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With respect to the position of the Western or Wailing Wall ( in
Arabic Al Buraq; in Hebrew, Kothel Maarawi and the
lie of the surrounding area, see the official plan drawn by the
Palestine Government.
The Wailing Wall forms
an integral part of the western exterior shell of the
Haram-esh-Sherif
which itself is the site
of the ancient Jewish temples, at the present day supplanted by
Moslem Mosques. The
Haram-esh-Sherif ina ctual fact is a vast rectangular platform,
several hundred metres
in length and width. One of the said Mosques, the Mosque of Aqsa,
is contiguous to the
southern exterior wall of the Haram and extends up to the Wailing
Wall
at its southern end. The
other Mosque, the Dome of the Rock ( in Arabic, Qubet Al Sakra),
or, as it is usually
called, the Mosque of Omar, is situated in the middle of the Haram
area.
The Eastern Wall of the
Haram-esh-Sherif as a whole is a structure of more than 100 meters
in length and about 20
meters in height. The very large blocks of stone at the base of the
Wall, more especially
the six courses of drafted stones, are dated by most archaeologists
to the times of the
Temple of Herod (i.e., the second reconstructed Temple). Many of
the
stones bear inscriptions
in Hebrew on their faces, some of them painted, others engraved.
Above these stones there
are three courses of undrafted masonry; these are probably
colony by the Emperor
Hadrian). The upper strata again are of much later date, belonging
probably to the period
about 1500 A.D.
Recent researches go to
show that the boundaries of the Wall coincide with those of the
platform of the Temple
of Solomom, of which courses of stones are supposed to still
remain beneath the
surface. The part of the Wall about which dispute has arisen between
the Jews and the Moslems
comprises about 30 metres of the exterior wall mentioned. In
front of that part of
the wall there is a stretch of pavement to which the only access, on
the
northern side, is by a
narrow lane proceeding from King David’s street. To the south this
pavement extends to
another wall, which shuts the pavement off at right angles to the
Wailing Wall from a few
private houses and from the Mosque of Buraq site to the south. In
the year 1929 a door was
made at the southern end of the wall last mentioned, and it gives
access to the private
houses and the Mosque. At the northern end of the pavement a third
wall, with a door in it,
shuts off the area from the courtyard in front of the Grand Mufti’s
offices.
The pavement in front of
the Wall has a width of about 4 metres. Its boundaries of three
sides have already been
indicated; on the fourth side, i.e., the one opposite to the Wailing
Wall, the pavement is
bounded by the exterior wall and houses of so-called Moghrabi
Quarter. On that side
there are two doors which led to the Moghrabi houses.
It is this Pavement
running at the base of the part of the Wall just referred to that
the Jews
are in the habit of
resorting to for purposes of devotion.
At a short distance from
it, in the southern direction and within the Wall itself, there is a
chamber or niche in
which according to tradition Mohammed’s steed, Buraq, was tethered
when the Prophet during
the course of his celestial journey (as to which see below) visited
the Haram-esh-Sherif. It
is for this reason that the Wall is known to Moslems as Al-Buraq.
Before proceeding
further we desire to state that at the date of our sojourn in
Jerusalem,
the Wall and its
environs were not exactly in the same state as before the War, for
as
already stated by the
Shaw Commission certain innovations had been introduced, viz:
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The erection of a new structure above
the northern end of the Wall.
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The conversion of a house at the
southern end of the Pavement into a “Zawiyah”
( literally to
be translated, Moslem “sacred corner”).
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The construction of the above-mentioned
door giving access from the “Zawiyah” to
the Pavement in
front of the Wall, and constituting a through connection from the
Haram area
(through the Moghrabi Gate) to the Pavement in front of the Wall.
From the book The Right
and Claims of Moslems and Jews in connection with the Wailing
Wall at Jerusalem by the
Institute for Palestine Studies.
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