Non-Palestinian Muslims should refrain from visiting the Al-Aqsa Mosque \u201cwhile it remains captive by the state of the Jews,\u201d Dr. Maher al-Huli, head of the fatwa department in the Palestine Scholars Association (PSA) said in a statement cited by Jerusalem Post.
\u201cRefusing to visit the Aqsa Mosque while it is under occupation means rejecting Zionist sovereignty over the holy site and combating normalization with the Zionist enemy,\u201d he added.
The fatwa came in response to reports that pilgrims from some Islamic countries have recently been visiting the Temple Mount as part of tourist trips.
Muslims have kept up an informal boycott of Al-Aqsa Mosque since Israel seized Al-Quds (East Jerusalem) and the West Bank from Jordan in a 1967 war.
Muslims say that visits to the shrine would amount to recognition of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.
Yet, over the past months, Palestinian and Jordanian officials have been working to reverse this informal boycott of the holy city.
Last June, Palestinian officials have launched a plan to attract between one to two million visitors to Al-Aqsa Mosque annually.
Since then, several high-ranking Arab and Muslim leaders have turned up to pray at Al-Aqsa in an effort to kickstart a new wave of visits to the shrine.
In April, Egypt\u2019s Mufti Ali Gomaa, accompanied by a Jordanian delegation, visited Al-Quds and prayed in Al-Aqsa Mosque, sparking anger in Egypt and Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Gomaa also visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – said to be on the site of Jesus’s crucifixion and burial – at the invitation of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
Two weeks before that, Habib Ali Al-Jifri, an influential Sufi preacher from Yemen, had toured Al-Aqsa Mosque with Jordanian King Abdullah’s brother Prince Hashem.
Yet, after Gomaa’s visit, several Jordanian politicians and a Bahraini delegation made the pilgrimage to Al-Aqsa and Muslim officials said more high-level visits were expected, both from the Arab world and by Muslims from Europe and Asia.
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine Mohammad Ahmad Husein has also issued a fatwa approving visits to Al-Aqsa Mosque.
But influential scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi issued his own fatwa against foreign Muslims visiting Al-Quds.<\/p>\n