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Yerushalayim! Jerusalem! Al-Quds!
Elsa Pariente

Three names, three traditions, three age-old venerations: one and the same city, considered "holy" by Jews, Christians and Moslems. But what is this "holiness" that the three religions Find in it? What role does it play for each of them? What, finally, does it represent in each of the three traditions? This is what we will look at, within the limitations of a short article; this will be only a rapid survey.

The pagan history of Urushalim is not our concern here. The Bible first mentions it in Gn 14:18 f., where it tells of the meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek, king of Salem, which the whole of Jewish tradition identifies with Jerusalem. Yerushalayim however only begins to enter the hope of Israel with David's conquestin 1,000 B.C. The "City of David" in fact sealed the unity of the twelve tribes and became the heart of the nation: they always saw in Jerusalem the symbol of the Lord's faithfulness to the promises made to Abraham and David, promises that concerned the destiny of the whole of Israel. Further, to indicate that men had been only the instruments of the election of the Almighty ("He chose.., his well-loved mountain of Zion": Ps 78: 68), David had the Holy Ark immediately transferred there. Yerushalayim thus became "the place in which the Lord your God chooses to set his name" (Dt 12:21), so the "holy city", because the main sanctuary of Israel.

"David gave Jerusalem a soul, Solomon took care of its body", says M. Avi-Yonah in his article "Jerusalem travers les ages" (Bible et Terre Sainte, No. 114, Sept.-Oct. 1969). Under Solomon a Temple sheltered the Shekhinah. Land and walls and the Name of the Most High, matter and spirit: their union, or their reciprocal exclusion, is what will be shown by the whole history of the People of God, or, synonymously, the whole history of Yerushalayim. This city, whose sins are "red as scarlet" and whose beauty is so pure, will arouse the lyricism of the Prophets, the songs of the Psalms, the verses of the poets, and especially the dreams, the holiness or the heroism of the men who have loved her. The "Daughter of Zion" and her Temple, even if the latter is reduced to the Kotel Ma'ariv, run through all the biblical narratives, all the liturgy of the synagogues, the whole of Jewish life. In 3,000 years of his history, the Jew has never forgotten this word of God (1 K 9:3): "I consecrate this house you have built: I place my name there for ever; my eyes and my heart shall be always there", and he answers with this cry: "Jerusalem, if I forget you, may my right hand wither! May I never speak again, if I forget you! If I do not count Jerusalem the greatest of my joys!" (Ps 137:5, 6). And Yerushalayim has indeed remained the symbol of joy for the worst moments of disgrace and persecution, it is to "Jerusalem of God, of bronze and of light" that he turns his attention and the hope of his heart: Jerusalem is always the pledge of the divine promises, which the Jew cannot doubt without losing his very identity, for, with the land around it, it is the only geographical place where he can totally fulfill the Law the Lord gave to his people; it is "the wife of the Jewish people, their indispensable partner to accomplish the wishes of the Lord" (Jean-Paul Lichtenberg, "Israel et son dentin", Etudes, Oct. 1969, p. 351).

The whole of this significance that Jerusalem has for the Jews, of divine promises, of the Covenant, of the vocation for the "liberation and reconciliation" of the peoples, was lived by Jesus with them in his life on earth (cf. Ainsi priait Jesus Enfant: Robert Aron); his own mission he discloses and reveals to the world in the course of his "going up" to Jerusalem. He has travelled all the ways of Zion in every direction: the Temple was "daily" the scene of his teaching, the object of his admiration, of his love, — and of his anger. Luke tells us that he wept over Jerusalem, foreseeing the drama it would live through, and, finally, he returns there "to accomplish his hour" for the love of his people first, and at the same time for the love of each man in particular.

What significance then has Jerusalem for the Christian? It certainly brings back to him the history of Jesus: every street, every stone speaks to him of Christ, in his glory or in his suffering. It is also the starting-point of the mission of the Apostles who received the Spirit there; it is the cradle of the Church. Pilgrims, throughout the ages, have thrilled to find there all this climate of brotherhood and love, and to walk in the steps of the Master. Even if Christians in general appear to have forgotten the Jewish significance of Jerusalem and to have replaced it by Rome, or rather by the "heavenly Jerusalem", still, in order to be faithful to Jesus, a Jew among Jews, who, during his earthly existence shared all the hopes and loves of his people and had their history as heritage, the Church has not renounced it. She will certainly find this meaning again, hidden in her own heritage; and, moreover, without it the heritage itself would be incomprehensible or mutilated.

For Moslems the significance of Bait al Makdis (from the Hebrew Beth ha-Mikdash, i.e. Temple of Solomon), called since a "certain epoch" Al-Quds (The Holy City), is found in this passage from the Koran (XVII. 1): "Glory to him who transported his servant, by night, from the Sacred Mosque to the Distant Mosque, around which we placed our blessing, so that it would see some of our signs". A quotation from the famous geographer Al Mukaddasi (985-6) can sum up the later tradition: "Jerusalem is the most famous of cities, the one which associates the advantages of this world with the Other...

Certainly Mecca and Medina are superior by reason of the Kaaba and the Prophet — the blessing of God be on him! —, but truly, on the day of Judgment, the two cities will turn to Jerusalem to unite their merits to hers" (Lumiere et Vie, No. 92, p. 110).

We must go a little deeper into history however to understand what Jerusalem is for Islam. The "Servant" Mohammed knew the biblical traditions; so to win over the Jews to his message, he first chose Jerusalem as the Kibla (the point to which one should turn for prayer: Koran II, 38/41, 40/43). Some commentators on the Koran note that before the epoch of Mecca, Mohammed was unhappy with this choice, for his preferences dearly went towards the Kaaba. At the time of his stay at Medina and of the Jews' refusal of his approaches, Mohammed decided that the Kibla would henceforth be Mecca. Mecca and Medina, in the name of the will of Mohammed, that is in the name of the will of Allah (Koran II, 136/142), had become the holy places par excellence. But meanwhile had taken place the mystical journey to which the passage quoted above made allusion: Mohammed had been transported, one night, from the Sacred Mosque (the Kaaba) to the Distant Mosque (Al-Aqsa). The contemporaries of the Prophet seem to have seen this only as an ecstasy, a mystical ascent towards an increased intimacy with the Most High. But soon, under the Omayyads (7th-8th century) the version was accepted of a real journey on the back of a winged charger, Bouraq; this horse, arriving in the Haram-esh-Sharif of Jerusalem ("the noble sacred space", i.e. the esplanade of the Temple), presumably was tied to the Western Wall (which for this reason is called Bouraq by the Moslems) so that Mohammed could be taken back to Mecca on his return from heaven. It is on this site that the Caliph Omar had the Al-Aqsa Mosque built, several times reconstructed or repaired in the course of centuries. "Whatever the exegetical divergencies", Pierre Rondot tells us in his article "Al-Aqsa et la signification de Jerusalem pour l'Islam" (Etudes, Oct. 1969,p. 363), "... a twelve-centuries-old Moslem belief, based on the Koran, makes Al-Aqsa a sacred place of the highest significance".

Also in the esplanade of the Temple another mosque, the famous Mosque of Omar, was built on the Rock of Mount Moriah where biblical tradition situates Abraham's sacrifice. Certainly the Moslems transfer this sacrifice to Mount Arafat, near Mecca: but Jerusalem, and especially Mount Moriah, keep a sacred character for them by the fact that Ibrahim, Father of Believers, stayed there: and this is the reason why Jerusalem is the Mandi, the place where Believers will come together at the end of time and where the one who is to bring Justice will reveal himself.

We must now ask ourselves: are Jews, Christians and Moslems aware of what Jerusalem represents in their respective traditions?

One can fairly answer "yes" for the majority of Jews, generally less so for the average Christian. But for the Moslems, said an expert on Islam, only the scholars used to be aware of it. But since the Six Days War, Jerusalem has assumed enormous sentimental value for the people; the song of Fayrilz, "The Flower of Cities", with its rather violent stressing of "anger", gives an idea of what Jerusalem can arouse in the hearts of Arabs (Moslem and Christian).

I would like to conclude with these words from Joseph Milbauer, quoted by Missi (No. 331, June-July 1969): "And if I met the Messiah there in front of the narrow gate? I would say to him: 'Go into the streets of foreign cities and tell those who used to pretend that there is no place at all for me here in this spot, that a day will come when there will be a place here, in this spot, for all the peoples of the world"'. On that day, let us hope, Jerusalem, city of gold and of light, will have recovered its name of Peace and will have become "the praise of the earth".