The Brightest Islam

Mahmoud Darwish (Arabic: محمود درويش‎, romanized: Maḥmūd Darwīsh, 13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008) was a Palestinian poet and author who was regarded as the Palestinian national poet. He won numerous awards for his works. Darwish used Palestine as a metaphor for the loss of Eden, birth and resurrection, and the anguish of dispossession and exile.He has been described as incarnating and reflecting "the tradition of the political poet in Islam, the man of action whose action is poetry."He also served as an editor for several literary magazines in Palestine.

  Al-Aqsa Mosque (Arabic: ٱلْمَسْجِد ٱلْأَقْصَىٰ‎, romanized: al-Masjid al-ʾAqṣā, IPA: [ʔælˈmæsdʒɪd ælˈʔɑqsˤɑ] (About this soundlisten), "the Farthest Mosque"), located in the Old City of Jerusalem, is the third holiest site in Islam. The mosque was built on top of the Temple Mount, known as the Al Aqsa Compound or Haram esh-Sharif in Islam. Muslims believe that Muhammad was transported from the Great Mosque of Mecca to al-Aqsa during the Night Journey. Islamic tradition holds that Muhammad led prayers towards this site until the 17th month after his migration from Mecca to Medina, when Allah directed him to turn towards the Kaaba in Mecca. The covered mosque building was originally a small prayer house erected by Umar, the second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate, but was rebuilt and expanded by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik and finished by his son al-Walid in 705 CE. The mosque was completely destroyed by an earthquake in 746 and rebuilt by the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur in ...