Al-Rahma\Al-Dhabi Gate (The Golden Gate)

It is one of the most famous closed gates in the eastern side of the wall of Al-Aqsa Mosque. It represents a part of the eastern wall of the Old City of Jersalem. It has two huge gates, between them a stone pillar, Al-Rahma Gate to the South and to the north.

It was known that this door had been destroyed in most wars and it was renovated. Heraclius entered this Gate after he had beaten the Persians in 628. It was thought that Omar Bin Al-Khattab ordered to close it, while researchers believe that the current Gate was ordered to be built by the Caliph Abdul Al Malik, and renovared during Salah Al-Din Al-Ayyoubu period.

This door was built with great skill; manufactures exelled and improve it to be a stunning painting known for its beauty which attracts the sights, and in order to think that it was build with onne peace of stone. Moreover, it has decoratons that attest the growth of architecture.

This gate has many names including, the Enternal (Abadiya) Gate, Al-Dahriya Gate, Toma Toma Gate, Al-Hukm Gate, Al-Qadaa’ Gate, in addition to the name used by the westerns and the Franks, the Golden Gate, Al-Rahma Gate and finally Al-Tawba Gate. On the east side of the gate outside the wall there is a cemetery called Al-Rahma Gate Cemetry. It has the graves of the Sahabis SHadad Bin Aus and Obada Bin Al-Samet.

The building inside the gate, from Al-Aqsa Mosque side, was used as a hall for prayers and worship. It is said that the Imam Al-Ghazali, may his soul rest in peace, did I’tikaf in his corner above Al-Rahma Gate when he lived in Bait Al-Maqdis. He used to lecture in Al-Aqsa Mosque and there he made his precious book “The Revival of Religion Sciences.” Moreover, the Gate and its hall were renovated by the Islamic Heritage Committee and adopted it as a place for its preaching activities inside Al-Aqsa Mosque since 1992 and until the Zionist occupation dissolved the committee in 2003.

This Gate occupies a large space in the beliefs of Jews in the past and present; they thing that Jesus (Issa) entered that gate and he would be the one to open it in the future, and thus they called it the Golden Gate.

Lately, the Zionists claimed that this gate belongs to them and that Sulaiman is the one who build it in this great shape.

In 1967, the Zionist terrorist Mosh Dayan tried to open that Gate but he failed. Another attempt was made to break into it, however, it was thwarted in 2002 when a Zionist tried to open the tomb of the Mawlawiyya (Mevlevi) adjacent to the Gate from the outside. He dug a tunnel under the tomb that leads inside Al-Aqsa Mosque.