Al-Ji'rana was mentioned by the 8th-century Arab historian al-Waqidi. In his Kitab al-Tarikh wa al-Maghazi (Arabic: كتاب التاريخ والمغازي, "Book of History and Campaigns") Al-Waqidi describes two ancient sanctuaries in al-Ji'rana visited by Muhammad on his journey on dhu al-qa'da of the eighth year after the Hijrah: al-masjid al-aqṣā ("the farthest mosque") and al-masjid al-adnā ("the closest mosque"). This was also mentioned by al-Azraqi, a 9th century Islamic commentator and historian.
According to the Qur'an, Muhammad was transported to a site named al-masjid al-ʾaqṣā ("the furthest place of prayer") during his Night Journey. The Qur'an does not mention the exact location of "the furthest place of prayer". The actual meaning of the phrase is debated in both early Islamic and contemporary sources. According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the term was originally understood as a reference to a site in the heavens. Another group of Islamic scholars understood the story of Muhammad's ascension from al-Aqsa Mosque as relating to Jerusalem. Eventually, a consensus emerged around the identification of the "furthest place of prayer" with Jerusalem, and by implication the Temple Mount.
In 1953, British Islamic scholar Alfred Guillaume suggested that Al-Ju'ranah was the location of Al-Aqsa described in the Qur'an as the destination of Muhammad's Night Journey. He based his theory on the writings of Al-Waqidi and Al-Azraqi. In 1959, French art historian Oleg Grabar wrote this theory was convincing. This theory has received backing from Youssef Ziedan, Mordechai Kedar, Yitzhak Reiter, and Suleiman al-Tarawneh in recent years. These historians also support the view according which the Umayyad dynasty's political objectives contributed to the sanctification of Jerusalem in Islam, as they sought to compete with the religious importance of Mecca, which was then ruled by their rival, Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr. The theory has been criticized as a "claim [which] merely consists of subjective interpretations".
In November 2020, Saudi lawyer Osama Yamani promoted this theory in an opinion article in the Saudi newspaper Okaz. The article sparked outrage from Muslims around the world, with some writers claiming it was fabricated to justify the decision of some Gulf countries to normalize ties with Israel.
^Wāqidī, Muḥammad ibn ʻUmar, or 748-823 (2011). The life of Muḥammad : al-Wāqidī's Kitāb al-maghāzī. Rizwi Faizer, Amal Ismail, Abdulkader Tayob, Andrew Rippin. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. p. 469. ISBN978-0-415-57434-1. OCLC539086931. When he desired to turn back to Medina, he set out from al-Jirrana on Wednesday night, twelve nights remaining in Dhul-Qada. He donned his ihram at the furthest mosque (al-masjid al-Aqsa), which was below the wadi on a remote slope. It was the place of prayer of the Messenger of God when he was in al-Jiranna. As for the closest mosque, a man from the Quraysh built it and he marked that place with it.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^ Grabar, Oleg (1959). "The Umayyad Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem". Ars Orientalis. 3: 33–62. ISSN0571-1371. Bevan has shown that among early traditionists there are many who do not accept the identification of the masjid al-aqsa, and among them are to be found such great names as al-Bukhari and Tabarl. Both Ibn Ishaq an al-Ya'qubi precede their accounts with expressions which indicate that these are stories which are not necessarily accepted as dogma. It was suggested by J. Horovitz that in the early period of Islam there is little justification for assuming that the Koranic expression in any way referred to Jerusalem. But while Horovitz thought that it referred to a place in heaven, A. Guillaume's careful analysis of the earliest texts (al-Waqidi and al-Azraqi, both in the later second century A.H.) has convincingly shown that the Koranic reference to the masjid al-aqsa applies specifically to al-Ji'ranah, near Mekkah, where there were two sanctuaries (masjid al-adnai and masjid al-aqsa), and where Muhammad so-journed in dha al-qa'dah of the eighth year after the Hijrah.
^Khalek, N. (2011). Jerusalem in Medieval Islamic Tradition. Religion Compass, 5(10), 624–630. doi:10.1111/j.1749-8171.2011.00305.x. "One of the most pressing issues in both medieval and contemporary scholarship related to Jerusalem is weather the city is explicitly referenced in the text of the Qur'an. Sura 17, verse 1, which reads [...] has been variously interpreted as referring to the miraculous Night Journey and Ascension of Muhammad, events recorded in medieval sources and known as the isra and miraj. As we will see, this association is a rather late and even a contested one. [...] The earliest Muslim work on the Religious Merits of Jerusalem was the Fada'il Bayt al-Maqdis by al-Walid ibn Hammad al-Ramli (d. 912 CE), a text which is recoverable from later works. [...] He relates the significance of Jerusalem vis-a-vis the Jewish Temple, conflating 'a collage of biblical narratives' and comments pilgrimage to Jerusalem, a practice which was controversial in later Muslim periods."
^ "Miʿrād̲j̲". The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Vol. 7 (New ed. 2006 ed.). Brill. 2006. pp. 97–105. For this verse, tradition gives three interpretations: The oldest one, which disappears from the more recent commentaries, detects an allusion to Muhammad's Ascension to Heaven. This explanation interprets the expression al-masjid al-aksa, "the further place of worship" in the sense of "Heaven" and, in fact, in the older tradition isra is often used as synonymous with miradj (see Isl., vi, 14). The second explanation , the only one given in all the more modern commentaries, interprets masjid al-aksa as "Jerusalem" and this for no very apparent reason. It seems to have been an Umayyad device intended to further the glorification of Jerusalem as against that of the holy territory (cf. Goldziher, Muh. Stud., ii, 55-6; Isl, vi, 13 ff), then ruled by Abd Allah b. al-Zubayr. Al-Tabarl seems to reject it. He does not mention it in his History and seems rather to adopt the first explanation.
^Frederick S. Colby (6 August 2008). Narrating Muhammad's Night Journey: Tracing the Development of the Ibn 'Abbas Ascension Discourse. SUNY Press. p. 15. ISBN978-0-7914-7788-5. Archived from the original on 15 July 2020. Retrieved 14 March 2018. If Muslims interpret the qur'anic phrase "the sacred place of prayer" in diverse ways, one encounters even more debate over the destination of the night journey, the "furthest place of prayer". From the earliest extant Muslim texts, it becomes clear that a group of Muslims from the beginning interpreted "furthest place of prayer" with the city of Jerusalem in general and its Herodian/Solomonic Temple in particular. It is equally clear that other early Muslims disputed this connection, identifying the "furthest place of prayer" instead as a reference to a site in the heavens. Eventually a general consensus formed around the idea that Muhammad's journey did indeed take him to Jerusalem. Even if the night journey verse were thought to refer first and foremost to the terrestrial portion of Muhammad's journey, nevertheless for centuries scholars and storytellers also continued to connect this verse with the idea of an ascent through the levels of the heavens.
^Grabar, Oleg (1959). "The Umayyad Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem". Ars Orientalis. 3: 33–62. ISSN0571-1371. Bevan has shown that among early traditionists there are many who do not accept the identification of the masjid al-aqsd, and among them are to be found such great names as al-Bukhari and Tabarl. Both Ibn Ishaq an al-Ya'qubi precede their accounts with expressions which indicate that these are stories which are not necessarily accepted as dogma. It was suggested by J. Horovitz that in the early period of Islam there is little justification for assuming that the Koranic expression in any way referred to Jerusalem. But while Horovitz thought that it referred to a place in heaven, A. Guillaume's careful analysis of the earliest texts (al-Waqidi and al-Azraqi, both in the later second century A.H.) has convincingly shown that the Koranic reference to the masjid al-aqsa applies specifically to al-Ji'ranah, near Mekkah, where there were two sanctuaries (masjid al-adnai and masjid al-aqsa), and where Muhammad so-journed in dha al-qa'dah of the eighth year after the Hijrah.
^Frederick S. Colby (6 August 2008). Narrating Muhammad's Night Journey: Tracing the Development of the Ibn 'Abbas Ascension Discourse. SUNY Press. p. 15. ISBN978-0-7914-7788-5. Archived from the original on 15 July 2020. Retrieved 14 March 2018. If Muslims interpret the qur'anic phrase "the sacred place of prayer" in diverse ways, one encounters even more debate over the destination of the night journey, the "furthest place of prayer". From the earliest extant Muslim texts, it becomes clear that a group of Muslims from the beginning interpreted "furthest place of prayer" with the city of Jerusalem in general and its Herodian/Solomonic Temple in particular. It is equally clear that other early Muslims disputed this connection, identifying the "furthest place of prayer" instead as a reference to a site in the heavens. Eventually a general consensus formed around the idea that Muhammad's journey did indeed take him to Jerusalem. Even if the night journey verse were thought to refer first and foremost to the terrestrial portion of Muhammad's journey, nevertheless for centuries scholars and storytellers also continued to connect this verse with the idea of an ascent through the levels of the heavens.
^Busse, H. (1968). The sanctity of Jerusalem in Islam. Judaism, 17(4), 441. "Tradition varies as to the location of the Ascension; Syrian local tradition was able to prevail, by maintaining that the Ascension started in Jerusalem rather than in Mecca, directly following the Night Journey".
^A. Guillaume, Where was al-masjid al-Aqsa?, al-Andalus, Vol. 18 (1953)
^Grabar, Oleg (1959). "The Umayyad Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem". Ars Orientalis. 3: 33–62. ISSN0571-1371. Bevan has shown that among early traditionists there are many who do not accept the identification of the masjid al-aqsd, and among them are to be found such great names as al-Bukhari and Tabarl. Both Ibn Ishaq an al-Ya'qubi precede their accounts with expressions which indicate that these are stories which are not necessarily accepted as dogma. It was suggested by J. Horovitz that in the early period of Islam there is little justification for assuming that the Koranic expression in any way referred to Jerusalem. But while Horovitz thought that it referred to a place in heaven, A. Guillaume's careful analysis of the earliest texts (al-Waqidi and al-Azraqi, both in the later second century A.H.) has convincingly shown that the Koranic reference to the masjid al-aqsa applies specifically to al-Ji'ranah, near Mekkah, where there were two sanctuaries (masjid al-adnai and masjid al-aqsa), and where Muhammad so-journed in dha al-qa'dah of the eighth year after the Hijrah.
^"Miʿrād̲j̲". The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Vol. 7 (New ed. 2006 ed.). Brill. 2006. pp. 97–105. For this verse, tradition gives three interpretations: The oldest one, which disappears from the more recent commentaries, detects an allusion to Muhammad's Ascension to Heaven. This explanation interprets the expression al-masjid al-aksa, "the further place of worship" in the sense of "Heaven" and, in fact, in the older tradition isra is often used as synonymous with miradj (see Isl., vi, 14). The second explanation , the only one given in all the more modern commentaries, interprets masjid al-aksa as "Jerusalem" and this for no very apparent reason. It seems to have been an Umayyad device intended to further the glorification of Jerusalem as against that of the holy territory (cf. Goldziher, Muh. Stud., ii, 55-6; Isl, vi, 13 ff), then ruled by Abd Allah b. al-Zubayr. Al-Tabarl seems to reject it. He does not mention it in his History and seems rather to adopt the first explanation.
^Silverman, Jonathan (6 May 2005). "The opposite of holiness". Ynetnews. Archived from the original on 12 September 2006. Retrieved 17 November 2006.
^İsmail Altun, 2017, Müsteşrik Alfred Guillaume’nin Mescid-i Aksâ’nın Yerine Dair Görüşlerine Eleştirel Bir Yaklaşım [A Critical Approach to the Views of Orientalist Alfred Guillame Regarding the Location of al-Masjid al-Aqṣā]: "There is a consensus among classical Sunnī scholars that it is located in the Jerusalem region. It could be said that - excluding the Shiites - there has been no debate among Muslims regarding the place of al-Masjid al-Aqṣā, until the second half of twentieth century. However after that, various claims have been set forth regarding its place; whether it is located in Jerusalem, based on diverse reasons. As far as we could find out, the first person to launch these debates is the British orientalist Alfred Guillaume, with his article published in 1953 regarding the issue... Con- sidering the presented data and evaluations altogether, we come to the conclusion that, Guillaume's claim stating that al-Masjid al-Aqsā is not in Jerusalem but in Ci‘rāne, completely lacks sound evidence and also he attributed false meanings to the texts and this claim merely consists of subjective interpretations put forward by him with a view to proving his theory."
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