Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan retweeted on Wednesday a Saudi user who argued that “from where I'm standing, there is no holy land except Saudi Arabia and no mosque is holy except those in Mecca and Medina.” Dr. Kasab Aletibi was re-stating the views of some Saudi scholars, that according to Wahhabism, the strict Islamic official ideology of Saudi Arabia, Islam needs to be “purified” from elements that were introduced into it during its history. “The sacredness given to it [Al-Aksa] is literary, like any of God's houses, like the mosque here on our block,” the Saudi thinker stated. The Temple Mount, where Al-Aksa is situated, is the most sacred site for religious Jews, who regard it as the location of the Jewish Temple build by King Solomon and the only possible site where a future temple can be built. Most Muslims, however, view the mosque – built on the site where a Byzantine church once stood when Islamic forces conquered the Byzantine controlled land – as the third most sacred site in Islam, after the Kaaba in the Great Mosque of Mecca and the Prophet's Mosque in Medina. Muslims worldwide face Mecca when they pray and are encouraged to visit it at least once during their lifetime. Religious Jews face the Holy of Holies on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
