القدس
al-Quds
Place
The holy city of Jews, Christians and Muslims, whose Al-Aqsa Mosque was the first direction of Muslim prayer.
What it means
The Quran begins the Night Journey “from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque, around which We have blessed” (17:1). The Prophet and the early Muslims prayed toward Jerusalem for about sixteen or seventeen months before the direction was changed to the Kaaba (2:142–144). He said that one prayer in Mecca’s mosque is worth more than in any other, and that travelling to pray is advised for three mosques only: Mecca, Medina and al-Aqsa (Sahih al-Bukhari). Umar entered Jerusalem in 637 and guaranteed its Christians safety for their churches.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 64, listed as AL QUDS or BAYT AL MAQDIS. The definition is restated here.