Historical Developments: Israel Scattered,
The Church Age, and The Rise of Islam

This chapter serves as an annex to Section Two. It traces the major movements of Israel
and the Church during the past two thousand years. It also includes highlights of the rise of Islam
as it affects Israel and the Church. It is not possible to recognize the rapid fulfillment of prophecy
in these days without understanding the impact of radical Islamic history.
The birth and growth of the early Church was a tumultuous season of change as God
began to move in the power of his Spirit to bring men and women into the New Covenant
relationship. The book of Acts tells us about the first three decades of the Works of the Spirit
through the Apostles, beginning with Peter’s mighty sermon on the Day of Pentecost. Within
months the believing community in Jerusalem, (all Jews), who followed Jesus (Yeshua),
numbered several thousand.
The Apostles instituted a division of responsibility in the Church by appointing elders to
oversee teaching and deacons to be responsible for serving and meeting the immediate physical
needs of people in the assembly. Among the newly appointed deacons were two great teachers:
Philip the Evangelist and a young man named Stephen. Stephen’s stirring speech (Acts 6-7),
recounting the history of the Jews to the assembled crowds on the Temple Mount, resulted in his
own death by stoning–and this was quickly followed by growing persecution of the “Way” of
Jesus. The opposition came from the traditionally-oriented elements of Jewish leadership.
Jews who had given their allegiance to Jesus moved in large numbers to other countries
beginning what would be later known as the great “Diaspora” of the Jewish people. Their
exodus from their own land would continue for the next 1900 years. Later, as Jewish rebellion
against Roman rule continued, the Romans began to forcefully expel the land of its residents,
leaving Eretz Israel (the land of Israel) nearly empty of the Jewish people of all classes and
belief.
It was soon obvious to the followers of Jesus (the early Church) that God in his sovereign
movement in history was also adding multitudes of Gentiles to the Body of Christ. A young
Pharisee named Saul was responsible for the persecution of Christians, and was present when
Stephen was killed. He was suddenly converted on the road to Damascus, and within a decade
became the mighty Apostle Paul. He was called specifically by the Lord to spearhead the world
wide evangelism of the Gentiles.
Peter meanwhile led the Apostles who were to focus on bringing the good news of Jesus
to Jewish communities beyond the borders of Israel. The other disciples scattered near and far,
carrying the message of Jesus to all lands and peoples.
So it was that the focal point of Christianity moved quickly out of Jerusalem to Antioch–
about 300 miles to the North–in Syria. While there remained a strong but persecuted Church in
Jerusalem, the rapid growth of the Church was now in Asia Minor, in Africa, Europe and India.
Jewish resistance to Roman rule in Jerusalem increased in cycles until finally Jerusalem became
off limits to Jews all together. Most of the Jews in Israel were forced to flee to foreign lands.
They remained in these countries for the next 19 centuries in small communities where their
culture and values could be preserved.
The history of Israel in the Diaspora is an utterly amazing chapter of world history,
virtually unknown by most Christians today, yet it is a subject most worthy of study. Often illtreated,
forcefully converted, persecuted and frequently killed, these amazing people persisted.
God watched over them as he had promised through Ezekiel long ago. He would bring them
back to the land when the out-calling of the Church was complete (Ezekiel 11:14-21).
The definitive history of the Christian Church has not yet been written. The book of Acts
was just the introduction; the whole story remains yet to be told in full. But all the evidence
suggests that the end of the age of the Church is now very near.
After most of the Jews left their homeland in the second Century of this era, the land fell
into disuse. Once cultivated land reverted to desert and fresh water lakes became useless silted
marshes. The land was rocky and devoid of mineral resources in the first place, of little use to
anyone except wandering tribes of Bedouins with their flocks, and a few caravan-route travelers.
The great ancient civilizations that had ruled the ancient world–Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece
and Rome–had long since faded away, and the Holy Land became an unimportant part of the
Byzantine Empire. The Emperor Constantine had made Christianity the official state religion of
the Roman Empire with headquarters in Constantinople. Foreign rule of Israel by the shifting
Gentile world powers (as Jesus predicted) continued. Israel was visited by occasional tourists but
the surrounding nations were also poor and backward, not at all the great world powers they once
had been. Small numbers of Jews continued to live in the land. They succeeded in preserving the
Jewish heritage so that it could later blossom again into life in the Return to the land in our day.

The Rise of Islam
Mohammed

Mohammed instituted a third major monotheistic religion during the 7th Century AD. He
was born in Mecca, Arabia about AD 570. He was familiar with Jewish and Christian beliefs and
supposedly received revelations from an angel. He was rejected by his associates and migrated to
Medina in 622. This marks the beginning of the Islamic era.
Two years later Mohammed and his followers defeated the Meccans at the Battle of Badr.
In 630 he conquered Mecca and made it the spiritual center of Islam. His goal was to unite the
warring tribes under one chief God, whom he called Allah.52

The Spread of Islam

Mohammed died in 632, and was succeeded by Abu Bakr, who was the first Caliph, or
successor of Mohammed.
53 Between 633 and 643 his followers conquered Syria and Iraq
(ancient Babylon), the Holy Land, Egypt and Persia.
By 656 the first official version of the Qur‘an was established. As time went on,
Mohammed‘s followers experienced disputes and civil war. Shiite extremism, the belief system
that gave rise to modern Islamic terrorism, began in 685.
Jerusalem was evidently not considered of great importance to the Muslim armies. They
first called the city Ilya (Aelia Capitolina) rather than Beit el-Maqdas (the holy house). An early
Muslim proverb says, “One prayer in Mecca is valued as ten thousand prayers; a prayer in
Medina is valued at one thousand prayers; and a prayer in Jerusalem at five hundred prayers.”54

The Dome of the Rock

The rest of this section is taken from The Temple Mount website by permission.55
Although Abd El-Malik had commissioned the structure, it became known as “The
Mosque of Omar.‖ The structure, however, was not (and is not today) a mosque, but rather a
shrine.
Inside the Dome is an outcropping of the bedrock of Mount Moriah, the “Sacred Rock.”
On the rock’s pock-marked surface is one indentation, which Muslims believe is the footprint left
by Mohammed as he leapt into heaven. (Pilgrims over the centuries have whittled off pieces of
the rock. The Crusaders especially were known to chip “holy souvenirs” from it.) Mount Moriah
is a long, extended hill in Jerusalem, extending north from the City of David and beyond the
present North wall of the Old City. That same hill is the traditional site of Abraham’s sacrificial
altar for Isaac, the threshing floor or Araunah, and the site of the First and the Second Temple.
The Foundation Stone is not solid. Beneath it is a cave and a well, known as “the well of
souls.”
East of the exposed bedrock in the Dome of the Rock is a tall cupboard where it is
believed hairs from the beard of Mohammed are kept. Within the hollowed out chamber of under
the rock are the “places of prayer” of Elijah, Abraham, David, and Solomon. The Muslims call
this cave the “well of souls” where they believe the dead meet twice a week to pray.
In medieval times this spot was considered to be the “center of the world” and was
marked such on maps. Since the rock under the Dome of the Rock, where the cave is, shows the
effects of quarrying above the level of the cave, it is logical to hold that the rock stood higher
originally and that the threshing floor surrounded the rock and the cave.
The exterior of the Dome is covered with tiles from Persia as well as marble. The
“Golden Dome” is not made out of gold but rather anodized aluminum. The original dome was
wooden, later covered with brass, and then lead sheathing in 1448. The excess weight of the
lead-clad dome caused grave concern for the entire building because of periodic severe
earthquakes in Jerusalem and finally the anodized aluminum dome was installed. Most recently,
in 1993, a million dollars in gold foil was provided by the government of Saudi Arabia as a gift.
As of this writing the installation of the gold leaf has now been completed and the dome is today
resplendent in brilliant pure gold.
During the seventeen centuries of the Dome’s existence it has undergone many repairs,
but it has not been substantially changed in overall appearance since its completion in AD 691.
After one of the earliest renovations in A. D 820, Caliph al-Mamun removed the name of Caliph
Abd el-Malik from the dedication plate and inserted his own name instead. However he
neglected to change the dates and his fraud is there for all to see.

The Dome’s Beauty

Writing about A. D 985, Mukadassi, the famous Muslim traveler born in Jerusalem,
wrote:
At the dawn, when the light of the sun first strikes on the cupola and the drum catches the rays,
then is this edifice a marvelous site to behold and one such that in all Islam I have never seen its
equal; neither have I heard tell of aught built in pagan times that could rival in grace this Dome of
the Rock.

A Denial of Christianity
From the Muslim point of view the Dome of the Rock was an answer to and a denial of
the attractions of Christianity and its Scriptures, providing the “faithful” with arguments to be
used against Christian theology.58 The inscriptions are seven hundred and thirty-four feet long in
all, amongst the lengthiest inscriptions in the world. There is a great amount of repetition and
many quotations from the Qur‘an.
The following extracts are relevant:
Inner Face: South Wall. “In the name of Allah the Merciful the Compassionate. There is no
God but Allah alone; he has no co-partner. He is the Kingship and his the praise. He giveth life
and He causeth to die, and He hath power over everything.”
South-East Wall. “Verily Allah and his angels pronounce blessing upon the Prophet. O ye who
have pronounced blessings upon him and give him the salutation of peace. O, People of the Book
[i. e. the Jews and Christians always referred to as such by the Muslims] do not go beyond the
bounds in your religion and do not say about Allah anything but the truth. The Messiah, Jesus,
son of Mary, is but a messenger of Allah and his word which he cast upon Mary, and a spirit
from him. So believe only in Allah and of his messenger, but do not say “Three” [Trinity] and it
will be better for you. Allah is only one God. Far be it from his glory that he should have a son.”
North Wall. “The Messiah will not deign to be in the service of Allah nor will the angels who
stand in his presence. O Allah; pray upon Thy messenger “the servant Jesus – [N-W Wall] the
son of Mary and peace be upon him the day of his birth, the day of his death and the day of his
being raised alive. That is Jesus, son of Mary – a statement concerning which YOU are in doubt.
It is not for Allah to take for himself any offspring, glory be to him.”
West Wall. “Allah bears witness that there is no God but him, likewise the angels and the people
possessed of knowledge [S-W WALL] – Upholding justice. There is no God but He, the
Almighty and All wise. Verily, the religion in Allah’s sight is Islam.”
Outer Face: West and North-West Walls. “In the name of Allah the Merciful and
Compassionate. There is no God but Allah alone. Praise be to Allah who hath not taken to
himself offspring. To him there has never been any person in the sovereignty. Mohammed is the
messenger of Allah, may God pray upon him and accept his intercession.”
“Praise be God who has not taken unto himself a son and who has no partner in
sovereignty nor has He any protector on account of weakness.”
If religious Jews are offended by the presence of this Islamic shrine on their holy
mountain, Christians have even more reasons to take offense at these misrepresentations of the
character of their God, and the deliberate insults to biblical revelation that the interior
inscriptions clearly intend.
Since it is an historical fact that Mohammed never came to Jerusalem, why is the Temple
Mount considered holy to Muslims? One passage from the Qur‘an does link Mohammed with
Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. It is the seventeenth Sura, entitled “The Night Journey.‖ In
this Sura there is a dream or vision by Mohammed in which he is carried by night “from the
sacred temple to the temple that is more remote, whose precinct we have blessed, that we might
show him of our signs.”
Islamic tradition identifies the first temple as Mecca and the second as Jerusalem.
Mohammed’s journey was with the Archangel Gabriel. Muslim belief says they rode together on
a winged steed called El Burak (“lightning”). El Burak is not mentioned in the Qur‘an, its first
mention is two centuries after Mohammed’s death in a document called Hadith, a collection of
oral traditions.
After they arrived at the Temple Mount, tradition says that Mohammed and his horse
ascended through the seven heavens into Allah’s presence. Various spots on the Mount were later
indicated as the place where El Burak was tied up before the ascent into the presence of Allah.
Al-Aqsa Mosque59
Al-Aqsa is a large mosque built on the Temple Mount south of the Dome of the Rock. It
is mentioned in the Qur‘an in a vision of Mohammed’s ascension. It means the “distant place.”
This refers to its geographical location far from Mecca. Al-Aqsa is regularly referred to as
Islam’s third holiest shrine after Mecca and Medina. The present mosque is believed to stand
over the area where Solomon built his magnificent palace south of the Temple.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque was built between A. D. 709-715 probably by Caliph Waleed, son
of Abdel-Malik, the man who constructed the Dome of the Rock. Throughout the years the
mosque has been destroyed several times by earthquakes and subsequently rebuilt. The most
prominent remains of the original mosque that has survived are a few supporting columns east of
the cupola.
The most important reconstruction was after an earthquake in AD 1034 when the mosque
was enlarged to house 5000 worshipers. The builders used capitals and columns of destroyed
Byzantine churches in their reconstruction work.
Jewish Hopes under Islam60
The conquering Muslims brought a different attitude with them. In contrast to the
Byzantine and Roman conquerors, who let the Temple Mount remain in ruins as a proof of the
destruction of Jewish nationalism, the Muslims restored worship to the Mount. Yet the worship
was not of Yahweh, the God of the Bible, but of Allah.
When the Muslims became the rulers in Jerusalem some matters became easier for the
Jews. They were officially allowed to live in the city and there is evidence that on certain holy
days they were even permitted on the Temple Mount.
Reports say that the Jews would march in procession around the walls of the Temple
Mount on feast days and pray at the gates. A document written in the tenth century indicates that
one of the conditions for allowing the Jews to pray at the gates was that the Jewish community
would be responsible for keeping the Mount clean. The Jews, the document states, were
responsible to sweep the Mount. Other accounts indicate that Jews were employed in the Mosque
area and that Jewish craftsmen made lamps for the Mosque.
The Mishna (Berachot 9:5) reveals that the Jews of all ages are required to show reverence for
the site of their former temples:
No man shall behave frivolously when standing near the eastern gate, which looks to the Holy of
Holies: he shall not enter the temple mount with his cane, his shoes, his purse, or the dust on his
feet, nor shall he use it as a short cut, still less shall he spit there.
Inscriptions have been found at the gates of the Temple Mount that were probably put
there by Jewish Pilgrims during the early Arab rule. One such inscription, when translated, reads:
“You Lord of Hosts build this House in the lifetime of Jacob ben-Joseph, Theophylactus, and
Sisinia and Anistasia. Amen and amen. ”
The names on the inscription indicate they were Jews from a Greek-speaking country.
Though the Jews were allowed more access than in the Roman or Byzantine period, they were
still far from their desired goal of retaking Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.