One point made in the article struck me:
The expansion of the Muslims’ prayer areas and the establishment of additional mosques on the mount stemmed from a new definition of the Temple Mount compound by the Muslims, who began to refer to all of the all of it as “Al-Aqsa” and to regard the entire mount as one great mosque. They began to call the Al-Aqsa Mosque itself, which is on the mount’s southern edge, “Al-Jamia al-Kibli”—the Mosque of the Direction of Prayer (in the direction of Mecca, signifying Jerusalem was Muslims’ first direction of prayer).
Until the Six-Day War the southern mosque was defined differently from the other parts of the compound and was called by its real name, Al-Aqsa; the compound as a whole was called “Al-Haram al-Sharif” (the Holy and Noble Place). But after the Six-Day War—as the Jewish-Muslim dispute over the mount intensified—the situation gradually changed and the Muslims applied the name “Al-Aqsa” to the whole compound, with all its buildings, streets, and walls.This is absolutely true. Here is how the Waqf guidebook for the Temple Mount looked until 1967:
Either they are lying now, or the Waqf had no idea what they were talking about for the past hundred years in the previous editions, like 1925 and 1961, when the Al Aqsa Mosque was a building, not the entire Haram:
I just noticed that the 1961 version is a photo manipulation of the 1925 version, the trees are exactly the same! But it is called the "al-Aqsa Mosque," not the "al-Qibli Mosque."
The 1925 edition is explicit that the entire compound is the Haram al Sharif and only the mosque is Al Aqsa:
There is not a word about the "al-Qibli mosque" in either the 1925 or 1961 editions.
The current guidebook completely contradicts those of the previous generations.
The 1925 edition famously asserted that the Dome of the Rock was definitely on the spot of Solomon's Temple, and this was excised from the Jordanian editions after 1948.
It is pretty clear that the new editions are written to change history. The claim that the entire Mount is a mosque is brand new - and meant to give a religious excuse to ban Jews from visiting.
UPDATE: Even the Waqf/Passia know that the entire Mount isn't the "Al Aqsa Mosque." Because if it was a mosque, no one would be allowed to wear shoes!