"We are also aware of one special case of devotion involving urinating on the roof of the building, but not everyone reaches that level, so to speak."
Jerusalem, January 3- A local worshiper has taken the next logical step in his behavior toward sites sacred to his faith, observers reported today, moving beyond pointing his backside toward what his tradition claims as its third-holiest location to include the chucking of furniture around the interior of a mosque atop the holy plateau.
Mashteen Beqqir, 25, featured in a short video clip making the rounds on social media last Sunday in which he hurled a folding chair within Al-Aqsa Mosque. Mr. Beqqir's unique devotional ritual and display of awed decorum took place between Islamic prayer services at the site, which Muslims call the Haram al-Sharif ("the Noble Sanctuary) and Jews revere as the Temple Mount, the site of two ancient temples and still the faith's holiest place where observant Jews tread carefully. Five times daily, Muslims gather in Al-Aqsa at the compound's southern end, and, when attendance swells, throughout the Mount, to pray toward Mecca in present-day Saudi Arabia. The prostrations during the prayers cause the south-facing worshipers to point their derrières northward toward the site of the Dome of the Rock, which marks the site of both Jewish temples and which houses the rock that Islamic legend identifies as a spot that Muhammad visited during a miraculous night journey and which granted the location its sanctity in Islam. For a brief period, Islamic devotional rites there had worshipers facing the site of the rock, until later sensibilities emphasized the primacy of Mecca and prompted a pointed rejection of the Jewish site as central. Beqqir, however, evidently finds the backside-pointing an insufficient demonstration of reverence for the site of Muhammad's epic feat, and has settled on the throwing of the chair as the proper way to show the requisite additional devotion.
"He likely seeks some additional level of personal connection," suggested Almuakhar Aleari, an official of the Waqf, the Islamic council that administers the site. "In recent years many have chosen similar paths. They most often involve stockpiling rocks and weapons inside the mosque itself, which in Islam are a sign of intense holiness and respect for Allah. We are also aware of one special case of devotion involving urinating on the roof of the building, but not everyone reaches that level, so to speak."
Experts speculated that Mr. Beqqir will, over time, reach further heights in his displays of reverence for the holy site, such as leaving burning bags of human excrement inside the shrine.