The esplanade of the Mosques , called Mount of the Temple by the Jewish and the Christian when they refer to the Old Testament (Hebrew: ביתהמק/ Har HaBayit , litt. " Mount of Maison"), and Noble Sanctuary ( Al-Ḥaram aš-Šarīf ) by the Moslems (Arab: rear RTL الحرمالشريف ) is a very disputed religious site located in the old city of Jerusalem. On the Esplanade of the mosques since the 7th century two high-places of the Islam are: the Dome of the Rock and the Mosque Al-Aqsa. It is the first holy place of the Judaism and the third holy place of Islam, after Mecque and Médine. The dome of the Rock is not a mosque but shelters a rock which for the Jews would be the place of the binding of Isaac (known as in an erroneous way " sacrifice") and for the Moslems the point from where Mahomet, would be assembled to the sky, is carried by its horse Bouraq and from where it would have joined the paradise a few years afterwards. The bond between the starting point of the Mahomet prophet and the sanctuary of the Mount of the Temple is posterior with the construction of the building. Coran does not quote the name of Jerusalem in Coran 17:1 and 17:17, but it is written there that the prophet travelled towards a " mosque lointaine" (in Arabic, distance says Al Aqsa ). The Mount also has a very important significance for Christianity.

It is the site of the first then of the second Temple of Jerusalem and, for certain Jews, is the site of the third and last Temple at the time of the return of the Messie; however, the " Temple of Times futurs" such as it is described in the vision of chapter 40 to 48 of the book of Ezéchiel seems to be located in another place. The first temple is destroyed by Nabuchodonosor II into -586, marking the date of the exile of the Jews in Babylon the second temple is destroyed by Titus Flavius Vespasianus (Vespasien or Titus) in 70, except for the Western wall, which remains aujourd' ui and is known like the Wailing Wall, the most important place of prayer of the contemporary Jews.

On arrival of the Moslems in the town of Jerusalem, the ruins of the temple are used like dump by the Christians in preoccupations with a humiliation of the Jews and in order to concretize the prophecy according to which not a stone will not remain in this place. The Caliph and companion of Mahomet Umar ibn Al-Khattab, horrified to see this holy place in such a state, orders its cleaning and requests there. According to the same source, it orders the construction of a mosque on this site. The majority of the medieval historians, in particular the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes Confessor and the Jew Simon Ben Yohai, indicate that this action of Omar ibn Al-Khattab is greeted Jews of the time which see there the rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem.

Moslems and Jews reciprocally show themselves to practice excavations with an aim of damaging the monuments of the other camp the Israelis, in particular, estimate that the construction of a news Mosquée threat to make crumble the ground of the esplanade of the temple. Each camp also shows the other to have ideological ulterior motives and to make disappear the vestiges from the buildings of the first confession by archaeological excavations carried out by the other.

According to the Talmud, it is ground of this place which God gathers the clay which forms Adam. It is there that Adam, then according to his example, Caïn, Abel and Noah make them Holocauste. According to Coran, it is there that the faith of Abraham is tested by its God in the episode of the sacrifice of his/her oldest son, Ismaël. According to the Bible, the place of the sacrifice of Isaac is the Mount Moriah, another name for this esplanade teaches us Talmud. king David buys this ground to build a permanent furnace bridge there (II Samuel 24:24), the first temple. It is Solomon who carries out this wish by building at this place the first Temple in -950. It is there that Jacob sees in dream of the angels assembling and descending a scale and where he fights against the angel Gabriel, taking the name of Israel following this episode.

A Waqf (Islamic religious foundation controlled by the Jordan) ensures the management of the site since the reconquest of the Cross Royaumes by the Moslems. Israel confirmed this one in its functions after the conquest of Jerusalem-Is at the time of the Guerre of the Six-Jours (Agreements of Wadi Araba).