The importance of
      al-Quds for the Muslims – and do the Jews have any right to it?
Question

                As a muslim, I am always told that the city of Jerusalem is important to us.  But why? I am aware that Prophet Yaqoob built the Asqa Mosque in it and that Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h) led the previous Prophets in prayer signigying the unity of the message and all divine revelations; are there any other major reason or is it just because it is that we are dealing with Jews.  It seems to me that the Jews have more stake to it.
Praise be to Allah.Firstly: with
      regard to the importance of Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem), you should know
      – may Allaah bless you –that the virtues of Bayt al-Maqdis are many:
-Allaah has
        described it in the Qur’aan as being blessed. He said (interpretation
        of the meaning): “Glorified
        (and Exalted) be He (Allaah) Who took His slave (Muhammad) for a journey
        by night from Al-Masjid Al-Haraam (at Makkah) to
        Al-Masjid Al-Aqsaa (in Jerusalem), the neighbourhood whereof
        We have blessed…” [al-Israa’ 17:1].
        Al-Quds is part of the neighbourhood surrounding the mosque and hence it
        is blessed.
-Allaah has described
      it as being holy, as He says (interpretation of the meaning): “[Moosa
      said:] O my people! Enter the holy land (Palestine) which Allaah has
      assigned to you…” [al-Maa’idah 5:21]
-In al-Quds there is
      al-Masjid al-Aqsaa, and one prayer there is equivalent to two hundred and
      fifty prayers elsewhere.
It
      was reported that Abu Dharr (may Allaah be pleased with him) said: we were
      discussing, in the presence of the Prophet 
 (peace and blessings of
      Allaah be upon him), which of them was more virtuous, the mosque of the
      Messenger of Allaah 
 (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) or
      Bayt al-Maqdis. The Messenger of Allaah 
 (peace and blessings of
      Allaah be upon him) said: One prayer in my mosque is better than four
      prayers there, but it is still a good place of prayer. Soon there will
      come a time when if a man has a spot of land as big as his horse’s rope
      from which he can see Bayt al-Maqdis, that will be better for him than the
      whole world. (Narrated and
      classed as saheeh by al-Haakim, 4/509. Al-Dhahabi and al-Albaani agreed
      with him, as stated in al-Silsilah al-Saheehah, at the end
      of the discussion of hadeeth no. 2902). 
 One
      prayer in al-Masjid al-Nabawi is equivalent to one thousand prayers
      elsewhere, so one prayer in al-Masjid al-Aqsaa is equivalent to two
      hundred and fifty prayers elsewhere. 
With regard to
      the famous hadeeth which says that prayer in al-Masjid al-Aqsaa is
      equivalent to five hundred prayers elsewhere, this is da’eef (weak).
      (See Tamaam al-Minnah [?] by Shaykh al-Albaani – may Allaah havemercy on him – p. 292).
-The one-eyed
        Dajjaal (“Antichrist”) will not enter it, because of the hadeeth,
        “He will prevail over all the earth, apart from al-Haram [in Makkah]
        and Bayt al-Maqdis.” (Narrated by Ahmad, 19665. Classed as saheeh by
        Ibn Khuzaymah, 2/327, and Ibn Hibbaan, 7/102).
-The Dajjaal will be
      killed close to al-Quds. He will be killed by the Messiah ‘Eesa ibn
      Maryam (peace be upon him), as was stated in the hadeeth: “The son of
      Maryam will kill the Dajjaal at the gates of Ludd.” (Narrated by Muslim,
      2937, from the hadeeth of al-Nawwaas ibn Sam’aan). Ludd (Lod) is a place
      near Bayt al-Maqdis.
-The Messenger 
      (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) was taken to Bayt al-Maqdis on
      his Night Journey (al-Israa’) from al-Masjid al-Haraam to
      al-Masjid al-Aqsaa. Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning): “Glorified
      (and Exalted) be He (Allaah) Who took His slave (Muhammad) for a journey
      by night from Al-Masjid Al-Haraam (at Makkah) to
      Al-Masjid Al-Aqsaa (in Jerusalem)…” [al-Israa’ 17:1].
      
-It (al-Quds) was the
      first qiblah of the Muslims, as was reported by al-Baraa’ (may Allaah be
      pleased with him): the Messenger of Allaah 
      (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) prayed in the direction of
      Bayt al-Maqdis for sixteen or seventeen months. (Narrated by al-Bukhaari,
      41 – this version was narrated by him – and by Muslim, 525).
-It is the place
      where Wahy (Revelation) came down, and it is the homeland of the
      Prophets. This is well known.
-It is one of the
      mosques to which people may travel.
 Abu
      Hurayrah (may Allaah be pleased with him) reported that the Prophet 
      (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “No journey should be
      made except to three mosques, al-Masjid al-Haraam, Masjid al-Rasool 
      (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) and Masjid al-Aqsaa.”
      (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 1132. Also narrated by Muslim, 827, from the
      hadeeth of Abu Sa’eed al-Khudri, with the words, “Do not travel except
      to…”).
-The Messenger 
      (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) led the Prophets in one prayer
      in al-Aqsaa, as reported in the lengthyhadeeth: “… Then the time for prayer came, and I led them
      in prayer.” (Narrated by Muslim, 172, from the hadeeth of Abu Hurayrah).
It is not
      permissible to travel to any spot on earth for the purpose of worshipping
      there, except these three mosques.
Secondly:
The fact that
      Ya’qoob (peace be upon him) built al-Masjid al-Aqsaa does not mean that
      the Jews have more right to the mosque than the Muslims, because Ya’qoob
      was a monotheist and the Jews are mushrikeen. The fact that their father
      Ya’qoob built the mosque does not mean that it belongs to them. He built
      it for the monotheists to worship in it, even if they were not his
      children, and he did not allow the mushrikeen to enter it, even if they
      are his children, because the call of the Prophets has nothing to do with
      race; it is based on taqwaa (piety, awareness of Allaah).
Thirdly:
Your saying
      that the Prophet 
 (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him)
      led the previous Prophets in prayer to signify the unity of the message
      and all divine revelations is correct from the point of view of the origin
      of the religion and ‘aqeedah (belief) of the Prophets. All of the
      Prophets received their Message from one source, which was the Wahy
      (Revelation), and they all had the same ‘aqeedah, which was the belief
      in Tawheed (absolute unity of Allaah) and the worship of Allaah Alone,
      even though there were differences in the details of their laws. This was
      confirmed by our Prophet 
 (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him)
      when he said: “I am the closest of mankind to ‘Eesaa ibn Maryam in
      this world and in the Hereafter. The Prophets are brothers although they
      have different mothers, and their religion is one.” (Narrated
      by al-Bukhaari, 3259; Muslim, 2365).

      The phrase “brothers although they have different mothers” means
      brothers who have the same father but different mothers, i.e., they are
      the children of co-wives.
      Here we would
      caution readers against believing that the Jews, Christians and Muslims
      are following the same principles nowadays, because the Jews have changed
      the religion of their Prophet. Indeed, part of the religion of their
      Prophet is that they should follow our Prophet and not reject him, but
      they disbelieve in the Prophethood of Muhammad 
 (peace and
      blessings of Allaah be upon him) and associate others in worship with
      Allaah.
Fourthly:
The Jews do not have any stake in al-Quds, because even
      though they may have lived in the land previously, that land now belongs
      to the Muslims from two points of view:
1.The Jews disbelieved and are no longer following the religion of
      the believers among the Children of Israel who followed and supported
      Moosa and ‘Eesaa (peace be upon them).
2.We Muslims have more right to it than them, because land
      does not belong to the people who lived there first, but to those who
      establish the laws of Allaah therein. Allaah created the land, and He
      created people to worship Allaah in the land and to establish therein the
      religion, laws and rulings of Allaah. Allaah says (interpretation of the
      meaning): “… Verily, the
      earth is Allaah’s. He gives it as a heritage to whom He wills of His
      slaves; and the (blessed) end is for the Muttaqoon (the pious).”
      [al-A’raaf 7:128]
Hence if some
      Arabs came who were not followers of Islam and they ruled the land with
      kufr, they would have to be fought until they submitted to the rule of
      Islam or were killed.
It is not the
      matter of race or ethnicity; it is the matter of Tawheed and Islam.
Here it is
      useful to quote the words of one of the researchers:
“History
      tells us that the first people to settle in Palestine were the Canaanites,
      six thousand years BCE. They were an Arab tribe who came to Palestine from
      the Arabian Peninsula, and after their arrival, Palestine was named after
      them [i.e., Canaan].”
(al-Suhyooniyyah,
      Nash’atuhaa, Tanzeemaatuhaa, Inshitatuhaa, by Ahmad al-‘Awadi, p.
      7).
“As for the
      Jews, the first time they entered Palestine was approximately six hundred
      years after Ibraheem had entered the land, i.e., they entered it
      approximately 1400 years BCE. So the Canaanites entered Palestine and
      lived there approximately 4500 years before the Jews.”
(Ibid., p. 8)
Hence it is
      clear that the Jews have no right to the land, whether according to
      religious law or in terms of who lived there first and possessed the land.
      They are aggressors who are seizing the land by force. We ask Allaah to
      rid Bayt al-Maqdis of them sooner rather than later, for He is Able to do
      that and He is Most Generous in answering. Praise be to Allaah, the Lord
      of the Worlds.