Many Muslims believe Jerusalem belongs to Islam.

Muhammad’s first followers prayed toward Jerusalem. It was there, to the Temple Mount, that Muhammad was said to have been transported in a vision from his home in Mecca in his famous “night journey”; it was from there that he was supposedly met by the great biblical prophets and then ascended to heaven to speak with Allah.

Only later did Muhammad redirect his supporters to pray toward Mecca in Saudi Arabia. But in the minds of Muslims, the night journey and ascension forever marked Islam’s spiritual connection to the City of God.

In recent years, the call has been going out to believers to reclaim Jerusalem once again. Leading that call is the Middle East’s most powerful Muslim nation, Iran.

This nation’s designs on the Holy City are important to keep in mind right now—because Iran is on a roll.

Even in the face of global opposition—and right under the nose of a frustrated United States and a conflicted Europe—Iran, under hard-line Islamic leaders, has stepped up to claim the mantle of the radical Muslim camp. It is defying the West’s efforts to halt its nuclear progress. It is cementing its influence in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is building relations with Turkey and other nations. It is taking over presidency of opec. It is becoming a fixture within the United Nations.

“Iran wants to be the regional hegemon, and doesn’t want to leave it to some outside power like the U.S.,” the University of Denver’s Nader Hashemi told the Globe and Mail. “It’s doing everything in its power to make that happen.”

As much as the U.S. wishes it could shut Iran up, it is reluctantly admitting defeat. It has acknowledged that in order to wind down its costly and unpopular war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, it needs Iran’s cooperation. Last month it included Iran at an international conference on Afghanistan in Rome. Washington sees negotiation as the only solution, and it wants the Iranians at the table.

Amid all the impressive activity, Israel—and Jerusalem—has remained fixed in Tehran’s sights.

Iran pours vast resources into supporting the terrorist groups bordering Israel. Hamas and Hezbollah strongholds to Israel’s west and north are awash in Iranian money and weapons. Israeli sources recently revealed that Egyptian efforts to prevent aid from reaching Hamas in the Gaza Strip have broken down, and that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps has smuggled “record funds” to the radical Palestinian group. Meanwhile Iran, along with Syria, has provided Hezbollah tens of thousands of rockets and missiles. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps has stepped up its training of Hezbollah’s soldiers. It has built a set of underground tunnels and an underground telecommunications network for the terrorist group.

Apparently in response to a Saudi effort to draw Hezbollah away from Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a personal visit to southern Lebanon a couple weeks ago. He was welcomed like a rock star—“showered with rice and rose petals by tens of thousands of Hezbollah supporters who lined the streets and waved Iranian flags as his motorcade made its way from the airport to the presidential palace,” the Sydney Morning Herald reported. Speaking to a raucously supportive crowd just two miles from Israel’s border—the closest he has ever been to the Jewish state—he said, “The whole world knows that the Zionists are going to disappear. The occupying Zionists today have no choice but to accept reality and go back to their countries of origin.” He called Lebanon the “focus point of resistance” against the Jews and stressed Iran’s commitment to “full liberation of occupied territory in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine.”

“Iran has virtually destroyed the peace process single-handedly.” The Trumpet’s editor in chief wrote those words over 12 years ago, in our August 1998 edition, and they remain true to this day. Whenever Arab-Jew peace talks begin to crank up, Iran goes on the offensive to derail them. Recent peace efforts have proved to be no exception.

In September, one day after Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to resume talks on a U.S.-backed peace deal, Ahmadinejad urged Palestinians not to abandon their armed struggle against the Jews.

The occasion was Quds Day, Iran’s annual display of support for the Palestinian cause and the “liberation of Jerusalem.” Started in 1979 by Ayatollah Khomeini, Jerusalem Day is an occasion for Iran and its supporters to denounce Israel and call for its destruction, praise terrorism and condemn the peace process.

This year, Ahmadinejad emphasized the global significance of the festival. The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center reported that “according to Ahmadinejad, the issue of Jerusalem is not limited to one geographic area; it is not just a Palestinian issue and it is, in fact, ‘even greater than the issue of Islam.’”

As Iran rises, keep Jerusalem in mind. To Iran’s leaders, Jerusalem’s current occupation by Jews is just as wrong as its previous occupations by Romans and by Catholics, from whom Muslims forcibly took control on multiple occasions throughout history. And they are preparing to seize the city once more.

Zechariah 14:2 prophesies that half of Jerusalem will be taken into captivity. As our booklet Jerusalem in Prophecy explains, this must occur soon, because other prophecies dated to the beginning of the biblical “great tribulation” (Matthew 24:21) describe the city being completely overtaken, in that case by a European power (Luke 21:20). Zechariah is speaking of an impending partial conquest of the Holy City by Islamic warriors—one that will precede the Tribulation.

Writing about this prophecy in our companion magazine Royal Vision back in January 2005, Mr. Flurry explained, “These verses prophesy that the Palestinians are going to take over half of Jerusalem very soon. I don’t believe that the Palestinians, by themselves, could do that—but they could if the king of the south [Iran, as labeled in the prophecy of Daniel 11:40] supported and helped them. We need to watch: Iran wants to take over that city. Such a conquest would galvanize the whole Islamic world to get behind the king of the south—a goal Iran has been working toward all along.”

Ultimately, though, the Iranian-led Muslims aren’t the only ones with designs on Jerusalem. Their aggression will prove to be the spark of a new crusade.