After a terrorist attack last week, the mosque on the Temple mount in Jerusalem was closed for prayers. It was quickly reopened, but the police put metal detectors at the entrances to the plaza in front of the mosque in order to keep guns and knives from being brought into the area. That seems like a reasonable precaution to take. Nevertheless, the Moslem religious authority which controls the mosque is up in arms about it and is moving to incite a riot in protest. Today, the religious authority announced that all mosques in Jerusalem aside from the one at issue will be closed on Friday. This will swell the numbers of people coming to pray into huge crowds.
The whole thing seems rather strange. There is no religious objection to using metal detectors. They are used in similar fashion for security at the two holiest sites in Islam which are in Saudi Arabia. No one objects there. There is no discrimination involved. Everyone who wants to visit the Temple mount has to pass through the detectors. There is nothing immodest or intrusive about the detectors. One walks through and all that happens is that the machine beeps if it detects metal like a gun or a knife. The detectors are not inside the mosques; they do not affect prayer services. The only problem appears to be that the decision to install the metal detectors was made by the Jerusalem police.
Many times small things lead to big problems. Here, however, we seem to be witnessing an event where the Islamic religious leadership in Jerusalem is actively trying to create problems for no valid reason at all.
The whole thing seems rather strange. There is no religious objection to using metal detectors. They are used in similar fashion for security at the two holiest sites in Islam which are in Saudi Arabia. No one objects there. There is no discrimination involved. Everyone who wants to visit the Temple mount has to pass through the detectors. There is nothing immodest or intrusive about the detectors. One walks through and all that happens is that the machine beeps if it detects metal like a gun or a knife. The detectors are not inside the mosques; they do not affect prayer services. The only problem appears to be that the decision to install the metal detectors was made by the Jerusalem police.
Many times small things lead to big problems. Here, however, we seem to be witnessing an event where the Islamic religious leadership in Jerusalem is actively trying to create problems for no valid reason at all.
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