Dome of the Rock

The Dome of the Rock (Arabic قبة الصخرة qubbat as-sachra, DMG qubbatu ʾṣ-ṣaḫra; Hebrew כיפת הסלע Kippat ha-Sela) in Jerusalem is the oldest monumental sacred building in Islam and one of the main Islamic shrines. It stands on the Temple Mount in the southeastern part of Jerusalem's Old City. According to current research, it was built between 687 and 691 and has been restored, altered and comprehensively added to many times over the centuries, most recently in the early 1990s.

The rock in the center of the building is called in Hebrew אבן השתייה (Even ha-Shetiyya), the foundation rock. According to popular Jewish tradition, the world was founded on it, with the stone at its center in the Jerusalem Temple. At this place Abraham had wanted to sacrifice his son Isaac (binding of Isaac) and here the ark of the covenant had been located. In the Tanakh, however, in the story of the binding of Isaac (Gen 22 EU), no relation is given to earlier or later meanings of the sacrificial site. The later Temple Mount, in turn, became the Israelites' holy place with an altar to end the plague only after King David bought it from Arawna the Jebusite. (2 Sam 24:15 EU)

According to the Islamic tradition Mohammed should have started from this rock the ascension to heaven and his meeting with the former prophets of Judaism and Jesus. The Islamic tradition and Koranic exegesis, according to which not Isaac but Ishmael was to be sacrificed, do not connect the rock with Abraham's sacrifice.

The Dome of the Rock is a masterpiece of Islamic architecture of the early Umayyad style ­and adopts the early Christian Byzantine central building type.

The building with an originally wooden dome (current inner height 11.5 m, diameter 20.40 m) was erected over an exposed rock (Arabic sachra). In archaeological research it is disputed in which relation this rock stands to previous temple buildings from biblical times. It is often assumed that the holy of holies or the altar of burnt offering of the ancient Jerusalem sanctuary was located on the rock.

The Dome of the Rock was originally - and is still today - understood not as a mosque, but as a shrine or dome (قبّة qubba 'dome').

The building

The foundation walls are made of irregular natural stone in mortarless construction. The material used is probably granodiorite, a granite-like material. The foundations are made of concrete ashlars, which are also irregularly dimensioned. The flat roof has a hidden internal drainage, it is located about half a meter below the top of the walls. The walls are about 7-8 meters high. Above the flat roof is a tambour, which is about 1/3 of the base building and 5-6 meters high. A round dome roof made of gilded sheet metal is attached to it. From about 3 meters high, all the walls have a blue decoration with oriental motifs. The whole building has 7 round arches on each octagonal side. These are walled and also decorated with blue tile ornaments. The entire complex was originally designed as an octagonal ambulatorium.

The octagonal ground plan is fitted into a circle with a diameter of just under 55 metres. The innermost circle of columns has a diameter of 20.37 meters and is slightly twisted against the outer octagonal. The cathedral has four entrances, arranged in the direction of the four cardinal points. The southern door is highlighted by a portico and is considered the main entrance.

The dome had a black lead roof until 1962. During the extensive renovation between 1959 and 1962, it received aluminum bronze plates hammered with gold leaf. In 1993, King Hussein had these replaced with gold-galvanized plates. A total of 40 pillars and columns support the dome. The columns are arranged in an octagon and thus also serve as a demarcation of two octagonal ambulatories.

Near the Dome of the Rock - also on the Temple Mount - is the al-Aqsa Mosque, which was also built under the Umayyads. The erroneously used name "Umar Mosque" goes back to traditions whose authenticity is questionable. According to these, the second caliph ʿUmar ibn al-Chattāb is said to have prayed on the Temple Mount (or at the Mihrab of David, known today as the Tower of David at the Jaffa Gate) on Palm Sunday, April 2, 635, after the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem. According to further reports, the authenticity of which is also questionable, the caliph and Sophronius of Jerusalem († about 638) cleared the Temple Mount of rubbish and debris.

Sacred inscriptions

The dates of construction are derived from inscriptions, papyrus documents, and the reports of Arab historiographers: at-Tabarī, Ibn Kathīr, al-Balādhurī, and others. The completion of the Dome of the Rock is clearly attested by the building inscription dated to the Muslim year 72 (691-692). However, the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mūn is named as the builder at this point, and he apparently overlooked changing the original date of construction when he erased the name of the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik. The amended passage-here in parentheses-is written in a style that differs from the original. It reads:

"Erected this dome was the servant of God ʿAbd (Allāh, the Imām al-Ma'mūn, the Commander) of the believers."

The 240 m long inscription volume is composed of a series of Koranic quotations - also in paraphrased form. The inscription is an integral, meaning-defining part of the construction, which was first pointed out by Oleg Grabar (1959). On the outside of the inner octagon, the sections begin with the basmala along with the creed (Shahāda). On the inside of the inner octagon, the Christian doctrine of the divine nature of Jesus is additionally rejected by Qur'anic verses (Sura 4, verses 171-172, by the paraphrase of Sura 19, verse 33 and by Sura 3, verses 18-20). It goes on to say:

followed by a statement about Jesus - as a paraphrase of Sura 19, 33:

The interior decorations of the Dome of the Rock show representations of Paradise; contemporary research explains both these and the inscriptions with the original intention of the builder Abd al-Malik: the building has religious significance from the beginning, which is not devoid of anti-Christian polemics. In the inner part of the octagon, facing the holy rock, there is a passage from Sura 4, verse 171:

In this sense, Muḥammad is referred to several times in the inscription as the "servant of God" and as the "messenger of God". Around that time, in the late 7th century, it was also known to Christians that Muslims referred to their Prophet as the "great Messenger (of God)." The archdeacon Georgius, who was active in Egypt around 720, reports that ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Marwān, governor in Egypt and brother of the caliph ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān, had inscriptions placed on the church gates of Egypt naming Muḥammad as the great messenger of God.

The historian and biographer adh-Dhahabī († 1348) reports in his comprehensive work History of Islam (Taʾrīḫ al-islām) that the founder of the Dome of the Rock ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān had new coins minted with the Qur'anic quotation repeated in the inscription "Say: He is God, one and only" (sura 112, verse 1) and on the edge of the coin with "Muḥammad is the messenger of God".

The Koranic quotations represent the oldest written documents of the Koran in the Kufic diction dating from 692, in which diacritical points of Arabic have already been used, although not throughout.

Two other inscriptions on bronze tablets placed above the east and north portals, respectively, also consist of quotations from the Qur'an, praises of the Prophet, and mention of God's punishments and his mercy on the Day of Resurrection. They bear the date 831, added later, and the name of the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mūn. During restoration work in the 1960s, the badly damaged panels were removed; they are currently in the Ḥaram Museum and are not accessible for research.

Another inscription contains verses 1-21 from the 20th sura (Tā-Hā) and is undated. It was probably placed at the instigation of Saladin after the reconquest of Jerusalem and has been understood as a demonstration of the transformation of the Dome of the Rock, used by the Crusaders as a "Templum Domini", into an Islamic sanctuary. The inscription, which contains the beginning of the 36th Sura Ya-Sin, appears on the balustrade of the octagon and was added during the extensive renovation works under Suleyman I the Magnificent in the 16th century. The inscription immediately below the dome, dated 1545-1546, contains verses 1-20 of the 17th sura (al-Isrāʾ); in the architectural history of the Dome of the Rock, it is there that the ascension of Muhammad is first associated with this site.