Naheel Abdullah

Saudi Gazette

 

JEDDAH – The outrage at the temporary closure of Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, in Jerusalem on Thursday went viral on the social networking sites all over the Kingdom. Several Saudis, especially preachers, blasted the provocative act of the Israeli occupation forces.



Also, they lamented that this ‘demonstrates the plight of the Islamic Ummah, which is reeling under humiliation, weakness, disunity and sectarianism, and as such it is neglecting the Ummah’s core issue of Al-Aqsa Mosque.’



In his tweet, prominent Saudi preacher Sheikh Ayed Al-Qarni warned Zionists that the day of recapturing the holy mosque and performing prayers by Muslims would come soon. Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Turaifi, another preacher, said sarcastically that the Muslim Ummah is not going to win because it is afraid of Jews, whom Almighty Allah described as cowards. In his tweet, Sheikh Saud Al-Shoraim, imam and khateeb of the Grand Mosque in Makkah, warned: #Al-Aqsa is in danger.



Some football fans urged their clubs to do something concrete for the sake of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Some youngsters ridiculed the inaction on the part of the Ummah in saving Islam’s third holy mosque from the clutches of the Zionist occupiers. In his tweet of “Excuse us O Al-Aqsa,” Osama Al-Qarni commented: “Give excuse to our youths who are busy watching football matches and other games. They want that you (Aqsa) be at the bottom of their concerns.”



Some tweeters voiced their displeasure over the stark reality that the issue of Al-Aqsa closure did not figure in Friday sermons in several mosques in the Kingdom.

The Al-Aqsa mosque compound reopened early on Friday for dawn prayers, and Friday prayers, after a highly-controversial move on Thursday, which saw all visitors and worshippers banned from entering the site for the first time since a temporary closure of a few hours in 2000, in a move dubbed "a declaration of war” by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.



Mass restrictions on entry remain in place with Muslim men under the age of 50 still prohibited from entering – an extension of an earlier restriction that has been in place on-and-off for years.



Police presence in the city has also been beefed up, with local media reporting the presence of some 3,000 officers, three times more than usual, as tensions continued to reverberate following the shooting of a right-wing Jewish activist, Yehuda Glick, on Wednesday. Glick had advocated for greater Jewish access to the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism where Al-Aqsa sits, along with the much revered Dome of the Rock.