c. 1996 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ As the opening of an Israeli archaeological tunnel along the western wall of the Al Aksa Mosque compound triggered Palestinian riots and Muslim outrage in September, a small cadre of Arab volunteers were quietly laying the floors for a vast new Muslim prayer area in another ancient underground chamber not far away.

The newly renovated Marawani prayer area, a chamber the size of a football-field underneath the mosque itself, is seen here as Islam’s latest trump card in the centuries-old competition for holy space between Jews and Muslims around the mosque compound, which was built on the ruins of Judaism’s ancient Temple Mount.

The long-neglected chambers, which can accommodate thousands of Muslim worshipers, are expected to open within weeks and may represent the largest formal addition of prayer space on the Al Aksa compound since the early Islamic era, when Muslim rulers first built the Al Aksa mosque and the gold-plated Dome of the Rock.

While some Israeli right-wing religious activists and politicians have protested the Muslim renovations, the hardline government of Benjamin Netanyahu has not moved to stop the work, knowing that any move by Israel could touch off another round of violence even more severe than what occurred in September.

The underground vaults, located in the southeastern corner of Al Aksa, were originally part of a sophisticated support system propping up the Temple Mount esplanade, which was expanded by the biblical King Herod in an ambitious building project, says Gideon Avni, head of the Jerusalem office of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Although the chambers had no clear religious function in Temple times, they were part of the system of underground tunnels leading from the southern wall entrances to the Temple into the elevated compound itself, which was several stories high.

The underground vaults, destroyed in an earthquake, were almost completely rebuilt in the seventh or eight century by the Islamic rulers of the Umayyad dynasty who then ruled Jerusalem.

It was the Umayyad ruler Abdel Malik Ibn Marwan who built the magnificent gold-plated Dome of the Rock, marking the spot from which the Prophet Mohammed was believed to have ascended into heaven, along with the adjacent Al Aksa mosque, on the Temple Mount site.

Hassan Tahboub, head of the Higher Islamic Council and a member of the same family lineage, says the tunnels offered Ibn Marwan and other Umayyad rulers an underground access between their palaces, which lay to the southeast of Al Aksa and the mosque compound itself.

The space was also used at times for Muslim prayer, although it was not a full-fledged mosque _ thus the name Marawani prayer area.

When Crusaders occupied Jerusalem in medieval times _ and turned Al Aksa mosque into a church _ they renamed the underground area Solomon’s Stables after the biblical builder of Jerusalem’s first temple, King Solomon.

The name was largely fantasy, since Solomon’s temple was a much smaller structure,”but (the area) it may have been used by the Crusaders as a stable”says Avni. The 36-foot high internal ceilings offered ample room to quarter animals, he notes.

Over time, however, the tunnels fell into disuse as the Crusaders blocked the doors leading outside of the wall for security reasons. During most of the intervening centuries, the Marawani prayer area languished forgotten and neglected, accessible only by two narrow staircases that descended from the Al Aksa compound itself.

In recent years, however, growing numbers of worshipers at Al Aksa prompted Muslim authorities to consider ways to expand the compound’s capacity,particularly during inclement weather, says Tahboub.

Muslim authorities first opened the ancient area to the public during the holy month of Ramadan last winter, when overflow crowds typically pack the mosque compound.

Then the real renovation work got underway, funded largely by contributions of time and money from Israeli Arab businessmen and tradesmen, who as citizens of Israel enjoy more freedom than their West Bank Palestinian counterparts to move in and out of Jerusalem.

When Muslim protests erupted in late September over Israel’s opening of a new exit to the Hasmonean-era tunnel alongside the western wall of the Temple Mount, the renovations in the Marawani prayer area were well underway _ although well out of view of the media and general public who were barred from the site.

Israel later claimed the timing of the two projects was more than coincidence.

Israeli officials said they had an unwritten agreement with the Islamic leaders in which Israel would not object to the renovations of the Marawani area, which is associated with Jerusalem’s Islamic period, as long as Muslims did not protest the opening of the Hasmonean tunnel exit.

But Tahboub denies that there was any sort of deal. “They offered to keep silent about this place, if we kept silent about the tunnel,”says Tahboub.”But Muslims are the owners of both places. And it is we, only, who have the rights in both places. This is why we protest. We can’t bargain or conduct a dialogue of any kind _ because these are places of God.” With the new prayer area due to open soon, two far-right Jewish religious groups, including the Temple Mount Faithful and Hai Ve Kayam, an offshoot of the banned Kach organization of the late Meir Kahane, have made a number of last-minute attempts to close down the site through court appeals.

The Jewish groups regard the Muslim renovations as part of an attempt to not only disturb the religious status quo, but also block access points to areas under the mosque that might serve as a starting point for future archaeological excavations that would shed light on the precise location of the last Jewish temple on the mount, prior to its destruction by the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago.”If there are indeed remnants to the Temple that should be excavated, the Muslims are now establishing their control over an entrance to the area,”says Yossi Baumol, executive director of Ateret Cohenim, a right-wing Jewish group that has been active in settling Jews in Muslim sections of the walled Old City surrounding the mosque compound.

Yet Netanyahu, currently under pressure from both Arab and western governments to move ahead in the peace process, seems unlikely to enforce any court decision to close the renovated site _ even if such a ruling were issued. Use of police force in such a dispute could touch off not only Palestinian riots, but a pan-Arab campaign against Israel.

Nor has the Israel Antiquities Authority objected to the renovations of the prayer area, says Avni. “We have had a few professional concerns about how to install electricity, for instance, but in general the renovations didn’t hurt the chambers,”he says, noting that they are largely superficial changes to improve the floor and lighting.

And given the centuries old Muslim control of the area, Avni doubts that any Jewish archeologist would even consider excavating in or around the chambers _”at least until the Messiah comes.” Tahboub, for his part, says he is not concerned about Israeli attempts to stop the construction _ legal or otherwise. “We don’t recognize the Israeli courts,”says the 70-year-old man who wears a business suit capped with a traditional”keffiyeh”headdress, and whose family has had a role in maintaining and administering the holy sites through earlier Ottoman, British and Jordanian administrations.”You know, we Muslims believe that the Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven from Al Aksa. We believe we are the last in a chain of the heavenly religions.”We believe both Israelis and Palestinians should live quietly. But unless the Israelis give up their notions that others must live as they live, everything will remain as it is until a final solution comes in one way or another _ maybe a war.”JC END FLETCHER