler structure -- a building literally overshadowed by the Dome of the Rock -- boasting sand-colored walls, a dark-silver dome, and a series of ordered archways.
The entire space is known to Muslims as the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam. Non-Muslims aren't allowed inside of the buildings, but we could easily admire their significance from the exterior. Our tour guide, Sa'id, recounted its pre-construction, construction, reconstruction, destruction, reconstruction, and re-reconstruction (whew!). He told us of the empires it's lived through, the violence it's survived, and the piety that it's fostered.
Indeed, inter-religious faith and tensions swell inside and around Al-Aqsa every day. Which got me thinking: I, a student, an American tourist, can enjoy the privilege of walking through a Muslim holy site that many Palestinian Muslims will never see. Because of the politics associated with the Palestine-Israeli conflict, the state of Israel often refuses to grant Palestinians essential travel documents that would permit them to travel to Jerusalem. How is it that something so significant, so sacred, as a religious worship space can be denied to one human community by another?
And yet, from the Palestinian Muslims whom I have encountered this week in the Holy Land, a spark of something always seems to remain. Hope, I'd say?
Their faith is strong, their courage deep, their benevolence palpable.
Getting there was easy. We plodded through the Old City in the morning in order to beat the heat. Stepping into the plaza area of Temple Mount, we watched as the sun glinted off of the gold-tiled dome. And on the far side of the courtyard lay a smaller, simpler structure -- a building literally overshadowed by the Dome of the Rock -- boasting sand-colored walls, a dark-silver dome, and a series of ordered archways.
The entire space is known to Muslims as the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam. Non-Muslims aren't allowed inside of the buildings, but we could easily admire their significance from the exterior. Our tour guide, Sa'id, recounted its pre-construction, construction, reconstruction, destruction, reconstruction, and re-reconstruction (whew!). He told us of the empires it's lived through, the violence it's survived, and the piety that it's fostered.
Indeed, inter-religious faith and tensions swell inside and around Al-Aqsa every day. Which got me thinking: I, a student, an American tourist, can enjoy the privilege of walking through a Muslim holy site that many Palestinian Muslims will never see. Because of the politics associated with the Palestine-Israeli conflict, the state of Israel often refuses to grant Palestinians essential travel documents that would permit them to travel to Jerusalem. How is it that something so significant, so sacred, as a religious worship space can be denied to one human community by another?
And yet, from the Palestinian Muslims whom I have encountered this week in the Holy Land, a spark of something always seems to remain. Hope, I'd say?
Their faith is strong, their courage deep, their benevolence palpable.
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