For many Palestinians, Jerusalem is an economic hub, containing the third-holiest site in Islam - and the city they yearn to make the capital of a future state.

He discovered that some Palestinian leaders had suggested that the ancient temples of the Jews never stood on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, which is also the third-holiest site in Islam and probably the most contested plot of land on earth.

It is not only Islam's third-holiest site but also the secular symbol of Palestinian nationalism.

The Al Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount includes the glittering golden Dome of the Rock and is Islam's third-holiest site.

And the approval of Saudi Arabia, as the keeper of Islam's two holiest sites, is essential to any shift, no matter how subtle, in the Arab position on Jerusalem, which contains the third-holiest site.

Islam's third-holiest site, together with the Al Aqsa mosque, was breathtaking, even when seen through the greenish haze of night-vision gog- gles But that was hardly the point.

But if the effect of the Congressional action is likely to be mostly symbolic, that has not kept it from raising loud alarms among Arabs, for whom Al Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem is Islam's third-holiest site.

This mountain, which has the Dome of the Rock and the adjacent Al-Aqsa Mosque on it, is the third-holiest site in Islam (and the holiest in Judaism).

Ellison called his visit to Islam's third-holiest site, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, as "personally moving".

The sanctuary contains the Dome of the Rock shrine and Al Aksa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam.