This painting of Jerusalem is by the British artist Ben Johnson. It is one of a set of paintings commissioned by Sir David Khalili to promote between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Temple Mount is visible in the foreground.
The Temple Mount (Har Habayit, Haram al-Sharif) is a hill in the Old City of Jerusalem. It has been venerated as a holy site for thousands of years in Judaism and Islam. It also important in Christianity.
The Temple Mount is the place where the First and Second Temples are believed to have stood. It is also believed to be the place where Abraham took his son to be sacrificed. Along with the nearby Western Wall, the Temple Mount is one of the holiest sites in Judaism.
The Al-Aqsa mosque compound atop the site, is the second oldest mosque and one of the holiest sites in Islam. The compound includes the location regarded as where the Islamic prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. The Dome of the Rock, near the centre of the hill, is the oldest surviving Islamic structure in the world.
In the New Testament, Herod’s Temple was the site of several events in the life of Jesus.
The site has been a centre of political and religious tension for many years.
Text adapted from English Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0.
