A Mosque Misplaced

Rethinking Jerusalem’s Place in Islam

The Qur’an mentions “al-Masjid al-Aqsa,” the Farthest Mosque, in Surah 17:1 as the destination of the Prophet Muhammad’s Night Journey from Mecca’s Sacred Mosque. For centuries, Muslims have identified this with the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, making the city Islam’s third holiest site. But what if that’s wrong? What if al-Masjid al-Aqsa is actually a mosque in Al-Ju‘ranah, 29 kilometers from Mecca, in Saudi Arabia’s Hejaz region?

This isn’t a wild guess, it’s a serious argument backed by early Islamic texts, historical records, archaeology, and modern scholarship. The evidence suggests Jerusalem had no major role in early Islam and that its link to al-Masjid al-Aqsa was a political move by a 7th-century caliph to outmaneuver a rival. Let’s break down the case, step by step, to see why Al-Ju‘ranah, not Jerusalem, fits the Qur’anic description.