Op-ed in official PA daily: Hebrew did not exist in the past
Op-ed by Hafez Al-Barghouti, regular columnist for Al-Hayat Al-Jadida
“Egyptian author Youssef Ziedan said something that no one before him had said – that Al-Quds (i.e., the Arabic name for Jerusalem) is a Hebrew word, and that the present Al-Aqsa Mosque was built by Abd Al-Malik Ibn Marwan (the 5th Umayyad caliph. –Ed.), and the original mosque is on the road to Ta'if (city in Saudi Arabia –Ed.), and raised doubts about [Prophet] Muhammad’s Night Journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and his Ascent to Heaven.
Of course we are not interested in getting into a religious or linguistic debate with the author, but he knows better than others that a Hebrew language did not exist, and that the language of the Jews was Aramaic, and to this very day it [Hebrew] is a mixture of Canaanite, Aramaic, and Arabic…
Moreover, the word ‘Quds’ does not exist in today’s Jewish language, but was employed in Arabic later on as a reference to the holy places within it [Jerusalem].
[Jerusalem] was called Aelia [Capitolina] (Roman colony built on the ruins of Jerusalem in 136 AD following the Bar Kochba Revolt, and it was conquered by the Persians in 614 AD –Ed.) at the time of the Prophet [Muhammad], peace and blessing be upon him, and before that Ursalim, and the Jews called it Jerusalem, and before that – Jebus.”
“Egyptian author Youssef Ziedan said something that no one before him had said – that Al-Quds (i.e., the Arabic name for Jerusalem) is a Hebrew word, and that the present Al-Aqsa Mosque was built by Abd Al-Malik Ibn Marwan (the 5th Umayyad caliph. –Ed.), and the original mosque is on the road to Ta'if (city in Saudi Arabia –Ed.), and raised doubts about [Prophet] Muhammad’s Night Journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and his Ascent to Heaven.
Of course we are not interested in getting into a religious or linguistic debate with the author, but he knows better than others that a Hebrew language did not exist, and that the language of the Jews was Aramaic, and to this very day it [Hebrew] is a mixture of Canaanite, Aramaic, and Arabic…
Moreover, the word ‘Quds’ does not exist in today’s Jewish language, but was employed in Arabic later on as a reference to the holy places within it [Jerusalem].
[Jerusalem] was called Aelia [Capitolina] (Roman colony built on the ruins of Jerusalem in 136 AD following the Bar Kochba Revolt, and it was conquered by the Persians in 614 AD –Ed.) at the time of the Prophet [Muhammad], peace and blessing be upon him, and before that Ursalim, and the Jews called it Jerusalem, and before that – Jebus.”