MOSLEM HOLY PLACES

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 138, 8 December 1931, Page 7

MOSLEM HOLY PLACES

CONGRESS IN JERUSALEM

AMAZING SCENES

JEBUaALBM, 7th December.

There were amazing scenes at tho opening of the Moslem Congress in the famous" Alaqsa Mogque to discuss the protection of the Moslem holy places. '

When Dr. Abdel, Hamid, an Egyptian, in a fiery speech, declared that all present must protect the Alaqsa Mosque, which has the Jewish Wailing Wall on the western side, with the last drop of blood, tho whole assembly rose shouting "Allah! Allah!" Suleiman Bey Fawsi shouted: "There is only one man in Egypt—that's Fuad." The audience beat him with sticks, and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem rushed up and protected the fallen man until the police arrived and carried him out.

The "Wailing Wall" is Sacred to Moslem and Jew alike. It is the only surviving vestige of Solomon's Temple, and is also the site of the stabling, of "Burak," the mythical horse on which Mohammed, in one night, bounded, from Medina to Jerusalem on the way to Heaven. It was proposed that a general commission should be set up as provided in the terms of Article fourteen of the Palestine Mandate, but this was found impossible, and the British Government obtained permission from the League of Nations to appoint a commission to report on the claims and determine the rights in the dispute between Moslems and Jews about the "Wailing Wall." The Commission, which was neutral, was composed of a Swede, a Swiss, and a Dutchman, and it determined that "to the Moslems belong the sole ownership of and the gole proprietary right to the Western Wall ("Wailing Wall"), seeing that it forms an integral part of the Haramesh-Sherif area which is a Wakf property." The Commission determined that the Moslems owned the pavement in front of the wall, and that the objects of worship which the Jews were entitled to place near the Wall did not give them any-proprietary rights. On the other hand, the Moslems werel not allowed to interfere with the access of the Jews to the Wall.