“Ansar Beit al Maqdes” literally means the “Army of the Holy Temple”

In Arabic, Jerusalem is Jewish

Over the weekend, four terrorists preparing a rocket attack against Israel were killed by a drone – probably Israeli – as they were getting ready to launch their lethal weapons. The group that took “credit” for preparing the terrorist attack is an Al-Qaeda affiliate calling itself “Ansar Beit al Maqdes”. Writing in response to my recent post on the origin of the name “Palestine”, my friend Ilan Pomeranc pointed out that this Jihadi group’s name witnesses to the Jewish status of Jerusalem. 

“Ansar Beit al Maqdes” literally means the “Army of the Holy Temple”. Media outlets mistranslate the name as “Army for Jerusalem”, but Jerusalem does not appear in the name at all. In Arabic, “Jerusalem” is often called, in shorthand vernacular, “al-Quds”. What this term literally means is “the Holy”. “Quds” is merely an Arabization of the Hebrew “Kadosh” i.e., “Holy”. So if you put the two Arabic names for Jerusalem together what you get is “al-Quds al-Maqdes” which literally means “the place of the Holy Temple”.

Hat tip: EoZ