Dome of the Rock

Cross section of the Dome (print from 1887, after the first detailed drawings of the Dome, made by the English artist Frederick Catherwood in 1833).[11]

The structure is basically octagonal. It is capped at its centre by a dome, approximately 20 m (66 ft) in diameter, mounted on an elevated circular drum standing on 16 supports (4 tiers and 12 columns).[12]

Surrounding this circle is an octagonal arcade of 24 piers and columns.[13] The octagonal arcade and the inner circular drum create an inner ambulatorium that encircles the holy rock.

The outer walls are also octagonal. They each measure approximately 18 m (60 ft) wide and 11 m (36 ft) high.[12] The outer and inner octagon create a second, outer ambulatorium surrounding the inner one.

Both the circular drum and the exterior walls contain many windows.[12]

The interior of the dome is lavishly decorated with mosaic, faience and marble, much of which was added several centuries after its completion. It also contains Qur'anic inscriptions. They vary from today's standard text (mainly changes from the first to the third person) and are mixed with pious inscriptions not in the Quran.[14]

The dedicatory inscription in Kufic script placed around the dome contains the date believed to be the year the Dome was first completed, AH 72 (691/2 CE), while the name of the corresponding caliph and builder of the Dome, al-Malik, was deleted and replaced by the name of Abbasid caliph Al-Ma'mun (r. 813–833) during whose reign renovations took place.

The decoration of the outer walls went through two major phases: the initial Umayyad scheme comprised marble and mosaics, much like the interior walls.[15] Sixteenth-century Ottoman sultan Suleyman the Magnificent replaced it with Turkish faience tiles.[15] The Ottoman tile decoration was replaced in the 1960s with faithful copies produced in Italy.[15]

Surah Ya Sin (the 'Heart of the Quran') is inscribed across the top of the tile work and was commissioned in the 16th century by Suleiman the Magnificent.[16] Al-Isra, the Surah 17 which tells the story of the Isra or Night Journey, is inscribed above this.

Reconstruction of Herod's Temple as seen from the east (Holyland Model of Jerusalem, 1966)

The Dome of the Rock is situated in the center of the Temple Mount, the site of Solomon's Temple and the Second Jewish Temple, which had been greatly expanded under Herod the Great in the 1st century BCE. Herod's Temple was destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans, and after the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 CE, a Roman temple to Jupiter Capitolinus was built at the site by Emperor Hadrian.[17]

Jerusalem was ruled by the Byzantine Empire throughout the 4th to 6th centuries. During this time, Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem began to develop.[18] The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built under Constantine in the 320s, but the Temple Mount was left undeveloped after a failed project of restoration of the Jewish Temple under Emperor Julian.[19]

In 638 CE, Byzantine Jerusalem was conquered by the Arab armies of Umar ibn al-Khattab,[20] second Caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate. Umar was advised by Ka'b al-Ahbar, a Jewish rabbi who converted to Islam,[21] that the site is identical with the site of the former Jewish Temples in Jerusalem.[22] Among the first Muslims, Jerusalem was referred to as Madinat bayt al-Maqdis ("City of the Temple").[23]

The initial octagonal structure of the Dome of the Rock and its round wooden dome had basically the same shape as it does today.[12] It was built by the order of the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705).[24] According to Sibt ibn al-Jawzi (1185–1256), construction started in 685/86, while al-Suyuti (1445–1505) holds that its commencement year was 688.[25] A dedicatory inscription in Kufic script is preserved inside the dome. The date is recorded as AH 72 (691/2 CE), the year most historians believe the construction of the original Dome was completed.[26] An alternative interpretation of the inscription claims that it indicates the year when construction started.[27] In this inscription, the name of "al-Malik" was deleted and replaced by the name of the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun (r. 813–833). This alteration of the original inscription was first noted by Melchior de Vogüé in 1864.[28] Some scholars have suggested that the dome was added to an existing building, built either by Muawiyah I (r. 661–680),[29] or indeed a Byzantine building dating to before the Muslim conquest, built under Heraclius (r. 610–641).[30]

The Dome of the Rock's architecture and mosaics were patterned after nearby Byzantine churches and palaces.[4] The supervisor and engineer in charge of the project were Raja ibn Haywa, Yazid ibn Salam, and the latter's son Baha.[31][4][32] Raja was a Muslim theologian and native of Beisan, and Yazid and Baha were mawali (non-Arab, Muslim converts; clients) of Abd al-Malik from Jerusalem. Abd al-Malik was represented in the supervision of the construction by his son Sa'id al-Khayr.[31] The Caliph employed expert works from across his domain, at the time restricted to Syria and Egypt,[31] who were presumably Christians.[32] Construction cost was reportedly seven times the yearly tax income of Egypt.[33] The historian K. A. C. Creswell noted that those who built the shrine used the measurements of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The diameter of the dome of the shrine is 20.20 m (66.3 ft) and its height 20.48 m (67.2 ft), while the diameter of the dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is 20.90 m (68.6 ft) and its height 21.05 m (69.1 ft).

Narratives by the medieval sources about Abd al-Malik's motivations in building the Dome of the Rock vary.[10] At the time of its construction, the Caliph was engaged in war with Christian Byzantium and its Syrian Christian allies on the one hand and with the rival caliph Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, who controlled Mecca, the annual destination of Muslim pilgrimage, on the other hand.[10][34] Thus, one series of explanations was that Abd al-Malik intended for the Dome of the Rock to be a religious monument of victory over the Christians that would distinguish Islam's uniqueness within the common Abrahamic religious setting of Jerusalem, home of the two older Abrahamic faiths, Judaism and Christianity.[10][35] The historian Shelomo Dov Goitein has argued that the Dome of the Rock was intended to compete with the many fine buildings of worship of other religions: "The very form of a rotunda, given to the Qubbat as-Sakhra, although it was foreign to Islam, was destined to rival the many Christian domes."[36]

The other main explanation holds that Abd al-Malik, in the heat of the war with Ibn al-Zubayr, sought to build the structure to divert the focus of the Muslims in his realm from the Ka'aba in Mecca, where Ibn al-Zubayr would publicly condemn the Umayyads during the annual pilgrimage to the sanctuary.[10][34][35] Though most modern historians dismiss the latter account as a product of anti-Umayyad propaganda in the traditional Muslim sources and doubt that Abd al-Malik would attempt to alter the sacred Muslim requirement of fulfilling the pilgrimage to the Ka'aba, other historians concede that this cannot be conclusively dismissed.[10][34][35]

The building was severely damaged by earthquakes in 808 and again in 846.[37] The dome collapsed in an earthquake in 1015 and was rebuilt in 1022–23. The mosaics on the drum were repaired in 1027–28.[38] The earthquake of 1033 resulted in the introduction of wooden beams to enforce the dome.[39]

Depiction of the Templum Domini on the reverse side of the seal of the Knights Templar

For centuries Christian pilgrims were able to come and experience the Temple Mount, but escalating violence against pilgrims to Jerusalem (Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who ordered the destruction of the Holy Sepulchre, was an example) resulted in the Crusades.[40] The Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099 and the Dome of the Rock was given to the Augustinians, who turned it into a church, while the nearby Al-Aqsa main prayer hall or Qibli Mosque first became a royal palace for a while, and then for much of the 12th century the headquarters of the Knights Templar. The Templars, active from c. 1119, identified the Dome of the Rock as the site of the Temple of Solomon. The Templum Domini, as they called the Dome of the Rock, featured on the official seals of the Order's Grand Masters (such as Everard des Barres and Renaud de Vichiers), and soon became the architectural model for round Templar churches across Europe.[41]

Jerusalem was recaptured by Saladin on 2 October 1187, and the Dome of the Rock was reconsecrated as a Muslim shrine. The cross on top of the dome was replaced by a crescent, and a wooden screen was placed around the rock below. Saladin's nephew al-Malik al-Mu'azzam Isa carried out other restorations within the building, and added the porch to the Jami'a Al-Aqsa.

The Dome of the Rock was the focus of extensive royal patronage by the sultans during the Mamluk period, which lasted from 1260 until 1516.

During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–1566), the exterior of the Dome of the Rock was covered with tiles. This work took seven years. Some of the interior decoration was added in the Ottoman period.

Adjacent to the Dome of the Rock, the Ottomans built the free-standing Dome of the Prophet in 1620.

Large-scale renovation was undertaken during the reign of Mahmud II in 1817. In a major restoration project undertaken in 1874–75 during the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Abdülaziz, all the tiles on the west and southwest walls of the octagonal part of the building were removed and replaced by copies that had been made in Turkey.[42][43]

• 
  The first-ever photograph of the building, 1842–44
• 
  View from the north, Francis Bedford (1862)
• 
  West front in 1862. By this date many of the 16th century tiles were missing.
• 
  Interior showing mosaic decoration (1914)
• 
  Tiled façade (2013)
• 
  Interior showing rock (1915)

1920s photograph

Haj Amin al-Husseini, appointed Grand Mufti by the British in 1917, along with Yaqub al-Ghusayn, implemented the restoration of the Dome of the Rock and the Jami Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem.

Parts of the Dome of the Rock collapsed during the 11 July 1927 earthquake, and the walls were left badly cracked,[44] damaging many of the repairs that had taken place over previous years.

In 1955, an extensive program of renovation was begun by the government of Jordan, with funds supplied by Arab governments and Turkey. The work included replacement of large numbers of tiles dating back to the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, which had become dislodged by heavy rain. In 1965, as part of this restoration, the dome was covered with a durable aluminium bronze alloy made in Italy that replaced the lead exterior. Before 1959, the dome was covered in blackened lead. In the course of substantial restoration carried out from 1959 to 1962, the lead was replaced by aluminum-bronze plates covered with gold leaf.

The Dome of the Rock in 2018

A few hours after the Israeli flag was hoisted over the Dome of the Rock in 1967 during the Six-Day War, Israelis lowered it on the orders of Moshe Dayan and invested the Muslim waqf (religious trust) with the authority to manage the Temple Mount in order to "keep the peace".[45]

In 1993, the golden dome covering was refurbished following a donation of US$8.25 million by King Hussein of Jordan, who sold one of his houses in London to fund the 80 kilograms of gold required.[46]

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• Grabar, O. (1986). "Kubbat al-Ṣakhra". In Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E.; Lewis, B. & Pellat, Ch. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam. Volume V: Khe–Mahi (2nd ed.). Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 298–299. ISBN 978-90-04-07819-2.
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• Johns, Jeremy (January 2003). "Archaeology and the History of Islam: The First Seventy Years". Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 46 (4): 411–436. doi:10.1163/156852003772914848.
• Lassner, Jacob (2006). "Muslims on the Sanctity of Jerusalem: Preliminary Thoughts on the Search for a Conceptual Framework". Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam. 31: 176.
• Necipoğlu, Gülru (2008). "The Dome of the Rock as palimpsest: 'Abd al-Malik's grand narrative and Sultan Süleyman's glosses". In Necipoğlu, Gülru; Bailey, Julia (eds.). Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World. Vol. 25. Leiden: Brill. pp. 17–105. ISBN 978-900417327-9. Retrieved 16 July 2020.
• Ali, A. (1946). The Holy Qur’an – Translation and Commentary. Bronx, NY: Islamic Propagation Centre International.
• Islam, M. Anwarul; Al-Hamad, Zaid (2007). "The Dome of the Rock: origin of its octagonal plan". Palestine Exploration Quarterly. 139 (2): 109–128. doi:10.1179/003103207x194145. S2CID 162578242.
• Christoph Luxenberg: Neudeutung der arabischen Inschrift im Felsendom zu Jerusalem. In: Karl-Heinz Ohlig / Gerd-R. Puin (Hg.): Die dunklen Anfänge. Neue Forschungen zur Entstehung und frühen Geschichte des Islam, Berlin (Verlag Hans Schiler) 2005, S. 124–147. English version: "A New Interpretation of the Arabic Inscription in Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock". In: Karl-Heinz Ohlig / Gerd-R. Puin (eds.): The Hidden Origins of Islam: New Research into Its Early History, Amherst, N.Y. (Prometheus Books) 2010
• Vogüé, Melchior de (1864). Le Temple de Jérusalem : monographie du Haram-ech-Chérif, suivie d'un essai sur la topographie de la Ville-sainte (in French). Paris: Noblet & Baudry.