The Foundation Stone: Caliph Umar Allowed Jews to Remove Debris From The Temple Mount
Temple Mount during the Christian Byzantine conquest, under the direction of Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, was to be treated as a sewage and refuse dump. According to a letter written in the 11th Century from the Ge'on Ya'agov Yeshiva in Jerusalem to the diaspora communities, Caliph Umar allowed the Jews to clean Temple Mount.
The letter reads:
‘And from our G-d there befell His mercy upon us before the kingdom of Ishmael; at the time when their power expanded and they captured the Holy Land from the hands of Edom (referring to Christianity, whose roots are connected to Jacob’s brother Esau), and came to Jerusalem, there were people from the Children of Israel with them; they showed them the spot of the temple and they settled with them until this very day…’
The Foundation Stone in the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount.
Matson Collection, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Overview
According to Ka'b al-Ahbar, who accompanied Umar ibn al-Khattab to Jerusalem, the Jews were responsible for clearing the debris from the Temple Mount.
This was confirmed by an 11th-century letter from the Ge'on Yaʿaqov yeshiva in Jerusalem, which states: “Umar supervised them the entire time. Whenever a remnant appeared, he asked the Jewish elders about the rock, specifically the Even ha-Shetiyah (‘Foundation Stone’), and one of the sages marked the boundaries of the place until it was cleared away…”
Jewish tradition identifies the Foundation Stone as the site of the Binding of Isaac (Akedah).
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