Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Western Wall" in English language version.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)From 1929 onward, the Supreme Muslim Council intensified construction work on the Haram al-Sharif in order to demonstrate their exclusive claims to the Temple Mount (...) Not without reason, Jewish believers felt disturbed in their prayer.
An ancient quarry where King Herod's workers chiseled huge high-quality limestones for the construction of the Second Temple, including the Western Wall, has been uncovered in Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Sunday (...) Dozens of quarries have previously been uncovered in Jerusalem—including ones larger than the present find—but this is the first one that archeologists have found which they believe was used in the construction of the Temple Mount itself.
An improvement evidently took place after the Fatimid conquest in 970 when permission was granted to pray not at a gate but at the Western Wall (כותל מערבי). This permission may have been due to the intervention of Paltiel, the first Egyptian Nagid. Paltiel's son, Samuel, on the occasion of the transference' of his parents' remains to Jerusalem, donated among other gifts money for "oil for the sanctuary at the Western Wall, for the altar that is inside" (ושמן למקדש בכותל מערבי למזבח שבפנים).
The scroll of Ahim'as (11th century) speaks of a synagogue near the Western Wall.
Perhaps the earliest evidence for the Western Wall being used for prayer is found in the Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, who visited Jerusalem at some point between 1169 and 1171 on his long trip around the east from Spain, when the city was ruled by the Crusaders. […] This is a confused account: the Gate of Mercy is in the Eastern Wall. But it may imply that the Western Wall was also used for prayer.
How this confusion between the Golden Gate and the Western Wall could have arisen it is difficult to imagine, unless it be due to the fact that both spots may have been favourite places of prayer for the Jews of the Middle Ages, just as the Western or Wailing Wall continues to be still today. The fact that this confusion seems to have existed only with Jewish travellers would tend to corroborate this hypothesis.
In the 12th century Benjamin of Tudela mentions Jews coming to the Western Wall for prayers and to the "Mercy Gate," but it is possible that the other walls to the south and east also served a similar purpose. Later visiting rabbis (12th–15th centuries) also refer to the walls of the Temple Mount, but they too, are not specific in terms of a gathering spot for Jewish worship along the Western Wall. The Western Wall is not mentioned at all by Nahmanides (13th century) in his detailed account of the Temple site in 1267 nor in the report of Estori ha-Parhi (14th century). It does not figure even in descriptions of Jerusalem in Jewish sources of the 15th century (e.g., Meshullam of Volterra, Obadiah of Bertinoro, etc.). The name Western Wall, used by Obadiah, refers—as can be inferred from the context—to the southwestern corner of the wall, and there is no hint that there was a place of Jewish worship there. It is only from the 16th century that Jews began praying at the present location and this is clear from the available sources. Thenceforth all literary sources describe it as a place of assembly and prayer for Jews. Transmitted by Moses Hagiz, it was the sultan Selim I, the conqueror of Jerusalem, who recovered the Wall from underneath the dungheap which was hiding it and granted permission to the Jews to hold prayers there.
His brother, Mordecai Rosanes, financed the paving of the Western Wall area in Jerusalem in 1874.
According to a report in the Jaffa Hebrew weekly, Hapoel Hazair, the Commander of the Turkish Army, Djemal Pasha, has ordered a barricade to be placed across the approach to the Wailing Wall to prevent this place from being visited by Jews. The order is said to be based on sanitary grounds.
An Israeli soldier writes the Hebrew name on a street sign, which had previously had only Arabic and English lettering identifying the location as Wailing Wall Road.
The symbolic removal of a sign placed by the Jordanians in English and Arabic, which referred to the Western Wall plaza as al-Buraq, was part of the process of 'Judaization' and return of the site to the status of the most important holy place of the Jewish people, and now the most holy place inside Israel.
The Chief Chaplain of the Army, Brigadier (Rabbi) Goren, offered prayers for four hours at the Wall. He proclaimed that Israel would never again relinquish the Wall. A little later, the Minister for Defence, Moshe Dayan, accompanied by the Chief of Staff, General Yitzhak Rabin, arrived. They repeated the pledge of the Rabbi. "Today we have reunited Jerusalem. We have returned to all that is holy in our land. We have returned, never to be parted from it again," Dayan said.
An ancient quarry where King Herod's workers chiseled huge high-quality limestones for the construction of the Second Temple, including the Western Wall, has been uncovered in Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Sunday (...) Dozens of quarries have previously been uncovered in Jerusalem—including ones larger than the present find—but this is the first one that archeologists have found which they believe was used in the construction of the Temple Mount itself.
Herod the Great certainly used it as the main quarry for building blocks needed to renovate the Temple and its retaining walls, including what is known today as the Wailing Wall.
The Palestine Administration interpreted the Status Quo in respect of the Wailing Wall as being that the Jewish Community had a right of access to the pavement in front of the Wall for their devotions, but that the Wall itself, the pavement in front of it and the adjacent Moroccan Quarter, were legally Moslem property. The Jews might bring to the Wall only those appurtenances of worship that were allowed under the Ottoman regime. This position was in general reaffirmed by the International Commission appointed by the British Government in 1930, with the approval of the Council of the League of Nations, to enquire into conflicting rights and claims concerning the Wailing Wall. The International Commission further ruled that although the Jews enjoyed no sort of proprietary rights to the Wall or the adjacent pavement, they should have free access to them at all times, subject to certain stipulations. The placing of benches and screens against the Wall was prohibited; the Moslems were similarly forbidden to carry out the Zikr ceremony during the progress of Jewish devotions or to cause annoyance to the Jews in any other way; no political speeches or demonstrations near the Wall were to be allowed; the Moslems' right to repair the pavement was affirmed, and if any repairs were not carried out by them in due time, the work was to be undertaken by the Government. The maintenance of the Wall itself was entrusted to the Government, but it was understood that repairs to it should be carried out only after consultation with the Supreme Moslem Council and the Chief Rabbinate.
The immediate neighbourhood of the Wailing Wall is inhabited by a number of Moroccan families, who are the beneficiaries of the ancient Waqf dating from the thirteenth century of Abu Midian. Some of the dwellings are entered from the space in front of the Wall. The wall separating the garden to the north from the Wailing Wall was rebuilt without incident in 1929. The wall overlooking the Wailing Wall by the Bab-al-Mughrabi was also rebuilt at the same time. The Moslems wanted to erect a low wall, but it was ruled, to preserve the Status Quo, that the wall must be rebuilt to its former height. The Wailing Wall, as being one of the few relics of the Temple of Herod of undisputed authenticity, is held in very great veneration by the Jews. Jewish writers refer to it as "the Holiest possession of the fifteen millions of Jews throughout the world which they have not forgotten for one moment since the Dispersion." On Sabbaths and other Holy Days the Wall is thronged with worshippers, the American and European Jew mixing with the Orthodox Jew in his caftan and the Bokharan in his gorgeous silks. The Jewish custom of praying here is of considerable antiquity, being mentioned by Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela and has now become an established right. This right to pray has, however, become linked with the claim to the actual ownership of the Wall. The Moslems resist this on the ground that the Wall is an integral part of the enclosure wall of the Haram al Sharif, and that the space in front of it is a public way, and part of the premises of the Abu Midian Waqf. For this reason the Moslems have always protested against the placing of benches or chairs in front of the Wall by the Jews as causing an obstruction in this public way and implying possessory rights. Though benches have certainly from time to time been introduced, there is extant a resolution taken by the Administrative Council and confirmed by the Mutasarrif in 1912 that chairs or tents or curtains (to divide the women from the men) are not to be allowed. This is still enforced, but portable camp-stools or boxes or tins with cushions are permitted for the convenience of worshippers. This ruling was notified to the Jewish religious authorities and the Police by the District Governor in 1922, and confirmed in 1926 after a rather serious dispute had arisen on account of the introduction of some benches on the previous Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur).