1516 Jews Restricted from Temple Mount

Sultan Suleiman I (the Magnificent, 1494-1566) ordered the rebuilding of the city’s walls and encouraged many European Jews, especially those who had been expelled from Spain and Portugal a generation earlier, to settle in the Holy City. Suleiman also instructed his court architect to prepare a place for Jewish prayer in an alley at the bottom of the Western retaining wall of the Temple Mount because he had prohibited all non-Muslims from entering any part of the Temple Mount.

Source: F.M. Loewenberg. Middle East Quarterly. Summer 2013, pp. 37-48. http://www.meforum.org/3556/temple-mount