The Wailing Wall, as every historian knows, is the western retaining wall from the Herodian building program, which encased the Temple Mount in retaining walls, creating a 35-acre plaza for the Temple. (Due to Biblical strictures, Herod was not allowed to increase the actual size of the Temple, so he settled for expanding the plaza). It is the only surviving structure of the Herodian-era Temple. When the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70CE, they obliterated the Temple itself. The Romans did that sort of thing quite thoroughly.
The Wailing Wall has a remained a sacred spot to Jews ever since in Jerusalem, which always has been and remains the most sacred city to Jews.
Moslems, on the other hand, only care deeply about any part of Jerusalem when it is contention. During periods when Muslims have had uncontested control of Jerusalem, it has been a backwater town inhabited mostly by Jews and Christians. As it was in 1867, when Mark Twain visited, when he remarked that it had 14,000 inhabitants and a fast walker could walk around the walls in an hour. |
