Recep Yeşilkaya Everyone must have had an adventure where they broke out of their shell and greeted the world from the outside. My journey began with Palestine, the apple of the world’s eye. Since my high school years, I had longed to breathe in its air, to escape its narrow, stone-paved streets, and to visit the sacred and blessed Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque. This opportunity came during my first year of university when I had the chance to embark on this journey with a group of nine friends. Of course, we decided to buy our tickets and go directly. Our flight from Sabiha Gökçen Airport to Ben Gurion Airport was scheduled for the morning. Therefore, we decided to spend the night at the airport.
First Steps in Jerusalem and a Fine
In the early morning, we boarded the plane, and at that moment, I truly felt that we were taking off into the unknown. None of us had been to Jerusalem before. We weren’t traveling with a tour; we were just a group of young people who had bought their tickets and made hostel reservations. We landed at Ben Gurion Airport around 11:00 AM and went through an extensive security check. There was extra security in place for Turkish groups. I believe this was because Turks are the ones who visit Palestine the most, and they want to discourage and make it difficult for them.
After the security check, we took a train from Ben Gurion Train Station and arrived in The Old City after about an hour. During this train journey, our group was fined 85.5 shekels, approximately a thousand Turkish liras, by the Israeli police. The reason was that we had bought a local transit card and loaded enough money for everyone to use, but apparently, everyone is supposed to use their own card. Despite our efforts to explain the situation, the police didn’t listen. They even said we would be taken to the police station if we persisted. This was the last thing we wanted, having just set foot in Palestine. So, we took the fines from the police, knowing we would never pay them.
The Dome of the Rock and Al-Qibli Mosque
Jerusalem has narrow, stone-paved neighborhoods reminiscent of Mardin. We wandered through these neighborhoods to find our hostel, and once we finally settled into our rooms, we prepared to head out. As we walked through Jerusalem’s narrow streets, we suddenly stopped and gazed at the shimmering Dome of the Rock in the distance. It’s really hard to describe the excitement I felt at that moment. We hurried forward and reached the Lion’s Gate, one of the ten gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque. An Israeli soldier asked us a few questions to determine if we were Muslims, and then allowed us to enter. The interior of Al-Aqsa Mosque is almost always full. Especially with Turkish groups everywhere, we never felt out of place. The sense of the unknown that we had felt on the plane disappeared the moment we set foot on this land, and we started to feel as if we were at home.
We performed our prayers inside Al-Aqsa Mosque until the Isha prayer. Then we went to Al-Qibli Mosque to perform the Isha prayer. Contrary to popular belief, the main congregation gathers not at the Dome of the Rock, but at Al-Qibli Mosque. After the prayer, exhausted from the journey and everything else, we rested and slept for an hour inside the mosque. The staff at Al-Qibli Mosque kindly woke us up, saying the mosque was closing. As we stepped outside, we took advantage of the empty Al-Aqsa compound and took our night photos before heading back to our hostel.
Visits to the Masjids
The hostel where we stayed was inside the Old City, within the walls. Just two minutes away were the ancient markets of Jerusalem. These markets sell a variety of products, including traditional clothing, spices, and souvenirs. The next morning, we bought falafel and fresh bread from the market for breakfast. After that, we went to Al-Aqsa Mosque again. That day, we wanted to have a quick breakfast and start exploring the city slowly. We met with our guide, Hidayet Abi, at the Dome of the Rock. Our guide, Abu Qutaiba, arrived, and after exchanging greetings, our group suddenly grew to twenty people. Our dear guide, Abu Qutaiba—who is not only a guardian of Al-Aqsa but also deeply connected to Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa on an intellectual level—welcomed us to the Dome of the Rock and provided us with extensive information.
Our next stop was the Al-Buraq Mosque. When the Prophet (peace be upon him) came to Jerusalem from Mecca on Buraq, he tied Buraq to the trees here. For this reason, the wall here is called the Buraq Wall. The Jews refer to this as the Western Wall, and the adjacent mosque is known as the Al-Buraq Mosque. After that, we went up to the museum. The museum houses historical artifacts, such as glass windows that took months to create and were damaged by Israeli soldiers’ bullets, the last remaining pieces of Nur ad-Din Zengi’s pulpit, old finials from the Dome of the Rock, and damaged mosaic samples—hundreds of items in total. By then, it was time for the noon prayer, so we took a break to pray. Inside, if I recall correctly, we met an academic who teaches Political Science in Gaziantep. I had picked up a few dates being distributed at the door, and I gave one to him and his son. They had come as a family. After the prayer, we helped Celal distribute Turkish delight at the door. Turks, Arabs, everyone was eating the delight from our hands. When they heard we were Turkish, they took photos with us.
Outside Al-Aqsa Mosque and Christian Pilgrimage
At the Buraq Wall, there is a gate called the Maghribi Gate, which you will hear about later. Jews carry out raids on Al-Aqsa through this gate every day except Friday (due to the crowd) and Saturday (due to their Sabbath holiday), escorted by police. They walk in groups of 30-40 along a designated route. It’s not that they can do anything, but in their words, they are concerned with how much ground they can gain or how much time they can spend on what they call the Temple Mount. We witnessed these moments right after leaving the mosque. We observed the neglected, quiet, and deserted parts of Al-Aqsa, which were left uncared for due to restrictions, and listened to the stories of young Palestinians reviving the Marwan Mosque firsthand. Our guide then detailed the Bab al-Rahma Mosque, where he also invited us for iftar in the evening, and led us out of Al-Aqsa through the Bab al-Rahma gate. We then exited the city through the Lion’s Gate to our right. Now, we had the Mount of Olives before us, the city walls behind us, the Yusufiye Cemetery to our left, and the Bab al-Rahma Cemetery to our right. Our visits to the cemetery began with a prayer for the first judge of Jerusalem and other companions buried there, followed by stories about the lives of other significant figures.
We were back in the city. The next part of the day continued along the routes where the lives of Mary and Jesus passed. Remember I mentioned the Maghribi? The Jews dug a tunnel connecting this gate to another gate, the Gavanibe Gate. This 486-meter-long tunnel opens to the first station of the Christian pilgrimage route, leading to the court where it is believed Jesus was tried and the adjacent complex. After passing eight more stations, and visiting the five stations inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, you suddenly become a pilgrim. The French, while excavating around here in the 1800s, discovered the remains of a gate from the Roman period. That was our next destination—a Roman relic with a museum below and a hotel above. After spending some time there, we left the area to pray the afternoon prayer.
Playing Soccer at Al-Aqsa Mosque
For the afternoon prayer, we went to the Afghan Lodge in Jerusalem. The Sheikh was also inside. It was such a sincere and gentle atmosphere. We exchanged greetings and then lined up behind our guide to pray in congregation. After we completed our prayers, we gathered around the Sheikh. After a brief conversation with him, he told us, “A nation is given a leader according to its own state.” Both the local people and the community leaders here have a deep love for the Turkish people and their leadership. As we were walking towards Al-Aqsa just minutes before the evening call to prayer, we learned something new from our guide: if you see a building in Jerusalem with alternating rows of the famous yellow Jerusalem stone and a different color stone, such as red, you can tell that the building dates back to the Mamluks. With this new piece of information, we continued our journey towards Al-Aqsa.
As we entered through the gate, we were greeted by a Palestinian child with a soccer ball in his hand. We quickly set up a game with our friends. Now we can say we played soccer at Al-Aqsa, right? We noticed that the rest of the group had left while we were playing, so we started running like crazy to catch up with them. Al-Aqsa is 144 dunams (144,000 square meters), so there was a lot of ground to cover. Now we can say we ran in Al-Aqsa too! When we caught up with the group, someone suggested taking a photo. But who should take it? We decided to ask an older man who was passing by, and through our friend Celal, we met Musa Hicazi. And he spoke to us in Turkish! After talking with Musa, I fully understood how our Palestinian brothers and sisters see us: “You are brave,” says Musa, “This oppression will end by your hands. Al-Aqsa is waiting for the Turks.”
Iftar
When the call to prayer rang out, we headed towards Bab al-Rahma for the evening prayer. This was our stop for prayer. After the prayer, we lined up on either side of a plastic tablecloth laid out in the courtyard of the mosque, which is about four or five meters below the average ground level of Al-Aqsa. The women were likely having iftar inside the mosque. When we sat down at the table, yogurt and salads were ready. We expected simple iftar dishes, but the food that arrived whetted our appetite. The dishes started coming in, plates of carrot pilaf with chicken drumsticks on top… Then more plates of pilaf came, and the man serving the food kept saying, “Sallu Ala Nabi” (Send blessings upon the Prophet) and tossing drumsticks in front of us. It was a day where we felt the blessings of Jerusalem down to our bones. After iftar, we met with Uncle Suleiman, a close friend of Raid Salah Bey, the mayor of Palestine and one of the key figures in the cause—although he was apparently resting due to illness while we were in Jerusalem.
