How many checkpoints does it take to cross Jerusalem from Amman, Jordan, on Christmas Eve to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, while Israel is at war with Hamas?
It turns out he’s 24 years old. And that was with a U. S. passport, which turns out (given the circumstances) makes the times less difficult.
Here’s another question: What prompted my husband and me to take two of our three children on a 24-hour wartime vacation to Israel on Christmas Eve, when we are a clearly Muslim family, one of whom is a 16 year old man? ?When Palestinian and/or Muslim men between the ages of 12 and 50 are not even allowed to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex and when, with the prevailing tensions, we are at the mercy of Israeli operational forces??
The story begins long before October 7.
Almost 4 years passed, when our young student was still in high school, we planned to perform a pilgrimage (not the full Hajj, but the lighter Umrah) after graduating. We were behind schedule due to COVID-19, but last fall my husband planned his winter break. Before stopping in Medina and Mecca for our Umrah (second time for adults, first for our children), we would go to Jerusalem to stop at the Dome of the Rock and Masjid Al-Aqsa, the 3rd holiest site. site in the country. Islam after Masjid Nabawi, the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina, and Masjid Al Haram in Mecca, the site of the Kaba.
The hadith teaches Muslims that one “salah” (prayer) in Al-Aqsa is equivalent to 500 prayers, that one prayer in Masjid Nabawi is equivalent to 1,000 prayers, and that one prayer in the Haram is equivalent to 100,000 prayers.
In September we discovered a Jordanian company, Taleen Tours, for our stopover in Al-Aqsa. The following month, Hamas attacked. We would go to Saudi Arabia to do our Umrah, but Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa?We have followed the war, lamented the horrific loss of life in Gaza, and weighed our options.
In October I wrote about Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students (in addition to Jewish students) being targeted on college campuses. At home, I told my husband that we should drop the Al-Aqsa leg of our trip. But with our tour company still safely taking people into Jerusalem, he said, telling me, “Let’s see how things are once we’re in Amman.”
We arrived in Amman late on December 23rd. The next morning, we set off with our guide, Mohammed Bishi, who would temporarily be a trusted friend. Our first stop, in Jordan, was the tomb of the prophet Yusha, the biblical Joshua, successor of Moses. At 10:30 a. m. , after saying our prayers, Bishi informed us that it was time to head to the King Hussein Bridge to try to cross. Israel, he was told, was at the final border at 11:30 a. m.
“We doing this?” my kids asked nervously.
“Uh, that’s right,” I replied. To calm my growing anxiety, I asked my husband, “How exactly does it work?”
Bishi told us that he would take us to the bridge, but that we would cross the border crossings alone. Once past, we would meet our Jerusalem-based advisor, who would take us to our hotel near the Old City.
We had packed our backpacks for baggage checks and other delays. I had told the youth to keep their comments to a minimum, not to ask questions (unless it was surely necessary), not to respond to JTF officials at the border, and to stick to our leads.
This recommendation echoed many discussions we had at home about the truth of what a stopover at Al-Aqsa would look like. My brother, a pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon, had traveled to Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel several times as a volunteer with the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund. He had taught us how confrontational IOF officers with automatic weapons can be. He also said that “we look like Muslims” – and we are even willing to recite anything from the Quran – because only Muslims are meant to pray in the Al-Aqsa Compound.
He also told us that our 16-year-old Hamza might not be allowed to enter, as Palestinian youths are considered a threat. We had decided that if one of us was arrested, none of us would move on.
As we passed checkpoint after checkpoint, Hamza’s age was questioned. They also asked us who my husband’s father was and if we knew anyone in Jerusalem. It felt like an eternity of silent examination as the guards stared at their computer screens. We held our breath and waited.
While we were waiting, the tour company sent us a WhatsApp message saying that the hotel where we were supposed to spend the night had closed due to the “situation” (everyone we met called the war “the situation” in anger). We had booked at the hotel, but had no evidence of our reservation via email. A few minutes later, the guards asked us where we would be staying in Jerusalem.
My husband explained what had happened. “Show us your reservation,” the border guard said. My husband showed him the WhatsApp message. I thought the jig was up. After another forever, however, they allowed us through to the next checkpoint and the next after that. We finally found ourselves outside and officially in Israel.
Our adviser on the Jerusalem side, a young Palestinian named Awadallah, came to pick us up. We learned that he and his wife were expecting their first child anytime soon and were staying at his grandmother’s house in Jerusalem.
“I own our own home in Bethlehem,” he told us. “But I haven’t been there in two months since the situation started. There were already too many checkpoints to get to my home. Now, there are even more. It can take four hours to get from my grandmother’s home to my home. It’s too dangerous, so we are staying with my grandmother until the baby is born.”
As we drove toward Jerusalem, our excitement increased when we glimpsed the dull gold of the Dome of the Rock in the distance. At our hotel, where we were the only visitors, our driver said that he had organized the oldest trip. Perhaps I would locate a consultant to escort us through the Old City and take us to the Al-Aqsa complex, since there were no men under 50 present.
Baghet, our 78-year-old Palestinian guide, had a lot of power to go with his deep and ancient knowledge. Retired school teacher, he had been traveling for over 40 years. He escorted us through Herod’s Gate, past walls dating back to the Ottoman Empire under Suleiman the Magnificent, to the Old City, where we met more supplied Israel Defense Forces guards.
Baghet showed us the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Western Wall (from afar) and told us story after story of prophets, rulers, and holy men and women, how they had supposedly touched and shaped both one and both, one and both. stone, both one and both one and both one and both damaged wall, both one and both one and both one and both corner of the Old City. The story of both was that 3 Abrahamic denominations had lived in conflict and (often precarious) peace for thousands of years.
“It’s a paradise in the Middle Oriente. No there’s nothing like anywhere else in the world,” Baghet told me, something that stuck in my heart.
We were surprised by the silence. We knew that Christmas had been cancelled in Bethlehem, but we were still surprised by the total absence of Christmas in the cradle of Christianity. It was as if we were the only ones, or the only Muslims, to walk through the old city. In doing so, we learned later, just 76 kilometers away, in a refugee camp in Gaza, that another 68 people had been killed in an Israeli airstrike.
At the front of the Al-Aqsa compound, a number of IOF officers were huddled together. Could our teenage son be an impediment to leaving us out after having traveled so far?Thanks to our blue passports, we were able to get in.
Like almost everyone who visits the Al-Aqsa compound, we were immediately struck by its devout and cultural history, by its immense importance in Islamic history. At the Dome of the Rock, the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. There, Muslims learn, that Allah gave the Prophet the decree to pray five times a day (after being dissuaded from doing so 50).
The beauty and tragedy of Al-Aqsa lies in its silence and serenity. We managed to pray five prayers at the Dome of the Rock, the Dome of the Chain or inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque, or in congregation. The ones we participated in (Maghreb and Fajr) contained loosely two “safs” (lines) of worshipers, with only a few elderly Palestinian Muslims united through some tourist families like us.
A Palestinian American friend, Rana Ottallah, told me, when she heard about our visit, “This is the saddest description of Masjid Al-Aqsa. I am heartbroken (about) how empty it is. You missed the kindness of strangers making you feel at home.
“You missed sitting outside, under the olive trees, and seeing strangers offering you a plate of makloubeh they had ready for the long adventure or a cup of mint tea. You missed seeing the youngsters playing around the golden dome with such joy and peace. .
In fact, when we fled the resort, especially in the early hours of waking up on December 25 (without a guide, which made it riskier), we felt like it belonged to us, as well as the ubiquitous cats patrolling the resort. We knew it had to be full of worshippers. The atmosphere only deepened as we prayed at the Well of Souls (“Bir el-Arweh”), a cave located in the Dome of the Rock, whose call derives from the myth that the spirits of the dead await the Day of Judgment there.
An elderly Palestinian woman staying in a house asked us where we were from. Upon learning that we were Americans, he thankfully hugged us, squeezed a piece of candy in our hands, and said, “Never stop coming. Go home and tell all your friends and family to stay. “Visiting. We cannot leave this post empty.
As the sun rose and illuminated the golden dome of the Dome of the Rock, we walked around the compound and found ourselves in front of the stairs that led to the underground doors that led to the original halls of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. “A guard gave us the go-ahead to briefly explore, warning us to leave until 7 a. m. , at which time Orthodox Jews would be escorted,” he said.
We went down to the prayer halls to explore and prayed two “rakat nafl” as a family, a prayer that Muslims pray to give thanks or as an act of worship.
When we arrived at 7:15 a. m. , IOF officials were approaching with several Jewish worshippers. Their looks and body language conveyed the message: it’s time for them to go.
As we left, we knew that we would possibly never return to this holy place, as exclusive as it is fragile, to bear witness to the immense devout and cultural history rooted in the very soul of this magnificent place. But we had already missed our deadline, as officials said.
(Dilshad D. Ali is a journalist and blog editor at Haute Hijab, an e-commerce company that works to serve Muslim women. The views expressed in this observation do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service. )