Egyptian newspaper Al Masry al-Youm describes a forum at Al Azhar about this story, attempting to answer any skeptics about whether Mohammed really did fly to heaven on his winged steed and then to Jerusalem. Dr. Abbas Shoman, the former Undersecretary of Al-Azhar, said that of course Allah can perform remarkable miracles. He went on to say that questioning the miracle of the Night Journey and Al-Miraj is not new, but it is something that the Jews have been doing to break the connection between the Mosque in Mecca and Al-Aqsa Mosque, by claiming that the Night Journey was not to Jerusalem. He then says that these Jews and other skeptics spread those lies to destroy Islam and he tells young Muslims to trust their scholars, and not to pay attention to those misleading cries under the pretext of freedom of opinion.
Well, for once, some of the claims about Jews are true. Sorry to say, we don't believe that Mohammed flew in one night from Mecca to Jerusalem. In fact, the Quran doesn't identify the location of the "farthest" mosque, and the Al Aqsa mosque (which means "farthest") was built decades after Mohammed died. There was no building of any sort on the Temple Mount while Mohammed was alive, except perhaps a small synagogue that the Jews are said to have built between 614 and 630 CE, while Mohammed's vision happened around 621. Some hadiths claim that Mohammed tethered his steed to a ring that was on the Temple, when there was no Temple.
But Jewish skepticism has nothing to do with wanting to destroy Islam. It's because the story is highly implausible. It's because it mirrors some legends of Jews who visited heaven (the non-canonical Book of Enoch, for one.) It's because there was no "furthest mosque" in Jerusalem at the time. And it is because the story is now being used to take away Jewish rights to the holiest spot in Judaism.
