The Dome of the Rock was built over the Temple Mount. That’s OK — until the shoe is on the other foot.
When the shoe is on the other foot, it hurts.
A site in north India, which Muslims claim for their own, was designated by India’s Supreme Court for aHindu temple.
Does one religion have a right to commandeer another religion’s sacred site? Does one religion have a right to wipe out the geographical identity of another religion’s sacred site?
Islam says yes. It built the Dome of the Rock on the Jewish Temple Mount. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Islam objects.
Hinduism also says yes. It destroyed the Babri Masjid mosque, built in the 16th century, in 1992, in order to build a Hindu temple on this site.
The Muslim-Hindu dispute over this site in the town of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh State, India, has filled the country with tension.
Hindu nationalists, reports AP, have demanded a Hindu temple on the disputed site for more than a century. When they destroyed the mosque there in 1992, the ensuing Hindu-Muslim violence left some 2,000 people dead.
But now, on the ruins of the destroyed mosque, a Hindu temple will arise, says India’s court, which also ruled that a separate, unnamed site will be provided for a mosque.
Why did the Hindus win the court battle? We did not read the ruling, but we do know that Hindus say that the Babri Masjid mosque was built after Muslims invaders destroyed a Hindu temple on the site.
There are lessons here for the Israel-Arab conflict. First, history lessons. Lessons about how the third most holy site in Islam got there —on the ruins of Judaism’s holiest site.
Political lessons. Lessons about Israel’s right to the Old City of Jerusalem and to sovereignty over its holiest site there. Lessons about double standards. About crying foul over the construction of a Hindu temple over the ruins of a mosque, but justifying the construction of a mosque (Al-Aqsa) and holy site (Dome of the Rock) over the ruins of a Jewish temple.
Policy lessons. Lessons about the mutability of holy sites when constructed on the ruins of another religion’s holy site. We do not advocate the destruction of any mosque, including the Al Aqsa mosque, a la the behavior of Hindus who destroyed the Babri Masjid mosque in 1992; nor do we advocate the reconstruction of one religion’s house of worship on the ruins of another religion’s. But we do note for the record that the idea of correcting an historical injustice — such as the reconstruction of one religion’s house of worship on a site that originally belonged to it — is judicial policy in parts of the world.
Religious riots will not bring peace to the Holy Land. Destruction of holy sites in the Holy Land is beyond the pale (including Palestinian attempts to destroy the Jewish Tomb of Joseph).
Still, history is history. Hypocrisy is hypocrisy. If it is wrong to build a Hindu temple over the ruins of a mosque in India, it is wrong to build a mosque over the ruins of a Jewish temple in Jerusalem.
When the shoe is on the other foots, it hurts.
Copyright © 2019 by the Intermountain Jewish News
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