Holy of holies
Sir: Daniel Pipes's warning against accept- ing Jerusalem as being as sacred to Muslims as it is to Jews (Not so holy city', 22 November) has only just reached Cairo, but is sufficiently misleading for a correction to be called for, despite the time passed since publication.
Jerusalem is indeed holy to Muslims, even though it is not the holiest city in Islam. The contention that its status derives only from a clever manoeuvre of the Umayyads in 715 is open to dispute on scholarly grounds, but more importantly is irrelevant to the present day: for all Mus- lims since the ninth century, the masjid al- aqsa has been Jerusalem, and remains so today. That Muslims have worried less about Jerusalem when it has been under their control is likewise irrelevant: it says nothing about the city's sanctity; it merely illustrates, as did the case of the Falklands, that people commonly worry more about what has been lost than what is held.
Muslims today clearly care very much about Jerusalem, whether or not Dr Pipes thinks they should. Arguments such as his feed Muslim fears that no fair hearing is available to them in the 'international com- munity', and while Western policies based on false premises such as this may serve the short-term interests of sections of the Likud party, they serve neither the long- term interests of the state of Israel itself nor those of the West.
Mark Sedgwick
American University in Cairo, PO Box 2511, Cairo, Egypt
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