Temple Mount from the Mount of Olives. June 2018
[from FB post: June 17, 2018}
I climbed many steps to the Mount of Olives and watched the sun set over the old city until I heard the maghrib athan of Al Aqsa. Great moments in life.
The Mount of Olives across from the old city has one of the oldest, largest, and most important Jewish cemeteries in the world. Prophets are buried there (Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi); one of Mary's (mother of Jesus) purported tombs is at its foot; and modern Israeli statespeople (like Menachem Begin) are interred there, too. The Garden of Gethsemane is at its base. The place is steeped in Judeo-Christian history and the views over to the old city, especially the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock, are splendid.
I was there at maghrib - the sunset prayer of the five required prayers of Muslims.
Having lived in a few Muslim countries, if I had to pick the most important prayer of the day, it would be maghrib (they are all equal in reality). Some of the first words I learned in Indonesian were "habis magrib" (after sunset prayer). It was such a defining moment of the day - finish work, take a bath, pray magrib and only then could evening activities begin. You could NEVER ask anyone to do anything before maghrib unless it was much earlier in the day. Saudi Arabia was similar. Things opened and came alive AFTER mahgrib. Iraq followed the same pattern - after sunset was when the "leisure day" really began.
On one of Brian and my visits to Cairo we were at the Pyramids at sunset and I climbed up onto the edge of the Giza Escarpment to watch the sunset and listen to Cairo come alive with the sound of sunset call to prayer. It was magical.
My most recent maghrib experience, though, was on that famous hilltop just outside of the old city in Jerusalem. I had walked by the entrances to the Garden of Gethsemane (wow) and Mary's tomb (less wow - it was the third one I had seen) and then made the steep climb to the top of the hill. I was racing the sunset. I wanted to be there for the moment the sun dipped below the horizon to catch its last gleaming rays on the Dome of the Rock. Considering how famous the place was, I got a little panicky-turned-around at the top due to a conspicuous lack of signage. I located the necropolis in time and found a good viewpoint. Unfortunately, it was a hazy, cloudy end to the day. No late afternoon rays on that iconic golden dome. I had to be content just looking out over the city.
Then the athan (call to prayer) started as all the mosques across the old city and the Palestinian neighborhoods woke up to the dying of the sun. The sound was like a days end lament and wafted up through Gethsemane's trees and over the old Jewish tombs to the top of the Mount of Olives. It was from this place that Jesus was supposed to have ascended to heaven. I have to admit - he sure knew how to pick a good spot.
Hearing the magrib athan over the old city of Jerusalem was one of my pinnacle travel moments. Even if I didn't understand the words and it wasn't my religion, I felt deeply contented to take part in a beautiful ending to a day over a city that has known so much joy and so much sadness.
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