For the longest duration since the Crusades, al-Aqsa Masjid, from 28 February 2026 to date, has been completely blocked to worshippers. Over Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr, and beyond, the loss of worship at the sacred site is of immense consequence for the city’s regular worshippers and for the entire Ummah. [1]
As one Jerusalem resident said in March,
Today is the saddest day for Muslim worshippers in Jerusalem… What I fear is that this sets a dangerous precedent. It may be the first time, but probably not the last. Israeli interference in the holy city has been escalating…” [2]
On the contrary, the sight of worshippers at the sacred sites of Masjid al-Haram and Masjid al-Nabawī has been deeply moving yet equally saddening.
So far, about 15.2m worshippers have performed the Umrah in 2026; in fact, the month of March had “the highest number of internal Umrah performers, with 7,044,620 performers, representing 80.9% of the total internal Umrah performers…” [3]
Beating heart of Muslim life
In the medieval Islamic world and particularly during the loss of al-Aqsa in the Crusades, the masjid was far more than just a place of ritual worship. It was the beating heart of Muslim life — a locus where time, space, and the sacred converged into a unified rhythm of existence. [4]
From the adhān echoing across the skylines of Shām to the Qur’ān recitation within its walls, the masjid functioned as both a temporal regulator and a spiritual compass. The call to prayer, resounding from hundreds of minarets, structured the very architecture of daily life. Events unfolded “between the two prayers” or “before Asr”, embedding sacred time into the language and consciousness of society.
It was a public arena of communal identity and intellectual vitality. Announcements of scholarly arrivals, judicial appointments, and public readings (samāʿāt) were made within its precincts. Here, hadīth were transmitted, Qur’ān was recited, and the faithful gathered behind appointed Imams — figures who embodied both religious authority and social cohesion. Thus, the masjid stood as a microcosm of the Ummah itself: ordered, purposeful, and oriented toward the Divine. [5]
Its significance cannot be overstated
While all masājid bear the noble epithet “bayt Allah” (the House of God), not all are equal in sanctity.
At the apex stands Masjid al-Haram in Makkah, followed by the Prophet’s Masjid in Madinah, and then al-Aqsa in al-Quds (Jerusalem).
As the Prophet ﷺ explained,
The reward of prayer in the Sacred Masjid (al-Haram) over all others besides it, is a hundred thousand prayers. In my Masjid it is a thousand prayers. In the Masjid of Bayt al-Maqdis, it is five hundred prayers.” [6]
Crusades and the re-sanctification of al-Aqsa
During this period, a remarkable reconfiguration of sacred geography occurred.
With Jerusalem under Frankish occupation, Damascus (and particularly the Umayyad Masjid) emerged as a spiritual surrogate, absorbing the devotional energies of a displaced sanctity. [7]
The literature of fadā’il al-Quds (the virtues of Jerusalem) played a pivotal role in sustaining this sacred consciousness. These works were instruments of moral mobilisation, nurturing a longing for liberation and framing the struggle against the Crusaders within a deeply spiritual idiom. [8]
When news spread of Salāh al-Dīn’s march toward Jerusalem, the response was electric. Ibn Shaddād records that scholars from Egypt and Syria hastened to join him, “so much so that no-one of any note failed to be present.” [9]
Among the practices extolled in fadā’il literature was the donning of ihrām from Jerusalem. For example, a tradition recorded by Abu-l Maʿālī ibn al-Murajja promises immense reward:
Whoever begins the Hajj or Umrah to the Sanctified Masjid from al-Aqsa Masjid, his past sins are forgiven, or Paradise is incumbent on him.” [10]
And another narration declares:
Whoever dons the ihrām from Jerusalem, his journey is forgiveness for him.” [11]
Such traditions elevated al-Aqsa from a site of visitation to a point of spiritual departure, linking it intimately with the rites of Makkah. This connection between Makkah and Jerusalem was cosmological.
In fact, authors like al-Wāsitī transmitted traditions suggesting,
The Last Hour will not come until the Holy Sanctuary of Makkah visits Jerusalem.” [12]
Striking imagery. Two sacred centres, bound not only by earthly pilgrimage but by eschatological destiny, the parallel systems of Makkah and Jerusalem evoke identical holy elements.
Salāh al-Dīn himself articulated this unity in powerful terms. When challenged for adopting the title al-Malik al-Nāsir, he responded,
Did I not recover Bayt al-Maqdis and unite it with al-Bayt al-Haram? Indeed, I have returned to the native land a part that had been missing from it.” [13]
Here, the liberation of Jerusalem is ontological, restoring a fractured sacred order. And this theme finds poetic expression in the elegies of ʿImād al-Dīn al-Isfahānī, who writes:
As usual, the Bayt al-Haram feels sorrow for the Bayt al-Muqaddas; indeed, so does its ʿArafah.” [14]
In another poem celebrating the re-conquest, he declares:
“And Masjid al-Haram was given glad tidings that al-Aqsa has been liberated, and the Black Stone was congratulated because of the liberation of the White Rock, and the place of revelation [Makkah] was congratulated because of the liberation of the abode of ascent, and the abode of the leader of the messengers and the seal of the prophets was congratulated because of the liberation of the abode of messengers and prophets, and the station (maqām) of Ibrāhīm was congratulated because of the liberation of the footprint of the chosen one [the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ].” [15]
Such poetry reveals and reflects the collective psyche of a yearning for wholeness. The loss of Jerusalem had rendered the sacred incomplete; its recovery restored theological harmony on top of territory. The expulsion of the cross from al-Aqsa, likened to the cleansing of idols from the Ka’bah, symbolised a reassertion of tawhīd over contested space.
Indeed, the very notion of sacred space in Islam is inseparable from the practices it hosts.
As Salāh al-Dīn lamented, during the years of occupation,
God has received nothing from us here in the way of adoration.” [16]
The absence of Muslim worship was not a neutral condition. It was a rupture in the Divine-human relationship. The restoration of prayer, Qur’ān recitation, and communal devotion thus became acts of re-sanctification.
This idea is further illuminated by the transformation of al-Aqsa’s interior. As one poet exulted:
O the light of al-Aqsa, how it now rises with verses and chapters after having the cross inside it.” [17]
The Qur’ān here is spatially operative, reclaiming the masjid’s identity and purpose. Sacred space, in this vision, must be inhabited by sacred action.
Yet the fragility of this sanctity is poignantly captured in the lament of Muhammad al-Mujāwir, written after the diplomatic loss of Jerusalem in 626/1229.
al-Aqsa is now empty of the prayer… one who recites verses and chapters with pleasure.” [18]
The absence of joyful recitation signals a deeper loss – the روح (spirit) of the المكان (designation) has been dimmed.
Conclusion
While our beloved al-Aqsa remains forcibly closed, we should remember that the struggle over Jerusalem was never merely territorial. Rather, it was a contest over meaning, over the rightful orientation of sacred space. Both Muslims and Christians sought Divine favour, each believing that holiness demanded exclusivity.
As one scholar observes, such spaces…
…must not be occupied by the unholy, unclean, and undeserving… [those] never in concordance with the order of things.” [19]
It should be abundantly clear by now that in the Islamic world view, the mosque is a belief and a value system made manifest.
This is why the poets and scholars of the 12th century laboured to reimagine Syria, particularly Damascus, as an alternative sacred geography. In the absence of Jerusalem, its virtues were extolled in other sanctified spaces, sustaining the Ummah’s connection to the Divine until restoration could be achieved.
And when that restoration came in 583/1187, it was a cosmic realignment in addition to a military triumph.
Such was the magnitude of the event, the poet Abu ʿAlī al-Juwaynī remarked,
If this conquest was in the time of the Prophet then there would have been verses and Qur’ān revealed for it.” [20]
In the final analysis, the masjid in medieval Islam was a living organism, breathing with the worship of the faithful, echoing with the words of God, and anchoring the Islamic body in a sacred continuum that stretched from the Earth to the Heavens. And nowhere was this more profoundly realised than in the story of al-Aqsa — its loss, its longing, and its very soon luminous return, inshāAllah.
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:
This matter [the Caliphate] will be in Madinah, then in al-Sham, then in the Peninsula, then in Iraq, then in the City, then in Bayt al-Maqdis. If it is in Bayt al-Maqdis, its home country is there and never will a people be able to remove it so it will return to them forever.” [21]
Source: Islam21c
Notes
[1] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-extends-al-aqsa-mosque-closure-until-mid-april
[3] https://www.stats.gov.sa/documents/d/guest/umrah-statistics-q1-2025-en-pdf
[4] M. Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190–1350 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 69-90.
[5] Osman Latiff, The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword: Muslim Poetic Responses to the Crusades (Leiden: Brill, 2018), pp. 18, 36.
[6] Musnad al-Bazar 4142
[7] Osman Latiff, The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword: Muslim Poetic Responses to the Crusades (Bril, 2018), pp. 106-115.
[8] Osman Latiff, The Cutting Edge of the Poet’s Sword: Muslim Poetic Responses to the Crusades (Bril, 2018), pp. 30-40.
[9] Bahāʾ al-Dīn ibn Shaddād, The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin. Translated by D. S. Richards (Aldershot, Ashgate: 2002). p. 78.
[10] Ibn al-Murajjā, Faḍāʾil Bayt al-Maqdis (Beirut, 2002), p. 211.
[11] Ibn al-Murajjā, Faḍāʾil Bayt al-Maqdis (Beirut, 2002), p. 212.
[12] al-Wāsitī, Fadāʾil al-Bayt al-Muqaddas, ed. Isaac Hasson (Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1979), pp. 92–93.
[13] ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī, al-Fatḥ al-qussī fī l-fatḥ al-qudsī. Edited by Muḥammad Ṣubḥ (Cairo: al-Dār al-Qawmiyya lil-Ṭibāʿa wa-l-Nashr, 1965) p. 185.
[14] Abū Shāma, Kitāb al-Rawḍatayn fī akhbār al-dawlatayn al-nūriyya wa-l-ṣalāḥiyya vol. 4. Edited by Ibrāhīm Shams al-Dīn. (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2002), p. 218.
[15] Abū Shāma, Kitāb al-Rawḍatayn fī akhbār al-dawlatayn al-nūriyya wa-l-ṣalāḥiyya vol. 3. Edited by Ibrāhīm Shams al-Dīn. (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2002), p. 222.
[16] ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī, al-Fatḥ al-qussī fī l-fatḥ al-qudsī. Edited by Muḥammad Ṣubḥ (Cairo: al-Dār al-Qawmiyya lil-Ṭibāʿa wa-l-Nashr, 1965), p. 122.
[17] Abu Shāma, Kitāb al-Rawdatayn fī akhbār al-dawlatayn al-nūriyya wa-l-ṣalāḥiyya vol. 3. Edited by Ibrāhīm Shams al-Dīn. (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2002), p. 264.
[18] Abu Shāma, Kitāb al-Rawdatayn fī akhbār al-dawlatayn al-nūriyya wa-l-ṣalāḥiyya vol. 4. Edited by Ibrāhīm Shams al-Dīn. (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2002), p. 196.
[19] S. Akkach, Cosmology and Architecture in Premodern Islam: An Architectural Reading of Mystical Ideas (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005), p. 168.
[20] Abu Shāma, Kitāb al-Rawdatayn fī akhbār al-dawlatayn al-nūriyya wa-l-ṣalāḥiyya vol. 3. Edited by Ibrāhīm Shams al-Dīn. (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2002), p. 239
[21] Ibn ‘Asākir, Tārikh Dimashq, 266
