Moulana Ismail Moosa, Head of Comparative Religion and Research at the Islamic Propagation Centre International, has delivered a detailed lecture examining Zionism, Palestine and the concept of the Third Temple through Islamic theology, history and comparative religion.
Listen to the full lecture: This article summarises key themes from Moulana Ismail Moosa’s presentation. The full lecture is available here.
Opening the lecture, Moulana Moosa cautioned against reducing the subject to social media speculation and end-times theories.
“This topic is about Zionism and the Third Temple. Many people, because of what’s happening on social media, might think that this has to do with the end times or eschatology and things like that.”
He said the lecture was not intended to focus on predictions about “which year this person’s going to come” or “which year that person’s going to come”, but rather on “the Islamic theology of how do we understand what is happening in Palestine and how do we understand what is this Third Temple that everyone’s talking about.”
“This is a lot of background information. You can’t learn this from a two-minute short. It’s not going to work.”
Moulana Moosa said Zionism should not be viewed as a single, uniform ideology, noting that there are secular Zionist, Jewish Zionist, Christian Zionist and secular non-Zionist perspectives, alongside what he described as the Islamic perspective.
Covenant and responsibility
He began by discussing Prophet Ibrahim (peace be upon him), explaining that the Qur’an presents him as a devoted servant of Allah, a believer in Tawheed and one who was not among the mushrikeen.
Moulana Moosa said the covenant associated with Prophet Ibrahim is central to understanding competing claims over Palestine. According to him, while the Biblical narrative presents the covenant as permanent, the Qur’an places conditions on those who benefit from it.
Referring to the Qur’anic principle that Allah’s covenant does not extend to wrongdoers, he argued that the covenant cannot be understood as an unconditional ethnic entitlement.
Moulana Moosa said the covenant involved both Prophet Ishaq (peace be upon him) and Prophet Ismail (peace be upon him), while Bani Israel (Children of Israel), emerged through Prophet Yaqub (peace be upon him), whose name was “Israel”.
“As Muslims we believe that at a certain point in history, Bani Israel, the children of Israel, they were the chosen people of Allah. And this has not got to do with ethnic superiority, or anything like that.”
He said their responsibility was to obey Allah and spread Tawheed.
From Prophet Musa to the First Temple
The lecture also examined the life of Prophet Musa (peace be upon him) and the oppression endured by the Israelites in Egypt.
Moulana Moosa said the Biblical account reminds them of their own experience of persecution and warns against inflicting similar oppression on others.
“Remember when you were a slave in Egypt. You wouldn’t want to do that to someone else.” He explained that he was paraphrasing the message contained in the Biblical text.
Turning to Prophet Dawud and Prophet Sulayman (peace be upon them), Moulana Moosa discussed their connection to Jerusalem and the First Temple in Jewish tradition.
He said the structure built by Prophet Sulayman was dedicated to the worship of the One True God and was intended to serve people from across the world.
“This was supposed to be like how the Kaaba is for the entire world. The First Temple of Sulayman was supposed to be like that for the entire world.”
Moulana Moosa added that Islamic teachings differ from Biblical accounts that attribute grave sins to prophets such as Dawud and Sulayman. He referred to the Qur’anic defence of Prophet Sulayman against allegations of disbelief.
He said the First Temple was later destroyed after repeated wrongdoing, shirk and rejection of prophetic guidance among Bani Israel, linking this to the Babylonian conquest under Bukhtunasr, or Nebuchadnezzar, and the subsequent exile to Babylon.
According to Moulana Moosa, this period significantly influenced later Jewish religious writings and theological ideas, including what he described as the Davidic covenant — the belief that a ruler from the lineage of Prophet Dawud would always return to Jerusalem.
Prophet Isa, the Second Temple and exile
Moulana Moosa said Christians later sought to establish Prophet Isa (peace be upon him) as a descendant of Prophet Dawud in order to demonstrate that he was the Messiah expected in Jewish tradition.
He argued that the Qur’anic reference to Maryam as “Ya Ukhta Harun” presents a different understanding of Isa’s lineage and mission.
“He’s a Messiah that didn’t come to rule immediately, but rather he came as a prophet.”
The lecture then examined the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE.
Moulana Moosa linked this to the rejection of Prophet Yahya (peace be upon him) and Prophet Isa, explaining that, in Islamic belief, Prophet Yahya was killed while Prophet Isa was targeted but saved by Allah.
He said many Orthodox Jewish communities responded to exile by believing Jews should not return to Palestine through military or political means before the coming of the Messiah.
According to Moulana Moosa, this position included living peacefully in the countries where they resided, observing the Torah and waiting for divine intervention.
The rise of political Zionism
The lecture then turned to the emergence of modern political Zionism in Europe.
Moulana Moosa described Theodor Herzl as a secular Jewish figure who advocated establishing a Jewish state in response to anti-Jewish persecution across Europe.
“He was an atheist, Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism.”
He said Herzl and other early Zionists considered several possible locations for a Jewish homeland, including Palestine, Argentina and Congo.
“They are saying, ‘We as the Jewish people are just being persecuted, we need an ethno-state, we need a homeland to go to.’”
Moulana Moosa said many Orthodox Jewish leaders initially opposed Zionism because they believed it shifted Jewish identity away from religious observance and towards ethnicity and nationalism.
He said they also rejected attempts to establish a Jewish state in Palestine before the coming of the Messiah, viewing such efforts as contrary to traditional Jewish teachings.
“What changed the whole thing, and expedited the whole process, was the Holocaust.”
According to Moulana Moosa, the Holocaust led many religious Jews to reconsider Zionism and ultimately support a movement that had previously been opposed by large sections of Orthodox Judaism.
He described this development as the emergence of religious Zionism, in which religious language became intertwined with the political project of establishing and maintaining a Jewish state in Palestine.
Concluding the lecture, Moulana Moosa urged Muslims to study the issue carefully and distinguish between established historical and theological evidence and speculation.
“We’re here to focus on facts and we’re going to focus on what we know and what we can prove from there.”
