Progressive Politics

The wall is believed to have been built by Herod the Great, not Solomon. The original Temple Mount from the Solomon era was more natural, smaller, and irregularly shaped. Herod filled it in, creating a large rectangular base that still exists, having survived the destruction of the Romans in 70 CE.

The entire Western Wall is 1,600 feet long, but only a small part of it is used for Jewish prayer. That small part came to be used because it faces the Jewish quarter in the old city, and that made it accessible to Jews.

From 1500s to 1839, the Ottomon empire absolutely prohibited non Muslims from entering onto the top of the rectangular base (now called the "Temple Mount").

After that time, and continuing to today, Jews are forbidden by the Chief Rabbinate to walk on the Temple Mount, lest they accidentally tread on the site of the holy of holies. Under Jewish custom, the location of the Solomon and Herod temple sites has been forgotten within Temple Mount area. But God's prohibition on entering that location is still in effect.

There is an interesting rock within the Dome of the Rock. Old Muslim writing says that rock was the Solomonic and Herodic holy of holies, and even that it was the site where Abraham bound Isaac. Judaism is more split on whether that rock is the holy of holies, whether it was a sacrificial altar in the temple period, or whether it has no significance whatsoever.