Middle East Monitor / August 19, 2020
The Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, said in a statement yesterday that it is religiously prohibited to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque through the process of political normalisation of another country with Israel, according to a fatwa he issued in 2014.
Hussein said that the fatwa has permitted the visits to Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa within certain criteria, stressing that normalisation is not one of them. His words come days after US President Donald Trump announced a peace deal between the UAE and Israel brokered by Washington.
The Mufti said, “We affirm that the prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque is open to those who come from the legitimate Palestinian gate, or through the Jordanian government, which is the guardian of the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem.
“He added that praying at Al-Aqsa “is not for the one who normalises and uses this issue as a means to deal with the sinful deal of the century, and normalisation is one of the manifestations of this deal, and everything that came through it is void, and forbidden according to Islamic jurisprudence because it abandons Jerusalem, which the deal of the century considers the capital of Israel.
“The statement stressed that “the visit to the Palestinian land should be an affirmation of its Arab and Islamic identity and a rejection of the occupation”.
