[Elder of Ziyon] Muslims create a myth to claim Joseph's Tomb

Ma'an reports:

Israeli soldiers escorted hundreds of Jewish worshipers to Joseph's Tomb in the West Bank city of Nablus on Thursday, witnesses said.

Clashes broke out as locals threw stones and soldiers fired tear gas, witnesses told Ma'an.

Jews believe that the tomb is the final resting place of the biblical figure Joseph. Muslims believe that an Islamic cleric, Sheikh Yussef (Joseph) Dawiqat, was buried there.

So who was the fortunately named Sheikh Yusuf Dawiqat?

Well, either he is fictional or he is incredibly obscure. There is no entry for him in Wikipedia Arabic.

Apparently, this sheikh was made up as the inhabitant of the tomb only in recent decades, specifically to weaken the Jewish religious claim to the site. Jews have identified the site at that location since at least the fourth century  CE.  In the past, Muslims were known to refer to the site as "Qabr en-Nabi Yūsuf", the Tomb of the Prophet Joseph, not any obscure sheikh from the 18th century.

This sounds a bit familiar. This is exactly what the Muslims are trying to do with Rachel's Tomb by claiming it is an ancient mosque, when it never was.

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Posted By Elder of Ziyon to Elder of Ziyon at 5/18/2012 10:00:00 AM