Eid Mubarak! (Happy Holidays!) ... hoofprints and footprints ...

From sundown last night and for the next few days, today is a special day in Jerusalem -- a holiday!

(And a holy day [holiday = holy day]) This is the festival of Eid ul-Adha, which Muslims celebrate to honor Ibrahim's (Abraham) willingness to obey God's command and to sacrifice his son, Ishmael. (Those of you who know the Hebrew Bible might be a bit confused -- in Islamic tradition, it's Ishamel, not Isaac, whom Abraham was supposed to sacrifice.) As he was about to obey, God stopped Ibrahim and gave him a lamb to sacrifice, instead. The festival is the second most imporant feast in the year, and it also marks the end of the yearly pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca. The spot where Ibrahim is said to have offered the lamb is a sacred rock, under the golden Dome of the Rock that is in the picture above. The rock is also the spot where Muslims believe Mohammed was taken up into Heaven from Jerusalem on the winged beast al-Buraq during his miraculous Night Journey from Mecca. Al-Buraq is supposed to have left a still-visible hoofprint in the rock. 

If a family can afford it, they sacrifice a sheep on this holiday, and divide the meat between themeselves, their neighbors, and the poor.

Families also visit each other on the holiday, dress up in their best clothes, walk around, eat, see the sights, and do fun things together.  We saw this family doing just that, with Dad and son getting a camel ride (sister leading) on the top of the Mount of Olives. [Yes, I played hooky from a session this afternoon -- shhh, don't tell.  I just had to see more of Jerusalem!]

From there, and the beautiful, iconic view of the city of Jerusalem, we walked down through the Jewish cemetery (where people want to be buried because it's thought that that valley will be the site of the Last Judgement) ....

... to a sacred space on the Mount of Olives that is holy for both Christians and Muslims --

 the Rock of the Ascension, where Christians believe Jesus ascended bodily into heaven, and Muslims revere as a spot sacred to Jesus, God's prophet.

Today, it's part of a mosque and not always open -- but it was open during the festival.  The building around it was probably built by the first crusaders. The first reference from the site comes from a crusader sermon the night before they captured Jerusalem in 1099. The crusaders had made a procession around the city to gain God's grace for a victory, and it was at this place that they stopped and said, from here Jesus ascended into heavem. The crusaders modelled the building around the site on the rotunda of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Later, the site was rebuilt by the Ottomon Turks and made into a mosque. We managed to wait out two noisy tour groups and finally got to explore it all by ourselves.

crusader-era column capital

Fabri says about this place:

"... we returned along the road on the top of the ridge of the Mount of Olives, and walked southwards on that high ground towards a great half-ruined church. When we came to it, we went up some stone steps into the vaulted porch, which stands before the door of the church. Before the church-door a Saracen had placed himself with a club, and would suffer no one to enter unless he gave him a madinus, twenty-five of which make a ducat. [We had to pay 5 sheckels ($1.36) to enter today. --Dr. B]  Now in the midst of this church there stands a great chapel-fair, round, and vaulted, wherein is the exceeding holy place of the footprints of the Lord Jesus Christ, which He left stamped into the rock when He ascended from that place into heaven. We stood before this chapel, and with loud and cheerful voices chanted the hymns and prayers appointed in the processional for the place of the Lord's Ascension; and entering in, as many of us as could go in at one time, we fell down upon our faces, kissed the most holy footprints of our Saviour, and received plenary indulgences. 

After this we betook ourselves to viewing the place. It stands upon a high peak of the Mount of Olives at the southern end thereof, even as Galilee aforementioned is at the northern end of the mountain, and the place of the annunciation of the death of the Virgin Mary is below the ridge, half way between Galilee and the place of the Ascension. In this holy place there stands a great round church, beautifully built in such sort that on the top it is not covered by a vault, but the vaulted roof has a wide opening purposely made in it, beneath which opening stands the chapel of the Lord's Ascension, even as doth the chapel of the Lord's Sepulchre. [The vault was covered over by the Ottoman Turks in the 16th century. All that is left now is the "chapel" that Fabri mentions, and the bases of the columns for the missing outer church. --Dr. B]

On this rock are to be seen the prints of both the feet of the Lord Jesus, though the print of the right foot is the plainer of the two. These prints are kissed by Christians and Saracens alike. Now one of the pilgrims, moved by a pleasant spirit of piety, having with him a flask of exceeding sweet wine, poured some of it into the hollow formed by the footprints, and the rest licked it out as they kissed them, and as fast as the place was emptied he poured more in. On the north side of this church there is a hole in the wall so high up that a tall man can only just reach it with his uplifted arm. Pilgrims raise themselves up to this hole and put their hands upon it, declaring that there in the wall is some of that very stone whereon Christ stood when He ascended into heaven; but whence they get this idea I know not."

--Fabri, Wanderings, vol. II, pp. 484-5

After visiting this place (And getting lost -- so many helpful people pointed us to the right way! We didn't speak Arabic, and they didn't speak English, but they could tell we were lost. So much can be said with just a kind gesture.) we walked down the Mount of Olives, and through the Garden of Gethsemene.

There, while watching everyone go into a spot holy to Christians, having walked through a Jewish cemetery, we drank Turkish coffee and listened to the evening prayers (one of the Five Pillars of Islam) ring out over the city in the gathering dusk.  I love this movie below, because you see an ancient, sacred site of the city, and hear the devotion that still moves people here -- and then, you hear a traffic jam from just around the corner, which reminds you that this place is still alive, with normal, vibrant (and impatient!) people.

Eid Mubarak!