Dome of the Rock
The Temple held immense significance for the Jewish people and the Temple Wall still standing today but known as the Wailing Wall still serves as a symbol of the suffering of the Jewish people throughout time. The First Temple, built by Solomon, had been destroyed by the Babylonians in the 6th century BC. The Second Temple was constructed fifty years later under Cyrus the Great. It stood until 70 AD when the Romans razed it to the ground following the Jewish revolt. After that it was never rebuilt (Hamblin). However, Jerusalem remained a special place. It became the home of Christians and later of Muslims, who venerated it as the place where Mohammed started his night journey up to heaven (Islam, Al-Hamad). Because Jews and Muslims have two very different religions with different orientations, creeds, forms of worship and perspectives on God, the fact that both have holy places in the same spot has been a source of tension over the years. Added to this tension is that fact that Israel was founded as a state in 1948 in the Palestinian territory that had been occupied by the British. The British pledged to give the Zionists their own Jewish state with the Balfour Declaration in 1917. Since then, there has been a veritable war between the Jewish community and much of the Muslim community. This paper will describe why the Temple of Jerusalem and Dome of the Rock represent an Impossible Geography for the two religions and their people.

The Dome of the Rock and the Second Temple are related because they both share the same foundation—the Foundation Stone is important to them both. The Second Temple was brought to the ground following the Jewish revolt against Rome in 70 AD. The foundation was never destroyed and at the end of the 7th century AD, the Dome of the Rock was completed right on top of the Foundation Stone, which has a special significance in Jewish history, as it is tied to the events of the Hebrew history, just as it is tied to Muslim lore. As Joshua Hammer states, “according to Jewish tradition, the stone is the ‘navel of the Earth’—the place where creation began, and the site where Abraham was poised to sacrifice Isaac. For Muslims, the stone marks the place where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to the Divine Presence.” Thus, the Temple and the Dome of the Rock are intimately connected.

Both the Dome of the Rock and the Second Temple are important to the Muslims and the Jews respectively. The Dome of the Rock is significant to Muslims precisely because it...…result, and now that the U.S. Embassy has been relocated to Jerusalem, acknowledging the shared city as the capital of Israel, the tension is even thicker. Muslims can sense a change coming—but whether that change will be political only or will actually be spatial and lead to demolition, only time will tell.

The fact remains that Jerusalem is a divided city and the holiest of sites for Jews and Muslims is tensely shared and administered over by two people who have not historically been able to get along in a very peaceful manner. Palestine and Israel still attack one another regularly and there is no foreseeable end to the violence that each state suffers at the hands of the other. That the Dome of the Rock and the remaining wall of the Second Temple should be grouped so closely together one another may be one of God’s more ironic comments on the current situation: perhaps the two sites have been destined to live together as one as a symbol or sign of how Israel and Palestine are meant to live together as one. On the other hand, with Israel eyeing more and more power in the city, it could be that a war is soon to break out between which religious group will own the Temple Mount once and for all.…