Was Aqsa mosque a Jewish synagog when prophet Muhammed asscended from it to the sky?

Question

Islamic history tells that prophet Muhammed asscended to the sky from Aqsa Mosque. However, the same Islamic history tells that this mosque was built 50 years AFTER the death of prophet Muhammed. Does this mean that by the time prophet Muhammed carried out his miraculous journey, the Aqsa mosque was still an abandoned synagog? if so, why did prophet Muhammed use the name "mosque" and not "synagog"?

Answer 1

Thank you for answering this question... I learned alot....

After standing for 410 years, the First Temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians in 586 BCE.

Reconstruction of the Temple (see the Second Temple) began after the 70 year exile to Babylonia, but was destroyed by Titus 420 years later, in 70 CE. The Romans were, however, unable to topple the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. Upon the destruction of the Temple, the Rabbis revised prayers, and introduced new ones to request the speedy rebuilding of the Temple. They also instituted the saying of the portions of the Torah commanding the bringing of the sacrifices in place of the sacrifices themselves.

Islamic tradition holds that when Muslims first entered the city of Jerusalem under the leadership of Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab (also known as Umar or Omar) in 637, the ruins of the Temple were being used as a rubbish dump by the Christian inhabitants, perhaps in order to humiliate the Jews and fulfill Jesus' prophecy that not a stone would be left standing on another there; Caliph Omar (contemporary of Muhammad, who had died a few years earlier), ordered it cleaned and performed prayer there. According to some sources, he also ordered a mosque to be constructed at the spot, upon which site the Al-Aqsa Mosque was built several decades later.

As for your last question, a synagog is a Jewish place of worship and a mosque is a muslim place of worship....

Answer 2

Yes. Because. That's why.

Answer 3

http://www.stanford.edu/~jamila/Aqsa.html

Answer 4

http://www.prophetofdoom.net/