Only one location is said to be dedicated to those performing the ritual prayers, as well as the pilgrimage and it is the Kaaba, Becca, the Ancient House and al masjid al haram, all names referring to one same place with the definite article and with almost identical wording 2:125,158,196,3:96-7,9:19,22:26,29, all connecting the Abrahamic legacy to one and the same place. This unquestionably links the Kaaba, Becca, Mecca with some of the most important rituals of Islam.
The revisionist argument that these locations are disconnected and unrelated is based upon the faulty mehtodology of isolating statements out of their direct and wider context. The requirement that a particular Quranic statement needs to be fully detailed in each context is unnecessary. Any type of literary research, especially historical, is done by piecing together related information. Conjecture is stripping statements out of their direct and larger context and ignoring surrounding indicators, then drawing clumsy conclusions.
The turning point of the Quraysh's animosity towards the Prophet was following the Night Journey (isra/miraj): Muhammad was transported, according to tradition on a horse like celestial creature called Al-Buraq.
Heavenly creatures transported previous prophets on otherwordly journeys 2Kings2:11, besides the mention of extraordinary celestial creatures by prophets the likes of Ezekiel. Muhammad was transported from masjid al haram/the inviolable masjid, ie Mecca, to masjid al aqsa/the furthest masjid, ie Jerusalem, then back to Mecca. The event is shortly mentionned in the Quran
17:1"Glory be to Him Who made His servant to go on a night from the Sacred Mosque to the remote mosque of which We have blessed the precincts, so that We may show to him some of Our signs; surely He is the Hearing, the Seeing".
The manner and process in which this occured is not precisely stated in the verse, nor did the prophet leave any clear-cut explanation of this experience. What can be gathered is that in one night, he was made to see and experience the farthest masjid in relation to Mecca at the time, located in Jerusalem, and certain aspects of it, as if he was physically there. This is very similar to the prophet Ezekiel's experience, when
Ezek40:1"the hand of the Lord was upon me, and He brought me there".
Ezekiel here refers to Babylon where he was preaching to the enslaved nation of Israelites, unto Jerusalem, where he would be shown the appearance and measurements of the new temple. This was done in a strong and compulsive way as is so often denoted throughout this book whenever Ezekiel speaks of his revelational experience
"In the visions of God He brought me to the land of Israel, and He placed me on a very lofty mountain..."
Ezekiel was thus "transported" in a manner we cannot fathom "in the visions of God" from one distant place to another, interracting with the physical features of the area
Ezek47:4"..and he led me through water that reached the loins.."
He spoke there with entities addressing him with terms indicating physical presence on site
Ezek40:4"And the man spoke to me, "Son of man, see with your eyes and with your ears hear, and set your heart to all that I am showing you, because in order to show you, you have been brought here; tell all that you see to the House of Israel".
During his metaphysical experience, the prophet prayed and lead the prayer among the prophets of God at masjid al aqsa. On his way back to Mecca, at night, he encountered a caravan in the desert belonging to the Quraysh. He drank their water in their sleep and poured the rest and also saw a camel they had lost on the way.
The next day in Mecca, the prophet publicly spoke of what had occured to him. This was a bold move by the prophet and some Muslims even apostized when they heard his incredible experience. His opponents tried contradicting him by asking a description of the masjid of Jerusalem. It would be very far fetched to claim the Arabs of Hijaz, caravan merchants who frequently travelled to that region, interracting with the Judeo-Christian communities of the peninsula and beyond, were ignorant that the Temple of Jerusalem had been destroyed then. The Quran itself in the same passage states that twice, the Temple was subject to destruction
17:8"that they might destroy whatever they gained ascendancy over with utter destruction".
For them to ask eyewitness testimony means they could falsify his statement in case of wrong answer. But this never happened. The prophet's wordings and descriptions do not suggest that he was speaking of an enclosed building with a roof. Ruins of the Temple had remained there, including parts of the wall surrounding it, as well as other recognizable features. The prophet's opponents asked about a specific detail of the site which they could recognize
"When Quraysh rejected what I said, I stood in al-Hijir and God showed me Bayt al-Maqdis so I started telling them about its signs while looking at it""Some of them said: How many doors are there in that mosque/masjid? I had not counted them so I began to look at it and counted them one by one and gave them information concerning them".
They asked him about the gates. Till this day, these gates can be seen and are known by the names of those that recently rediscovered them. One of these gates is even called "the prophet's gate" through which it is said he entered masjid al aqsa on his night journey. These were the architectural features known to the prophet's enemies, present at the site, and which they pressed him about. Had the story been an anachronism, the hadith would have instead portrayed the prophet as describing some characteristics of the site which did not exist at his time.
As to the prophet refering to the masjid as BAYT, this does not necessarily mean a closed space either. Bayt is used for what provides shelter. It is used in Arabic for a home/house, as well as one's family and even a city. Whether it is in modern day Israel or in the Palestinian territories, in the Hebrew or Arabic, we still find names of cities starting with Bayt, as in Bayt Lahm/Bethlehem, Bayt Lahiya etc. When the prophet was shown Bayt al Maqdis, this could be referring to the city of Jerusalem, more specifically the blessed precincts within 17:1. When the prophet began describing its signs, his opponents pressed him regarding the masjid, the place of prostration within the city/Bayt al maqdis. They did not ask how many gates are there in "bayt al maqdis", rather they wanted to know how many were there in the "masjid" of Bayt al maqdis.
The Quran contains many passages speaking of entering and interracting inside an open area, such as the holy land or even masjid al haram in Mecca, which didnt even have walls at the time of the prophet 5:22,48:27. The Temple of Solomon was a site where Jews prostrated to God. Very devout Jews even considered it the only place fit for a complete prostration. Jewish rituals and prayers, including prostrations were made in that area even before the Temple was built 1Sam1. Hence the appropriateness for the Quran to refer to the area of masjid al aqsa as one
17:1"whose precincts We did bless".
It was a blessed and sacred area, a terminology always associated with the land given to Abraham and those that followed him among the Israelites, including Solomon 5:21,7:137,21:71,81. This is why the Muslims were told to prostrate in that direction when the qibla was first changed. The triliteral root S-J-D lit. means the volontary display of weakness in front of someone in order to show that they are in complete control. The best physical display of that concept for humans is when they prostrate. Masjid is thus the place where that action occurs, it is "the place of prostration".
The word is used for both Muslim and non-Muslim sites 17:7. Whether the place is closed, open or including buildings in which one may prostrate is irrelevant to the meaning of masjid, as seen earlier with the area of masjid al haram. There are narrations where the prophet distinguishes between the Kaaba and the masjid around it, at a time where no building surrounded the area of prostration around the Kaaba
"One should undertake journey to three mosques: the mosque of the Ka’ba, my mosque, and the mosque of Elia".
The Kaaba in itself is not meant for prostration even though one may exceptionally enter it for that purpose. But whether in the prophet's time or later, pilgrims did not practice prostration inside but in the open space around it. The same goes for Masjid al Aqsa today. It is an open area of prostration, once cynically left as a garbage dump by Christians until Umar conquered and restored it. Just as with masjid al haram, this open area of prostration in Jerusalem includes nowadays the dome of the rock (golden roof) and the Qibli mosque originally built by Umar, then expanded 50 years later by the caliph Malik.
The prophet said in the traditions that the entire Earth was made a masjid for him so that his followers can pray wherever the time of a prayer is due. Early mosques that were nothing but a few stones arranged to mark the mihrab (direction of Kaaba), like those of the Negev region, attest to the fact that a masjid does not need to be a building. This is in accordance with the prophet's teachings. He disliked extravagance and impressive architecture in buildings, especially mosques. Later, this word was used to designate Islamic places of worship in particular.
Further reading answering Sam Shamoun "Another Verse That Exposes Muhammad as a Fraud: The Nonexistent Temple"
