The major financial groups in the West are controlled by Jews, so whether it is the United States, the United Kingdom, or some European countries, Jewish ideas must be considered and taken into account. As the birthplace of Christian culture, Jerusalem is naturally a holy place that the West cannot lose.
Jerusalem is located at 31 degrees 47 minutes north latitude, 35 degrees 15 minutes east longitude, with an altitude of about 760 meters. It has a Mediterranean climate, with warm winters and cool summers, and moderate precipitation. 60 kilometers to the west of Jerusalem is Tel Aviv and the Mediterranean Sea, and 35 kilometers to the east is the Dead Sea, the lowest buoyant point on the earth's surface.
Jerusalem, known as "Jerbus" in ancient times, means "city of peace" and is the birthplace of the three major religions of Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Religion and tradition, history and theology, as well as sacred places and houses of prayer, make Jerusalem a holy city revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims.
From 1517 until World War I, Jerusalem was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Jesus was born in a cave called Mahd. Jesus studied in Jerusalem when he was young, and later preached here and called himself Christ.
He was later crucified on a cross outside the city by the Jewish authorities and buried there. In 335 AD, Queen Mother Helena, the mother of the ancient Roman Emperor Constantine I, traveled to Jerusalem and built a Church of the Resurrection, also known as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, on the tomb of Jesus. Therefore, Christians regard Jerusalem as a holy place.
The development and evolution of Western culture is inextricably linked to Christianity. It can be said that Christianity constitutes an important spiritual foundation of Western culture. For more than a thousand years in the Middle Ages, Christianity, as the only religious belief and absolute ideology in Western Europe, deeply penetrated into all aspects of social life, molded the basic spirit of Western culture and cultivated the psychological habits of Westerners. .
The subsequent religious reform fundamentally changed the political, economic and cultural structure of Western European society, promoted the emergence of the spirit of freedom, the rise of nation-states and the development of the capitalist economy, and became the modernization of Western culture. The starting point of transformation. To this day, Christianity is still the mainstream belief shared by modern Westerners with good scientific literacy.
The "Resurrection of Jesus" made Jerusalem a holy place for Christianity.
Although Christians have been making pilgrimages to Jerusalem for a long time, what really made it a Christian holy city was the pilgrimage of Queen Mother Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, to Jerusalem in 326 AD.
It is said that Queen Mother Helena discovered the cross on which Jesus was crucified and the cemetery where he was buried in Jerusalem, so she built the famous "Cathedral of the Holy Sepulchre" (also known as the "Church of the Resurrection") in Jerusalem. ”), said to be the place where Jesus was crucified and resurrected. Helena also built a "Cathedral of the Nativity" in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus.
The first Christian churches were completed in 336 AD. This means that from that time on, Jerusalem became an irreplaceable and permanent holy site for Christianity.
By the 6th century AD, the Roman Emperor Justinian built more Christian churches and monasteries in Jerusalem. The prosperity of Christianity in Jerusalem did not end until the Persian invasion in 614 AD.
After the rise of Islam, Muslims, Jews and Christians basically lived in peace for four centuries. Although the European Crusaders briefly controlled Palestine from the 11th to 13th centuries, and tens of thousands of Muslims and Jews were massacred, the area was eventually recaptured by the Muslims.
Although Christian forces have lost control of Jerusalem, Christians can still come for pilgrimage and residence. To this day, tens of thousands of Christians from all over the world come every year to make pilgrimages and hold religious activities, especially around Christmas and Easter. Christians of all colors often crowd the narrow streets of Jerusalem.
In Islam, Jerusalem is the third holiest place after Mecca and Medina. The Arabs also called Jerusalem "Qudes", which means "Holy City".
According to legend, one night in the ninth year after the founding of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad suddenly heard an angel calling him. The angel took him on a flying horse from Mecca to Jerusalem. He met the prophets Ibrahim (Abraham in the Bible), Musa (Moses) and Jesus in the "Far Temple", and talked with all the prophets. He also stepped on a huge stone to the seventh heaven and listened to the teachings of Allah.
The "Night Journey" chapter of Islam's holy classic "Quran" is the inspired scripture obtained during this night journey to the sky.
When the Arabs defeated the Byzantines and conquered Jerusalem, they built two magnificent mosques where Muhammad ascended to the sky. One is called the "Sahlei Mosque" ("Sahlei" means rock in Arabic). Under the large golden dome is the huge stone that Muhammad stepped on to reach heaven. The other one is called "Al-Aqsa Mosque". "Aqsa" means "distant" in Arabic, because Muhammad once walked here from the distant Mecca to ascend the sky at night.
In the early days of Islam, Jerusalem was the direction of worship for Muslims. It was not until Muhammad led his army to conquer Mecca that he changed the direction of qibla from facing Jerusalem to facing Mecca.
After the completion of the Sahlei Mosque and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, centered on these two mosques and their spacious courtyards surrounded by high walls, Jerusalem became the center of Islam after Mecca and Medina. the third holy place.
Muhammad once praised Jerusalem like this:
O Jerusalem, God has chosen among all his lands, here is his chosen servant. The world unfolds from here, and will be closed from here like a scroll. The dew that falls on Jerusalem heals all diseases because it comes from the garden of heaven.
These intertwined histories and legends have led various religions to claim that Jerusalem is their holy land.