Introducing Rashid Rida on Zionism

Anyone who follows pro-'Palestine' Islamic propaganda will recognzie in the excerpts below the source material for the virulent antisemitism, exaggerations and misrepresentations emanating from the Palestinian National Authgority official bodies as well as activists on behalf on 'Palestine'.

They originate from Rashid Rida.

Another scholar claims "As one of the most influential advocates of Arab nationalism and pan-Islamism, we shall argue, Riḍā’s critiques of Zionism and Jewish expansion in Palestine were part of his anti-colonial activities against the ‘Christian’ west." Nevertheless, he notes that Rida asserted as to Jewish goals, "allegedly, they schemed to possess Jerusalem and its neighbouring regions to establish their Kingdom of Israel and turn it into the Temple of Solomon, against the desire of Christians and Muslims (ʿAbduh and Riḍā [1328] 1910, V:139–140)."

He further quotes Rida "Under the title “King of the Jews, their Temple, their Messiah and the True Messiah,” Riḍā stated that the Jews arrogantly disobeyed their prophets, who regularly warned them against God’s punishment if they abandoned His commandments (Al-Manār 30/7: 546–556)."

And Rida becomes starkly clear in this excerpt:

One of Islam’s greatest manifestations, according to Riḍā, was the confirmation of glad tidings of Jesus as a prophet of God and not his son. In this reading, God entitled Muslims to inherit the Holy Land and to build the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the place of the destroyed temple in order to establish the worship of God alone. Riḍā repeated the traditional Muslim view that God placed those who believe in Jesus above the unbelievers (Qur’an Āl ʿImrān 3:55), but that He had struck the Jews with humiliation by making them lose their kingdom until the Day of Resurrection. The Jews, Riḍā said, would follow the Antichrist as their assumed king fighting under his banner in the Holy Land, but Muslims would finally achieve victory upon them and kill them, and the true Messiah would appear and reveal the truth by destroying the Antichrist (Al-Manār 30/7: 554).

And in this:

Muslims did not persecute the Jews but treated them with justice and mercy. He observed that the Jews started to permit each other to reside in Jerusalem around the western side of the wall of the Al-Aqsa Mosque (Al-Buraq), performing the rituals and sacrifices against the will of Muslims and Christians in the world. They had strong hope to multiply their numbers to own the Holy City and the rest of Palestine in preparation for the appearance of the Messiah again as the King of Israel (Al-Manār 30/5: 391). 

Rida also employed the term nakba already in early 1935:

A few months before Riḍā’s death, the Egyptian historian and religious scholar ʻAbd al-Wahhāb al-Najjār (1862–1941) gave a lecture at Jamʿiyyat al-Shubbān al-Muslimīn (Association of Young Muslim Men) in which he maintained that the Jewish Zionist presence in Palestine was to be like a short “summer cloud” that would clear up soon after a great shock, followed by the defeat of the Jews after the restoration of the kingdom of David and the appearance of the Messiah (Al-Manār 34/8: 607–612)...After the lecture, Riḍā stood up and disagreed with al-Najjār in his arguments. Instead of following this apocalyptic way of thinking, Riḍā requested Arabs and Muslims to “take admonition in the Jewish Zionist nakba (catastrophe) by means of the worldly affairs and social natural laws” (Al-Manār 34/8: 608). By this he urged his Muslim readers not to see the Jewish success on the basis of their religious zeal but due to their work to achieve their political goals. 

Rida "called upon Arab Christians and Arab Muslims, supported by other Muslims in the world, to get the benefit of uniting themselves against the growing power of the Jews. In his own words: The doctrine of the Jews in restoring the King of Israel by means of the Messiah is [39] a denial of the religion of Islam and a clear rejection of Christ Jesus, Son of Mary, may blessings and peace be upon him. It was, however, Christ with whom their prophets had preached, but they had denied him. It was also him who warned them against the ruin of their Temple of Solomon so that there would not remain any stone of it."

Here are more excerpts of another researcher:

A reading of Rida’s depictions of Jews as the embodiment of vices and the orchestrators of global-scale conspiracies is useful to the broader discussion on the proliferation of anti-Semitic ideas in the contemporary Arab world. Translations of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion have been available in Arabic since the mid-1920s, and by the late 1920s they were already incorporated as an argument against Zionism. Following the 1948 war, the Protocols proliferated as an explanation for the Arab defeat. However, Rida viewed Jews as the masters of anti-Christian and anti-Muslim conspiracies already at the turn of the century, with no experience of defeat in mind and no foundational hateful European textbook to guide him. It appears that he was acquainted, albeit not through primary sources, with French anti-Semitic expressions as well as with their refutations in France. Anti-Semitic allegations in Istanbul also did not escape him. Ironically and to a large measure, Rida’s developed anti-Semitism reads as accommodation of his original admiration of Jewish virtues with his realization that Zionism was a serious threat...

...Under the title “The Life of a Nation after Its Death: The Zionist Association of the Jews,” Rida revised his earliest impression of Jewish nationalism, and, always the journalist, flattered himself (without justification in this case), for having already written about the Zionist movement in 1898, “when no one else took notice of it.” His analysis failed to distinguish between Zionists and Jews, and disclosed that he was unaware that the movement had won the hearts of only a minority of Jews around the world....

...Apparently confusing, at least in part, Herzl (whose name was not mentioned in the entire article) with the British-Jewish author and Zionist leader Israel Zangwill (1864 – 1926), Rida wrote that Zangwill had recently negotiated the purchase of Jerusalem as well as predicted a massive Jewish return to Palestine and the transformation of the land by the people of Israel into a shining lighthouse in all fields – social, political, judicial, cultural, and agricultural. Rida went as far as positing that Zangwill was wrong in reprimanding the rich Jews for not donating to Zionism...

In 1903, Rida addressed the Jews again...He wrote that no people in the world demonstrated such communal unity and ethnic solidarity as the People of Israel (Sha‘b Isra’il); however, he added that the Jews tended to divert the resources of the nations among which they lived to their own benefit, and harmed themselves by their excessive egotism. This, he argued, was the reason for the persecution of the Jews and their expulsion by all the peoples and nations. Hinting at Jewish ungratefulness, he concluded that while they could find a safe haven only in the Ottoman Empire, they now sought to gain independence and renew their sovereignty in Palestine...

...On January 1908, following a long period of silence, Rida addressed Zionism again, although indirectly. In a Quran exegesis, he disputed the Jewish hope for a Messiah who would renew Jewish sovereignty. He also suggested that the Jews’ dispersion throughout the world, their lack of expertise in warfare and agriculture, and their focus on professions that required little effort, like charging interest-based loans, were impediments that would prevent the realization of their dream of renewed sovereignty. The weakness of the Jews, he argued, was a punishment from God for their infidelity. Only two years later, Rida changed his mind about the potential of Zionism...In December 1910, he presented the Zionist danger in even graver terms: should the Jews realize their plan to take over alAqsa, they would expel the Muslims and the Christians from the Holy Land...

...[In 1914 he wrote] that if Zionist ambitions were ever realized, they would not allow a single Muslim or Christian to remain in Palestine, as they believed that it belonged to the Israelites alone. Furthermore, the Promised Land that the Zionists sought to conquer was not what Muslims defined as Palestine; rather, according to Jewish scriptures and conventions, Palestine stretched to Syria and the Euphrates. Rida based his warning of the prospect of ethnic cleansing on the argument that in the book of Deuteronomy God ordered the Jews not to spare a single soul upon entering the land...

...in an appendix to a Quranic exegesis from 1924, he cautioned that the “Arabs of Palestine,” who were confronted by “two of the world’s strongest nations [the British and the Jews],” could only be saved if they united with the rest of the Arab peoples and tribes to defend Palestine as well as the holy shrines in Mecca and Medina. Yet the underlying objective of this warning – in itself exceptional for his writing during the early 1920s – was not to call for action, but to denounce Sharif Hussein and his family and praise the Sa‘uds. Rida portrayed Hussein’s family as supporters of those who were seeking to implement the “satanic plan” to deprive the Palestinians of their land, i.e., the British and the Zionists. He cautioned the Palestinians against cooperating with the Sharifian family, explaining that while they could boast a distinguished lineage (as descendents of the Prophet Muhammad), they lacked knowledge and honesty...

...until mid-1920...he noted, in an objective manner, that the Jews considered Palestine as their sacred, ancestral land, but neither debated that claim nor insisted that Palestine was a Muslim land that must never be conceded to the Jews as such. That changed in 1924, but in a way that was far from affirming that Muslims were the rightful owners of the land or would eventually have the upper hand against the Zionists. In a Quranic exegesis, Rida suggested in an almost even-handed manner that God had promised the land to both the Israelite sons of Abraham and to the Arab sons of Abraham, who had also been promised additional lands. The promises were kept for both Israelites and Arabs when they acted righteously, but when they sinned they were punished and the land was taken from them...

...Already in October 1928, only days after the tensions over the Wailing Wall began, Rida portrayed events in Palestine as a struggle between Judaism and Islam, as well as between Britain and Islam. In this struggle, the British were assisting the Jews as part of Britains’s “ambitious” and uncharacteristically illconceived plan to subordinate the Arab nation and impose British rule on the Arabian Peninsula and the three holiest shrines – in Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. In this struggle, the ultimate goal of the Jews was the destruction of al-Aqsa, the third holiest shrine in Islam, and its replacement with a new Jewish temple...

...Rida elaborated [in December 1929] on the prophecies of a Muslim victory over the Jews, reiterating that those were more reliable than the Jewish prophets’ prophecies of Jewish victory. He mentioned the prophecy that the Jews would give fanatic loyalty to the Dajal, a false Messiah, fight against Muslims and Christians in Palestine and other lands, and be defeated, as well as the Prophet’s words, narrated by ‘Abdullah b. ‘Umar: “I heard Allah’s Messenger saying, ‘The Jews will fight with you, and you will be given victory over them so that a stone will say, ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew behind me, kill him!’”...Zionism, he argued, was a striking example of Western moral corruption, because in Palestine the English had done something they had not done anywhere else: they had created a new people based on the ingathering of a rabble from all corners of the earth, allowing the rabble to usurp the land of another people and to exploit and discriminate against the population in a historically unprecedented way. Thus, for the first time, in late 1929, the Jews were denied in Rida’s journal not only a right to Palestine, but also the right to be considered a nation.

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Woody Guthrie Singing of Rebuilding the Holy Temple

Woody (Woodrow Wilson) Guthrie needs no introduction regarding his stature and presence within the American folk ballad scene. The January 29, 1961 get-together that Bob Dylan sought out with the ailing Guthrie in New Jersey five days after he arrived from Minnesota to New York is classic folk song history, resulting in the “Song to Woody”.

Guthrie’s second wife was Marjorie Mazia Greenblatt. And she was Jewish. Her parents were Isidore Greenblatt and Aliza nee Aharonson. Majorie’s mother was a well-known Yiddish poetess born in the Bukivina region and spending her early years Mohilev although her vibrant memories of the Ozaryntsi shtetl were her fondest. And her parents were Zionists. Among her accomplishments and positions was the founding of the Atlantic City branch of the Zionist Organization of America, senior membership in Hadassah and the Jewish National Fund and serving as national president of Pioneer Women.  In 1920, Isadore traveled to then Mandate Palestine to set up a fruit-canng business in preparation for immigration but returned. Another attempt at Aliyah some thirty years later failed as well but Aliza was a committed activist on behalf of the Jewish homeland.

Woody met Majorie while in New York and married her in 1945. The couple and their eventuall four children lived nearby the Greenblatt’s in Brooklyn and Woody became close to his mother-in-law and picked up some Jewish knowledge (Arlo was sent to Hebrew school tutoring). He ended up writing several songs with Jewish themes and one of them, for Chanukah, was recorded for his close firend and production associate Moses Asch who headed Folkways Records.

The song, “The Many and the Few”, contains twenty verses, opening with the proclamation of Cyrus and goes on to mention Ezra, Alexander the Great, Hannah, Mattathias, the Talmud, Jerusalem and much more. It ends with thanks to “God we are seeds of the Jews”. The song is unabashedly Zionist and Jewish through and through.

Guthrie has Cyrus giving the order that enables the Jews to go back home “To build your holy temple again, In the land of Palestine”. The Jews go “Back to Eretz Yisroel’s land” to work it “with plow and rake and hoe”, blessing “the works of our hands”. The Jews are urged to “keep your Torah true” which will result in them being “fertile and multiply”.

Two verses are worth quoting in full:

“If My name is Jerusalem where Judah came back

To build up my Temple once more

To cut down the weeds and thorny brush

That grows ‘round my windows and doors

Whole stones, whole stones, we’ll build and pray

To God as a wholehearted Jew

God’s love the hateful many did place

In the hands of a God loving few”.

Indeed, this land of Israel is our land.

^

Yes! First Temple Archaeological Proof

As the Israel Archaeological Authority has announced today:

"A unique and significant discovery was made during archaeological works in the Western Wall Plaza, on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and in association with the Western Wall Heritage Foundation: A stamped piece of clay from the First Temple period, which belonged to the “governor of the city” of Jerusalem – the most prominent local position to be held in Jerusalem of 2700 years ago.

This extraordinary find is a lump of clay, stamped and pre-fired. It measures 13 X 15 mm and is 2–3 mm thick. The upper part of the sealing depicts two figures facing each other, and the lower part holds an inscription in ancient Hebrew script.

The sealing was presented to the Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, during his visit to Davidson's Center, near the Western Wall, last week. After the completion of the scientific research, the sealing will be on temporary exhibit in the mayor's office.

The sealing, its use unknown, was retrieved by Shimon Cohen while wet-sieving the soil from a late First Temple-period building (seventh-sixth centuries BCE).

Dr. Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah, excavator of the site located in the northwestern part of the western Wall Plaza, on behalf of the IAA, believes that "the sealing had been attached to an important transport and served as some sort of logo, or as a tiny souvenir, which was sent on behalf of the governor of the city." Dr. Weksler-Bdolah further suggests that "it is likely that one of the buildings in our excavation was the destination of this transport sent by the city governor. The finding of the sealing with this high-rank title, in addition to the large assemblage of actual seals found in the building in the past, supports the assumption that this area, located on the western slopes of the western hill of ancient Jerusalem, some 100 m west of the Temple Mount, was inhabited by highly ranked officials during the First Temple period." According to Dr. Weksler-Bdolah "this is the first time that such a sealing is found in an authorized excavation. It supports the biblical rendering of the existence of a governor of the city in Jerusalem 2700 years ago."

Prof. Tallay Ornan of the Hebrew University, and Prof. Benjamin Sass of Tel Aviv University, studied the sealing and describe it thus: "above a double line are two standing men, facing each other in a mirror-like manner. Their heads are depicted as large dots, lacking any details. The hands facing outward are dropped down, and the hands facing inward are raised Each of the figures is wearing a striped, knee-length garment. In the register beneath the double line is an inscription in ancient Hebrew: לשרער, with no spacing between the words and no definite article. It denotes לשר העיר, i.e., “belonging to the governor of the city." Prof. Ornan and Prof. Sass add, that "the title 'governor of the city' is known from the Bible and from extra-biblical documents, referring to an official appointed by the king. Governors of Jerusalem are mentioned twice in the Bible: in 2 Kings, Joshua is the governor of the city in the days of Hezekiah, and in 2 Chronicles, Maaseiah is the governor of the city in the days of Josiah.

Nir Barkat, Mayor of Jerusalem, When the find was presented to him related that "it is very overwhelming to receive greetings from First Temple-period Jerusalem. This shows that already 2700 years ago, Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, was a strong and central city. Jerusalem is one of the most ancient capitals of the world, continually populated by the Jewish people for more than 3000 years. Today we have the privilege to encounter another one of the long chain of persons and leaders that built and developed the city. We are grateful to be living in a city with such a magnificent past, and are obligated to ensure its strength for generations to come, as we daily do."

According to Dr. Yuval Baruch, archaeologist of the Jerusalem District in the IAA: “the outstanding significance of the finds brought upon the decision to conserve the First Temple-period building exposed in the Western Wall plaza excavations and open it to visitors"."

A short explanatory film clip.

This find is quite special as unlike other similar finds,

"Ours is special because this was the first time the seal of the Governor of the City of Jerusalem itself was found in the right place," Weksler-Bdolah says.

Take that, o ye Muslims.

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Don't Be Their Fool

Arabs deny the Temple(s) even existed.

There is no archaeological proof they claim.

It is the "alleged" Temple and is fabricated.

Jewish history in the city of Jerusalem is denied.

Odd.

Is there any proof a winged horse, al-Buraq, was tethered to the Western Wall? And we'll ignore what was that wall.

Is there any proof that Abraham, sorry, Ibrahim, built the first mosque?

Any proof Muhammed was in Jerusalem, in reality or in a vision?

Who are they trying to fool?

Don't be their fool.

^

The Difference Between Roofs on the Temple Mount

Do you know what caused me to publish this photo?

Well, unlike the Dome of the Rock:

...the centrepiece of this majestic complex was the Temple itself. A building of shining white marble and gold, with bronze entrance doors, it was said that you could not look at the Temple in daylight as it would blind you. The attention to detail in its construction is exemplified by the placing of gold spikes on the roof line of the building to prevent birds sitting on the Temple and soiling it.

Source, Middot, Chapter 4, Mishnah 6:-

The Sanctuary was a hundred cubits square and a hundred cubits in height. The solid basement was six cubits, and the height [of wall built thereon] forty cubits, the wall-frieze one cubit, the place of drippingst two cubits, the roof-beams one cubit, and the plasterwork one cubit; and the height of the upper chamber was forty cubits, the wall-frieze one cubit, the place of drippings two cubits, the roof-beams one cubit, and the plasterwork one cubit; and the parapet three cubits and the scarecrow one cubit. R. Judah says: The scarecrow was not taken into account; but the parapet was four cubits.
 

and in the Rambam:

Sefer Avodah, Beit Habechirah, Chapt 4, Halacha 3

The Temple building constructed by the exiles [returning from Babylon] was one hundred cubits long, one hundred cubits wide, and one hundred cubits high. The measurement of its height can be described as follows:

They built a solid base six cubits high resembling a foundation for it;
the Sanctuary, 40 cubits high;
an ornate ceiling, one cubit high;
above that, two cubits were left empty to allow dripping [water] to collect [and to be drained off]; this was called the Beit Dilpa;
the roof above the Beit Dilpa was a cubit thick;
the plaster, a cubit high;
an upper storey was built on it; its walls were 40 cubits high;
its roof included an ornate ceiling one cubit high;
a Beit Dilpa, two cubits high;
a roof, one cubit high;
plaster, one cubit high;
a guard rail, three cubits high;
a sheet of iron resembling a blade, a cubit high, was placed all around the guard rail so that birds will not rest upon it. It was called the Kaleh Orev. (The Rambam's Commentary to the Mishnah translates that term as "the raven decimator" and explains that the sharp blade would cut off the birds' feet.) 

^ 

Temple and Mosque

I have noted the seemingly parallel situation between India's Ram Temple in Ayodhya and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, previously.

My attention has been drawn to this RotterNet entry which sent me here, to the Navbharat Times, where I read this:

पूर्ण बहुमत मिला तो बनेगा भव्य राम मंदिर: BJP नेता

लखनऊ।। भले ही बीजेपी अध्यक्ष राजनाथ सिंह सहित कई केंद्रीय नेता यह कह रहे हैं कि राम मंदिर उनके चुनावी अजेंडे में नहीं है, लेकिन पार्टी के यूपी के अध्यक्ष का कहना है कि पूर्ण बहुमत मिलने पर हम संविधान संशोधन कर अयोध्या में भव्य राम मंदिर बनाएंगे। यूपी बीजेपी के अध्यक्ष लक्ष्मीकांत वाजपेयी ने कहा कि यदि 2014 के आम चुनाव में पार्टी को पूर्ण बहुमत मिला, तो जिस तरह डॉ. राजेंद्र प्रसाद के समय में संविधान में संशोधन कर सोमनाथ मंदिर का निर्माण कराया गया था, उसी तरह बीजेपी भी राम मंदिर बनवाएगी। वाजपेयी ने साफ तौर पर कहा कि गठबंधन धर्म की मजबूरियों और पूर्ण बहुमत न मिलने की वजह से ही आज तक राम मंदिर नहीं बन पाया। वाजपेयी ने ये बातें एक न्यूज एजेंसी को दिए इंटरव्यू के दौरान कहीं।

It reports this:

Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s aide and party’s Uttar Pradesh in-charge Amit Shah led the entire top state leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to Ayodhya on Saturday to kick up a political storm and in the process bare its blueprint for 2014 in which, “Ram and his makeshift temple” are again expected to make an impression in the saffron scheme of things.

The BJP leaders are actually taking the storm that Shah’s Ayodhya visit has kicked up as a ‘ good omen’. For the party’s best years in Uttar Pradesh (UP) – 1991 to 1998 – were those it spent chanting Ram, whipping up a religious frenzy that catapulted it to power both in UP as well as at the centre. “We feel that Ayodhya temple issue could again provide much needed oxygen, breathing life into our ‘Congress-mukt-Bharat’ campaign with the Rajnath-led and Modi-inspired BJP expected to hardsell the twin and contrasting models of Hindutva and development before the electorate,” a BJP source said.

A party leader said, that the “Ayodhya visit by Shah was also aimed at uniting the VHP and other constituents of the Sangh Parivar that had been blaming the BJP of shunning its core issues. Shah’s temple commitment message was as much aimed at attracting the party’s core voters as indeed the saffron brigade.” That clearly explains why the BJP thought of holding its party meeting at Ayodhya’s Karsewakpuram – where the saffron rabble-rousers affirm their temple commitment annually on December 6 -- the demolition day – for the first time in nearly a decade. (The makeshift Ram temple was built after Hindu activists razed the 16th century Babri mosque in Ayodhya in December 1992. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad has vowed to construct a grand Ram temple at the site.)

And this provides some explanation:

Gujarat chief minister and BJP's campaign committee chairperson Narendra Modi's attempt to revive hardline Hindutva in UP for gains in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls is a double-edged sword...For this, Sangh Parivar is moving in a planned manner to create a Hindutva wave - On June 9, Modi is elevated. On June 12, VHP announces statewide campaign in August for Ram temple. On June 18, RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh; Nathuram Godse, a former RSS member, assassinated Mahatma Gandhi] chief Mohan Bhagwat says in Meerut that Hindutva is the only solution for India. On June 28, a VHP leader arrested for Mathura blasts. On July 6, Modi's right hand man Amit Shah visits Ayodhya, vows to build Ram temple. And, on July 16, RSS chief formally approves Ram temple as an election issue.

Petitions are also being filed claiming the right of Hindus on 'disputed places' where mosques were constructed during medieval period...The attempt is to create a situation similar to 90s when the BJP rose due to Ram Temple movement led by Lal Krisna Advani and charisma of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. However, after demolition of Babri mosque, the hardline appeal declined and caste factor has been dominating since then. However, hundreds died in communal violence across country in 90s.

...A section of people also think that the Ram Temple issue will have little impact today as young voters (18-25 years), who are 40% of the electorate, were either not born or were below five years of age when Babri mosque was demolished in 1992. However, hate messages in social media show a different picture...

This additional elections commentary also noted the Ram Temple issue:

...Shah created a flutter in some quarters when he resurrected the dormant Ram Temple issue on a visit to Ayodhya in the first week of July.

Another critical view.

India indeed.

^

Jerusalem's Temple Echo in Turkey

Take a look at this archaeological find at Tell Tayinat in southern Turkey:

Does it remind you of something?

Well, here's once conclusion, p. 139 here:

The Tayinat Archaeological Project’s investigations, when combined with the results of the Syrian-Hittite Expedition, most notably their Building II, indicate the existence of an extensive religious complex in this area of the Neo-Assyrian city. Building II has been upheld as an exemplar of Iron Age Levantine religious architecture ever since its discovery in 1936. Many scholars, including its original excavators (see Haines 1971: 53), have identified it as a megaron-style temple, part of a long-standing West Semitic religious tradition. Biblical scholars have largely favored this view, drawing visual inspiration for the various components of the Solomonic temple described in the Hebrew Bible (cf. Wright 1941; Busink 1970: 558–62)...

Like this:

The Temple.
The Temple in Jerusalem.
The Temple in the Bible.

It existed.


____

thanks to Challah for research assistance.
^

So, The Qur'an Relates Temple Tales

Excerpts from a paper, The Temple in the Qurʾān, presented by William J. Hamblin, Professor of History, Brigham Young University today

Taken together, all of the elements mentioned in this passage [Sūrah 34:12b-13a] --Solomon as builder of a place of worship, the massive use of bronze, the jinn as workers, the images, and water basins -- make it certain that this passage is describing the building of Solomon’s Temple, viewing its construction as having been ordered by God and facilitated by divine intervention.

In these Qurʾānic narratives about Mary, the temple appears in Qurʿān 3:35-37, describing the birth of Mary and her dedication as a youth to serve in the temple, where she is miraculously fed by God. 

The Qurʾān also includes a rather detailed description of the destructions of the Jerusalem temple       by the Babylonians and the Romans in 17:4-8. 

and

The Qurʾān views the temple of Jerusalem through three different lenses.  First, the Qurʾānic temple was an Israelite holy place intimately tied to the lives of the ancient prophets.  Solomon built it by divine decree and with miraculous assistance.  It was commemorated as a place of repentance and miracles.   Second, it was a Christian holy place, where God fed Mary miraculous food, and angels spoke to Zachariah.  Finally, it was a contemporary Muslim sacred place, directly linked to the spiritual life of the Muslims, where Muhammad ascended to heaven in vision.  But, despite its holiness, it was destroyed because of the apostasy of the Jews.  For the Qurʾān, the Jerusalem temple is thus a sign of God’s miraculous power, and a warning, that sacredness does not derive from a place alone, but from submission (ʾislām) to the will of God. 

Interesting but I think there is room for debate on sum of his interpretations.

Temple Denial anyone?

-------------------------

UPDATE

I forwarded the lecture to Dr. Mordechai Kedar and he sent Hamblin this letter:

Dear Prof. Hamblin,

I read your article "The Temple in the Qurʾān" and I was surprised to find no mention to the well-established evidence (based on Islamic sources) that the al-Aqsa Mosque was ORIGINALLY in the Arab peninsula, between Mecca and Taʾif, near the village of al-Ji‘irrana. In addition, it is not mentioned in the Qurʾān, in any of its four names: ʾIlya, Urshalim, Bayt al-Maqdis or al-Quds.

And the fact that Jerusalem, traditionally, is not sacred to Shi‘ites, (Najaf in Southern Iraq is the third place in holiness for Shi‘ites) hints to the possibility that the whole issue of holiness attributed to Jerusalem in Islam is connected to politics more than anything else.

Ibn Taymiyya in his Ziyarat Bayt al-Maqdis relates to the status of Jerusalem in Islam in a rather negative way.Al-Ghazali places the al-Aqsa Mosque in heaven, something like the concept of Civitate Deo....

Please read my piece on this matter: How did Jerusalem come to be so holy to Moslems? 

Please note that it was written 12 years ago, when Arafat was still alive..

.

I'd appreciate your comments,

Dr. Mordechai Kedar

Bar-Ilan University

Israel

^

Putin: May The Temple Be Rebuilt

In this story relating about Vladimir Putin's visit to the Kotel and his conversation with a recent Russian immigrant, you can listen to the Russian-language conversation or you can read this in the Hebrew:

אותו יהודי שזכה לדקות שיחה ידידותית עם פוטין, סיפר לנשיא על חשיבותו של הכותל לעם היהודי, על בית המקדש שחרב ועל שלמה המלך שבנה אותו. הנשיא הקשיב לו בשקיקה, ואמר: "בדיוק בשביל זה באתי לכאן, להתפלל שיבנה שוב בית המקדש. אני מאחל לכם שיתקבלו תפילותיכם". לאחר מכן לחץ את ידיו של היהודי בחום לב, ונפרד ממנו באיחולים.

or, in short, Putin is told how important the area is, the importance of the Kotel, the Temple that was destroyed and was rebuilt and Putin responds:

"this is exactly for what I came here, to pray that the Temple will be rebuilt.  I wish that all your prayers be answered."

From his mouth to God's ear.

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Update

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Will the Waqf Wail and Hamas Harangue?

This is a letter from the Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel, Yonah Metzger. 

The letter itself asks people to reflect spiritually on the recent tragedies of traffic accident deaths, murders and rapes.

But what caught my eye was the opening salutation, which I have encircled and noted:

It reads, in English:-

To our brethren, those residing in the Land of Israel, God be upon you and you should live!  Peace and great salvation from the City of Holiness and of the Temple.

The "Temple"?

What will the temple-deniers say now?

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More Pal. Disinventivity

Rabbi Chaim Richman points out another Arab disinventivity, this one backwards:

Comparing "Nakba Day" to the destruction of the Holy Temple is the brainchild of a mindset which is beyond mere manipulation and cynicism…[but]...El Sana and his associates can’t seem to make up their minds.

On the one hand they constantly decry the “Judaization” of Jerusalem, denying that there ever was a Holy Temple or any Jewish connection to the city that was never a capital for any people on the face of the earth other than the Jews; the city mentioned in the Bible over 700 times, and not one time in the Koran. But now, as it suits them, they compare their self-inflicted loss of that which they never possessed with the destruction of that which they deny ever existed.

So according to MK El Sana, it turns out that there really was a Holy Temple? That means that there really was a Jewish Jerusalem 2,000 + years ago.*

That means that there really is a historical, religious, national, moral, and ethical raison d’être for Israel to reclaim Jerusalem and re-Judaize it. This is great news, and just in time to celebrate Jerusalem Day this Sunday, May 20th, the 45th anniversary of the liberation of Jerusalem and its unification by the forces of the IDF.

*
From PMW:

Mahmoud Abbas: Jerusalem only has Islamic and Christian history, Israel's "Judaization" is stealing Jerusalem's "cultural, human, and Islamic-Christian religious history"
Mahmoud Abbas' advisor:  Israel is creating "artificial heritage with a Jewish spirit at the expense of its [Jerusalem's] true and authentic [identity] as an Arab, Islamic and Christian city"

They really can't make up their minds.

They invent their nationalism and disinvent the Jewish nationalism, Zionism.

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P.S.
From Al Arabiya via MEMRI (k/t=EoZ):

Following are excerpts from an interview with former PA Mufti Sheik Ikrima Sabri, which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on May 11, 2012:

Interviewer: Do you agree that in Jerusalem, there are places that are holy to the Muslims, the Jews and the Christians?

Ikrima Sabri: No, not to the Jews. I didn't say to the Jews. Omar Ibn Al-Khattab didn't find any synagogues of the Jews. There weren't any.

Interviewer: So in your opinion, today there are no places whatsoever in Jerusalem that are holy to the Jews?

Ikrima Sabri: No, none. They build new synagogues, but there are no archaeological remains [pertaining to the Jews]. For many years, they have been digging for archaeological remains, but they haven't found anything. How can we acknowledge something when they themselves admit that they have found nothing?


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Temple To Be Restored!

Oh.

Sorry.

That restoration?

Not in Jerusalem.

In Egypt.  Three temples:-

This week the Ministry of State for Antiquities (MSA) and ARCE
launched a comprehensive restoration project to clean and restore the
Mut precinct, as well as to develop the area surrounding it, so that
it cam be opened to the public next year. MSA Minister of State Mohamed Ibrahim explains that the development work will take a year l and will include a comprehensive cleansing of the temple's walls; restoration of the reliefs and establishing a visitors' centre displaying illustrations of the temple in antiquity,as well as its original plan and restoration and excavation works carried out from 1976 up to the present.

...Meanwhile on Luxor's west bank restorers and workmen are hard at work
at the temple of the goddess of rebirth and femininity, Isis, at Deir
Al-Shelwit, four kilometres south of Medinet Habu. A development
project similar to that at the Mut Temple is now being conducted by
the MSA in collaboration with ARCE at the Isis Temple so that it too
can be opened to the public next year...

Going upriver along the Nile, another development project is being
undertaken by Egyptian restorers at the Hathor Temple on Philae Island
south of Aswan. On the east side of the Isis Temple archaeologists are cleaning, consolidating and restoring the blocks that once formed the temple to Hathor built by king Ptolemy VI and extended in the reigns of Ptolemy
VII and the Roman emperors Augustus and Tiberius.

Oh, well. Maybe next year in Jerusalem? ^

More Disinventivity

Reported

Sheikh Raed Salah, the leader of the Islamic movement in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948 [i.e., Israel]...During an exclusive interview with the PIC on Saturday, Sheikh Salah asserted that the occupation is trying hard to judaize Jerusalem and build the alleged temple...

"Alleged"?

Maybe he is an alleged sheikh?

And to think the Romans went to all that trouble and built an arch showing them removing appurtenances from the alleged Temple they destroyed.


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Islam Is Not Apart; Judaism Is

In a book review article, "In the Supreme Shrine", Christopher de Bellaigue writes:

"What sets Islam apart from other religious traditions, including Judaism and Christianity, is that its founder elevated a pilgrimage into a binding obligation for all able-bodied believers who can afford it."

"Apart"? Judaism obliges every adult male to make a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem thrice yearly ("Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD", Exodus 23:17; "All are bound to appear [at the Temple]", Haggigah 2:1) and before that the the Tabernacle in Shiloh, as did Elkanah. By the way, in the third sentence below, what is the subject of "its"?

...the Hajj does much more than answer a need for spiritual obliteration. It has a declamatory function, and that is to state the political and historical truth of Muhammad’s mission. The Hajj is a summons to orthodoxy and a reminder of Islam’s ownership of its origins.

Is it the Haj?  The orthodoxy?  Islam?


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That New Find: No Inventive History

I mentioned it yesterday and here are the details from Israel Hayom:

The Israel Antiquities Authority on Sunday presented a rare clay seal that appears to be linked to religious rituals that took place at the Second Temple 2,000 years ago. The coin-sized seal found underground near the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City bears two Aramaic words meaning "pure for God."

Credit

Archaeologist Ronny Reich of Haifa University said on Sunday that this was the first discovery of such a seal from the period and a unique artifact from the Temple practice. He said the seal was likely used by Temple officials assigning an object for ritual use — oil, perhaps, or an animal intended for sacrifice. Materials used by Temple priests had to be ritually pure.

Reich added that the seal dates from between the 1st century B.C. to 70 A.D., when Roman forces destroyed the Temple.

While the purifying process has been documented extensively, it was never been fully proven until now. The seal impression clearly attests to the special purity measures that worshipers subscribed to in and around the Temple and the great lengths they went to in order to prepare themselves for the privilege of entry to the Temple area.

Jews. In Jerusalem. At the Temple.

What will the Arabs say?

"Invented history"?

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UPDATE

One thing that puzzles me about the recently discovered seal from Jerusalem is its Aramaic inscription. The seal reads דכא ליה (‘pure to Yah[weh]‘), and evidently has some sort of ritual significance...The one thing that surprises me about this, however, is
that the inscription is clearly in Aramaic, not Hebrew. This would be highly unusual for a priestly item. Deutsch offers an alternative theory that the seal was a token used in the monetary exchange for a libation offered in the temple. The use of Aramaic in this case would make more sense, as a lay person was involved in the exchange. However, the phrase ‘pure for Yaw(weh)’ seems a little peripheral to the exchange itself.  I want to propose a slightly different understanding of this little seal.

We know that the moneychangers in the Jerusalem temple exchanged ordinary coins with Tyrian silver coins. These Tyrian coins were noted for the purity of their silver. While most silver coins in the Roman Empire were only 80% silver, the Tyrian coins were approximately 94% silver—the highest purity level of all coins. They were, therefore, deemed as fit for monetary exchanges in the temple, as well as the
collection of the famous half-shekel temple tax...The Tyrian coins were minted in Tyre for over a century, until the Romans closed the Tyrian mint in c. 18 BC—just after Herod’s renovation of the Jerusalem temple began...
Since all monetary purchases in the temple were made in Tyrian silver, it seems reasonable that there was some kind of system in place to guarantee that pilgrims were using the correct currency exchanged at the temple. The recently discovered seal from the Old City of Jerusalem may have served this purpose. A pilgrim would come to
Jerusalem with whatever coins they had, and would go to an officially sanctioned moneychanger in or near the temple complex. They would hand over their coins, receive Tyrian silver in exchange, as well as a token (the seal) guaranteeing the purity of the silver they were receiving...the token was written in Aramaic so that a lay person (a pilgrim) might understand that they had received pure currency that was officially endorsed by the temple authorities. The pilgrim would then take these Tyrian silver coins, along with the accompanying token, and use them to make purchases, such as sacrificial animals or libations, within the temple itself.

GEORGE ATHAS
Director of Postgraduate Studies,
Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au)
Sydney, Australia
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Upcoming Temple Conference

There was one in 1998 and another in 2000.

The next Temple Conference is scheduled for Sunday, Spetember 18 at the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem.

The updated advert:

Highlights:


Guests of Honor:

Minister Silvan Shalom, Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Regional Development and the Development
of the Negev and the Galilee

MK Uri Ariel

Rabbi Yitzhak Levy, Har Etzion Yeshiva


Program of the day

13:30 - Ascent to the Temple Mount. Groups led by guides in Hebrew, English, Yiddish, Russian and Spanish

14:00 - Panel discussions on Women's Ascent; Renewal of a Temple Culture; Temple Mount Destruction in light of the State Comptroller's Report; Rebuilding the Temple; the Temple Mount in the Media.

18:00 - Main convocation start; Get-together; Mincha.

19:00 - Plenum session; Welcoming remarks; Video Film: "Linking up to the Temple"; "The Campaign for the Temple Mount in the Knesset Corridors";

21:00 - Festive Meal and Mitzva Dancing.

Sponsors: The Movement for the Establishment of the Temple; Temple Institutte; The Fund for the Temple Mount and the Temple; Temple Now.

Contact info: 0506988856  052-5743827; 02-5380485


____________________

UPDATE

They just sent out an English-language ad:

My translation wasn't that much off.


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UPDATE

THE TEMPLE CONFERENCE & BANQUET


In 1991, 24 years after the liberation of The Temple Mount, the heads of The Movement for the Restoration of the Temple decided that the status quo on the Temple Mount, whereby only a bare handfull of Jews would ascend the Temple Mount in purity and holiness required an organized, well planned campaign. It was decided that the campaign would be kicked off with a Temple Dinner.

The first Temple Dinner had only 30 guests in the social hall of a neighborhood schul, but within a year, 300 guests crowded into the Yeshivat HaKotel hall in the Old City. The tremendous jump in numbers reflected the results of a year of hard work and public relations. The gathering together of hundreds of Jews whose connection was restoring the Temple and ascension to the Temple Mount proved to be an important rallying point for the movement.

Year after year, mond more and more Jews were ascending the Mount and the dinner expanded from many hundreds to over a thousand. As the numbers grew, more and more public figures found an interest in appearing at the dinner. The public figures included Rabbis, Knesset Members, performers, etc.

After 10 years, the Movement decided to upgrade the dinner to a full day conference. The event was no longer just a banquet of Temple activists, but rather an event bringing together major decision makers and figures of national influence to discuss different aspects of the Temple and it's relevance to national events.

At the last conference, matters relating to economics, social welfare, and theology were discussed vis-a-vis the Temple. After a day long series of discussion panels completed their work, the activists, guests, and supporters gathered for the customary banquet which included an exhibition by Rabbi Yehuda Kroizer on the preparation of the meal offerings in the Temple, master of ceremonies, actor Yehuda Barkan, speeches by Rabbi Dov Lior, Nachum Rabinowitz and many others, musical interludes, and presentation of awards to the guests of honor for their work in raising Temple Mount awareness, Aryeh King, Chedva Rauch, and Meir Hess-Green.

The conference-banquet will take place this year at the great synagogue in Jerusalem on the 18th of September.

^

Why No Temple

Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu explains why the Temple construction is being delayed:

From "Kol Tzofayich", No. 575, Parshat VaYakhel (this past Shabbat):

"Even today we all speak about the Temple in every prayer, sing songs, etc. In actuality, not very many believe that in a practical sense, the mosques will be removed from the Temple Mount.  They say the UN won't agree, that the US President will threaten, that the EU will apply sanctions, that there'll be a third world war, etc.  The Temple is left to just talk...[but the Torah lesson is] to teach us that the commandment is not a distant dream...it was not the non-Jew who prevented construction but the laxity of the Jews who sought to blame others...".

^

On The Subject of Islamic Temple Denial

Some excerpts from this article at The American Interest by Yitzhak Reiter:

King Solomon's Vanishing Temple

...There are now, however, two new nightmares to trouble our sleep. The lesser one concerns the recent Israeli demand that the Palestinians explicitly recognize Israel as a “Jewish state”; this demand may well cause more problems than it can solve. Closely related is the greater nightmare: the Palestinian leadership’s insistent denial of history. To be specific, Palestinian public discourse claims that the Jewish Temple never existed in Jerusalem. It refuses to even acknowledge, let alone tolerate, the universally accepted history of the city and of other parts of the country. For example, the Palestinian Authority recently complained to the Chinese organizers of the Shanghai Expo (through its representative in Egypt, Barakat al-Farra) about Israeli exhibitions that speak, among other things, of the history of Jerusalem. More recently, UNESCO acceded to Palestinian and Arab demands to recognize the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and the Tomb of Rachel as “Palestinian” sites. And still another is the appearance in November 2010 on the Information Ministry web page of the Palestinian Authority government of a paper written by Al-Mutawakel Taha, a Ministry official, denying any Jewish historical association with the Western (outer) Wall of the Second Temple Mount.

...Most Israelis were first exposed to the Palestinian denial of history in July 2000. According to U.S. negotiator Dennis Ross, when Jerusalem was discussed during the second Camp David summit, Palestinian Authority leader Yasir Arafat asserted that “the Temple never existed in Jerusalem, but rather in Nablus.” Another senior Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, asserted, the “Jerusalem Temple is a Jewish invention.” President Bill Clinton was astonished: “Not only do all of the world’s Jews believe that the Temple was located on the Temple Mount, but most Christians believe it, too.”...After these events went public, 91 percent of Israelis (according to a public opinion survey conducted by Mina Tzemach) rejected a compromise deal based on exclusive Palestinian control of the Haram al-Sharif, the holy shrine where the two Jewish Temples once stood and which Jews call Har HaBayit (the Temple Mount). The Palestinian rhetorical innovation has clearly been a major factor in persuading Israelis of the moderate left peace camp that Israel has “no real partner for peace” among Palestinians. Indeed, it is reasonable to surmise that if the same Palestinian denial of Jewish affinity to the Temple Mount had been voiced in 1993, the Oslo Accords would never have been signed [my emphasis - YM].

...On September 25, 2003 a delegation of Arab leaders from northern Israel visited Arafat at his Muqata‘a compound in Ramallah to show solidarity with the Palestinian Al-Aqsa Intifada (the second Palestinian uprising), which started in September 2000. The guests were surprised when Arafat lectured them on al-Aqsa, insisting that no Jewish Temple had existed in either Jerusalem or Nablus; rather, he claimed it had been in Yemen. Arafat said that he himself had visited Yemen and been shown the site upon which Solomon’s Temple had stood. A year earlier, another Palestinian public figure, Haj Zaki al-Ghul (Jerusalem’s “shadow” mayor from Amman), voiced a similar claim. In a 2002 lecture at the annual al-Quds conference in Jordan, al-Ghul stated that King Solomon had ruled over the Arabian Peninsula, and that it was there, not in Jerusalem, that he built his Temple.

It was not al-Ghul, however, who introduced Yasir Arafat to this Palestinian version of invented history and it was not even another Palestinian. The honor belongs to Kamal Salibi, professor emeritus at the American University of Beirut and subsequently Director of the Royal Institute for Interfaith Studies in Amman...Salibi claimed that Biblical Jerusalem was located in the Arabian Nimas highlands, halfway from Mecca to Yemen...

...The Palestinian need to refute Jewish history (and their own) regarding the Temple and Jerusalem in general arose only after Israel conquered the Old City of Jerusalem. Even though Israel left the administration of the Temple Mount to the Muslim waqf clergy (then under exclusive Jordanian control, and later joined by a Palestinian partner), the fall of the al-Aqsa Mosque into Jewish hands triggered a process of historical denial among Arabs and Muslims across the world. By 1981, this process yielded the first written denial by the PLO that there was any historical Jewish connection to Jerusalem. Four years before Salibi’s book saw light of day, Samir Jiryis (another Christian scholar, as it happens), stated in a PLO publication that there was no foundation for Jerusalem’s sacredness to Judaism.2

Post-1967 Palestinian historical revisionism stands in stark contrast to the Arab and Muslim narrative about Jerusalem dating back more than a thousand years. As recently as 1929, when bloody communal riots broke out in and over Jerusalem, the Supreme Muslim Council of Palestine published a Guide to al-Haram al-Sharif, which maintained the following: “Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute. This, too, is the spot, according to the universal belief, on which David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings (2 Samuel XXIV, 25).”

...In contrast to the classical sources, post-1967 Islamic writing (by Palestinians and others) that denies the Jewish connection to Jerusalem claims that the Temple never existed and that Solomon’s Temple, if there ever was such a thing, was at most the King’s personal prayer room. In any case, Solomon is regarded as an early Islamic figure, Sulayman. The mythology is so strong that it occludes its own origin.

To support this contention, Palestinians and other Muslim writers must logically contend that there are no archeological findings from the Temple period that would refute their view. This is rubbish of the archeological sort...[but]...Palestinian-Jordanian historian Kamil al-‘Asali maintains in his 1992 book on travelers’ accounts about Bayt al-Maqdis (the original Arabic name for al-Quds, or Jerusalem) that, “Modern archeology has not succeeded in proving that the site on which the Temple stood is located in this place, since no remnants of the Temple have survived.” The refuters neglect the fact that because the Temple compound rests underneath the Dome of the Rock—a Muslim holy shrine—excavations have never been conducted under the entire Haram compound. Sheikh Abd al-Hamid al-Sa’ih, the President of the Palestinian National Council from 1984–93, was until 1967 the highest Palestinian religious authority in Jerusalem. In his book he claimed that the Egyptian engineer who restored the Dome of the Rock during the 1960s told him that he had dug several meters under the Rock and “found no evidence of a more ancient structure.”

...Another Palestinian claim is that the Jewish presence in Jerusalem was short-lived, consisting merely of some seventy years of David and Solomon’s reigns. The truth is that the First and Second Temples together functioned for about a millennium—from roughly 1006 BCE to 586 BCE, and from 516 BCE to 70 CE. The Palestinian al-Quds University website nonetheless underlines in the chronology of the city that the Jews ruled Jerusalem for only 73 out of 5,000 years.3

...the Egyptian archeologist Abd al-Rahim Barakat, who wrote that “the legend of the alleged Temple is the greatest crime of fabricating history.”4 According to him, David and Solomon built small houses of worship, not a Temple, while the Israelites did not in any case adhere to the religion of Solomon, who preached faith in Allah, the One God. In other words, King Solomon was more a Muslim, some 1,600 years before the birth of Muhammad, than he was a Jew. This is a view shared by the vast majority of Muslims.

Indeed, many Muslim authors now refer to the Jewish Temple with the term al-haykal al-maz’um, meaning “the alleged Temple”, as if the Temple itself was a Jewish invention lacking any factual basis. For example, Egyptian writer Abd al-Tawab Mustafa writes in his book dedicated to refuting the “Jewish lie about the Temple”: “We came to realize that the Jews’ belief in the Temple is no more than a false allegation that does not hold up in the face of scientific criticism, since the Jews’ supposed scholarship on the topic is not true scientific research, but rather speculations and hypotheses.”

...In contrast to the Muslim phenomenon of completely denying the Jewish attachment to Jerusalem, however, the Jewish counterpart does not deny the holiness of the al-Aqsa mosque and the Islamic affiliation with the Old City. Nor has this narrative ever been promoted by senior Israeli leaders, not even those in the current right-of-center coalition government. Jews do not deny that the Muslims consider Jerusalem and the Haram al-Sharif as their third holy city and shrine. However, they believe that the holy status of the city and the al-Aqsa compound is a late development aimed at strengthening their arguments in the political arena...

1 See my Jerusalem and Its Role in Islamic Solidarity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
2 The Arabic source for this and all subsequent citations in this essay are available from the author upon request.
3 See www.jerusalem-studies.center.org.
4 See www.Islamic-aqsa.com, article 232.

Read it all.

And there are too many Egyptians in that denial business.

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A Succah Like A Temple

If you go here, you can order for you Succah some nice decorations.

For example, a scene from the main courtyard of the Temple for the walls:


or for a window:

- - -

Bus Ad Campaign for the Third Temple

The traditional prayer - "may the Temple be speedily built in our days" -

Found here.