الَّذِينَ آتَيْنَاهُمُ الْكِتَابَ يَعْرِفُونَهُ كَمَا يَعْرِفُونَ أَبْنَاءَهُمْ ۖ وَإِنَّ فَرِيقًا مِّنْهُمْ لَيَكْتُمُونَ الْحَقَّ وَهُمْ يَعْلَمُونَ (146)
(2:146) As for those to whom We gave the Book, they recognise the place (which has now been made giblah), as clearly as they recognise their own children. *148 But some of them are knowingly concealing the truth.
*148). 'To recognize something as well as one recognizes one's sons' is an Arabic idiom. It is used with regard to things which one knows without the least shadow of a doubt. The Jewish and Christian scholars were well aware that the Ka'bah had been constructed by Abraham and that Jerusalem had been built by Solomon some thirteen hundred years after that, and that in his time it was made the qiblah. This is an unquestionable historical fact and they knew it to be so.