I've just realised...

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

 ...that this blog is now a year old.  The first post was in March 2010 and here we are now coming towards the end of May 2011.

In that time the blog has had almost 6,000 hits, including readers from the UK, the States, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Canada, the UAE, Indonesia, Australia, Africa, Germany, Russia, Egypt, the Palestinian Territories and Israel.  Of those, the overwhelming majority are from the UK and US.  I'm not sure why Blogger thinks I would be remotely interested in which operating system readers are using, but it was nice to see that Virtues of Al Quds has made it onto someone's ipad mashaAllah :).

I pray that those of you who are reading this blog- whoever and wherever you are, however many you are and whatever each of you believes- you are benefiting from it.  And I pray that your benefiting in turn leads to benefiting Al Quds, all of Palestine and its people.  May Allah bring peace to this land and its inhabitants. Aameen.

Sulayman continued: Rebuilding Masjid Al Aqsa

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Sulayman (as) undertook a very important task during his lifetime; he rebuilt and expanded Masjid Al Aqsa.  Although the Jewish people claim that Sulayman (as) was the one to originally build the masjid, which they call ‘Solomon’s Temple’, Muslims believe he in fact rebuilt what was originally constructed before his time.

After rebuilding Masjid Al Aqsa Sulayman (as) made three special supplications to Allah.  A hadith of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) reveals what these supplications were:

“When Solomon completed the building of Bait ul Maqdis [i.e. Masjid Al Aqsa], he asked Allah for three favours, of which he was given only two, and we hope that the third favour will be for us.  Solomon asked for judgement that could correspond to the Judgement of Allah, and Allah accepted his prayer in this request.  He also asked for a kingdom which nobody could be given after him, and this prayer was also accepted.  He also asked Allah that anyone who leaves his home only for the purpose of prayer in his mosque, all his sins may be forgiven to become like the day he was born.  We hope that this one Allah may grant it to us.” (Ahmad)

While Sulayman (as) was personally granted the acceptance of the first two of his supplications, the third dua was made for all believers who would come after him.  This is why Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said that we (Muslims) hope that this dua is fulfilled for us if we go to Masjid Al Aqsa sincerely for the purpose of praying there.