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Jewish claims to the Holy Land rest in passages of the Torah, in which the land is given to the Children of Israel in fulfillment of God's promise to them. In the book of Genesis, God promises the Holy Land to Abraham and his descendants unequivocally. Addressing Abraham, God says: "For all the land which you see, to you will I give it, and to your seed for ever" (Genesis 13:15). The promise is repeated to Abraham's son Isaac: "To you and your descendants I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath which I swore to your father Abraham" (Genesis 26:3).
Muslims today derive meanings from the Qur'an that censure the Jews and exalt the city of Jerusalem through reference to the "Night Journey" when the Prophet Muhammad is said to have traveled from Mecca to Jerusalem in a single night and then ascended to heaven to come before God. Chapter 17 of the Qur'an ("The Night Journey") refers to this event: "Glory be to Him, who carried His servant [Muhammad] by night from the holy mosque to the further mosque [al-Masjid al-Aqsa]" (Qur'an 17: 1).1 This "further mosque" is generally interpreted as Jerusalem or a place within it, often claimed to be the site of Al-Aqsa Mosque, built after Muhammad's death in 632.
Until now, there has been no proper dialogue about these founding texts. But a dialogue is possible, first by recognizing that the Qur'an does, in fact, confirm the Biblical promise, then by re-reading commentaries on the Qur'anic text where the Jewish claim is strengthened. Beyond that, although the Jews come in for severe criticism in the works of Muslim apologists and theologians, there are no grounds in religious law to entertain the conceit that God's promise to the Children of Israel has been broken, and none to support the view that Israel is now the property of the Muslims. This effort involves an approach to the analysis of texts that requires Muslim scholars to take lessons from modem Biblical interpretation as practiced by Christian and Jewish exegetes working singly and together. If dialogue at this level were to become widely possible, the long-term implications for peace in the Middle East might be considerable.
LAW TAKES PRECEDENCE OVER POLEMICS