The world's Muslims should go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem to demonstrate that it is a Muslim city and the future capital of a Palestinian state, an Egyptian parliamentarian was quoted as saying Thursday.
A large group of Muslims praying at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem [file].
Photo: AP
"Just as Muslims go on pilgrimage... to Mecca, they should also go to Jerusalem and to the Al-Aksa Mosque by the hundreds of thousands every year," Minister of Religious Endowments Mohammed Hamdi Zaqzuq was quoted by the Al-Masri Al-Youm newspaper as saying.
"We can show the whole world that Jerusalem is something that concerns all Muslims," Zaqzuq said.
"I invite all Muslims... to go to Jerusalem, even with Israeli visas, and I know full well that I'm exposing myself to virulent attacks," by saying this, Zaqzuq told a conference entitled "Jerusalem from an Islamic point of view."
"If this proposition is followed through, the whole world, and Israel, will have to accept this reality, which is that Jerusalem is for Muslims and they will not give up on it," another newspaper, the state-owned Al-Ahram daily, quoted him as saying.
Zaqzuq lamented that his proposal had so far been rejected "and I am accused of seeking normalization" with Israel.
