Dome of the Rock (691): Abd al-Malik's Shrine in Jerusalem

The Dome of the Rock (in Arabic, Qubbat al-Sakhra) is an octagonal shrine on the great platform of the Old City of Jerusalem, known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif and to Jews and Christians as the Temple Mount. It was completed in 691-692 on the orders of the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik, and it is the oldest surviving major monument of Islamic architecture. With its golden dome and richly decorated interior, it has become one of the most recognisable buildings in the world and a symbol of Jerusalem itself.

Background: Jerusalem and the early Muslims

Jerusalem was taken by Arab Muslim forces around 637-638, during the conquests of the Rashidun Caliphate, after the defeat of the Byzantine army at the Battle of Yarmouk. The city, called Iliya or later Bayt al-Maqdis (the Holy House) in Arabic, was already sacred to Jews and Christians, and Muslims shared many of their traditions about the prophets.

The Temple Mount had been the site of the Jewish Temple until its destruction by the Romans in AD 70. In Byzantine times the platform was largely left in ruins, while Christian worship focused on churches such as the Holy Sepulchre. Early Muslim sources say that the caliph Umar visited the site and that a simple mosque was built there; a Christian pilgrim, Arculf, described a rough rectangular prayer house on the platform around 680.

Why Abd al-Malik built it

Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan became caliph in 685 in the middle of the Second Fitna, a civil war in which Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr claimed the caliphate from Mecca. The Umayyads controlled Syria and Palestine but not, for some years, the holy cities of Arabia.

Historians have offered several explanations for the building, which are not mutually exclusive:

• A rival to Mecca: the 9th-century historian al-Ya’qubi claimed that Abd al-Malik built the Dome to divert pilgrims from Mecca while it was in Ibn al-Zubayr’s hands. Many modern historians doubt this, noting that no other early source supports it and that al-Ya’qubi was hostile to the Umayyads.
• A statement to Christians: the 10th-century geographer al-Muqaddasi, a native of Jerusalem, wrote that the caliph wanted a monument that would rival the splendid churches of the region, especially the dome of the Holy Sepulchre. The building’s Quranic inscriptions, which address Christian beliefs directly, support the idea of a message aimed at Christians.
• Sanctifying the rock: the shrine marked a spot holy in biblical tradition and associated with the end of time, linking the new faith with the prophets before Muhammad.
• Imperial prestige: at the same time Abd al-Malik introduced Arabic as the language of administration and struck the first purely epigraphic Islamic coins. The Dome is often seen as part of this wider effort to give the empire a clear Islamic identity.

Construction

The dedicatory inscription inside the building gives the date 72 of the Hijra, corresponding to 691-692. Later Arabic sources suggest that construction began a few years earlier, around 688, and that the caliph set aside the tax revenue of Egypt for the project for several years. The work was overseen by Raja ibn Haywa, a scholar from Beisan, and Yazid ibn Sallam, a client of the caliph from Jerusalem.

Nothing is known of the individual architects. The mosaics and the building methods follow late Roman and Byzantine practice, and it is widely accepted that local Christian craftsmen, or artisans trained in that tradition, did much of the work.

Architecture

Plan

The Dome of the Rock is a centrally planned building, designed to be walked around rather than to hold rows of worshippers. Its outer wall is a regular octagon, each side about 20 metres long, with a door facing each of the four cardinal directions.

Inside are two concentric rings of supports. An outer octagonal arcade of 8 piers and 16 columns surrounds an inner circle of 4 piers and 12 columns. These rings create two walkways (ambulatories) around the rock, which lies directly under the dome. The proportions are carefully calculated, and scholars have pointed out close links with the rotunda of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre a short distance away.

The dome

The dome is about 20 metres in diameter and rises to more than 30 metres above the floor. It is a double shell made of wood, set on a high drum pierced by windows. The original dome collapsed in an earthquake in 1015 and was rebuilt in 1022-1023, following the earlier form.

Mosaics and decoration

Large parts of the interior are covered with gold and coloured glass mosaics. They show vines, acanthus scrolls, trees, vases and jewelled crowns and ornaments, but no human or animal figures. Some scholars interpret the crowns and jewels as symbols of the rulers defeated by Islam, offered like trophies to the sanctuary.

The exterior was originally also decorated with mosaics. In the 16th century the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent replaced them with the glazed tiles in blue, white, green and yellow that dominate the building’s appearance today. The tiles themselves have been renewed several times since.

By the numbers

Inscriptions and the sacred rock

The inscriptions

Running around both sides of the octagonal arcade is a mosaic inscription about 240 metres long, written in an early angular Arabic script often called Kufic. It is one of the earliest dated texts to quote the Quran.

The inscription repeatedly proclaims the oneness of God and the prophethood of Muhammad. A long section addresses the “People of the Book” and states that Jesus, son of Mary, was a messenger of God and his word, and calls on Christians not to speak of God as three. It ends with the date of construction.

During his reign (813-833) the Abbasid caliph al-Ma’mun had the name of Abd al-Malik in the dedication replaced by his own. His craftsmen, however, left the original date of 72 AH unchanged, and the different colour of the inserted tiles still reveals the alteration.

The rock

The shrine was built over a large outcrop of bare limestone, the Foundation Stone (Even ha-Shetiyah in Hebrew, al-Sakhra in Arabic). A small cave beneath it, reached by steps, is known as the Well of Souls.

In Jewish tradition the rock is linked with the site of the Temple and with Abraham’s binding of Isaac. In Islamic tradition it came to be associated above all with the Night Journey of Muhammad, who is believed to have been carried from Mecca to Jerusalem and to have ascended to heaven from this place. Whether this association was already central in 691, or grew stronger afterwards, is debated by historians.

Later history

The Dome survived the fall of the Umayyads in 750 and was repaired by Abbasid and Fatimid rulers. After the crusaders captured the city in the siege of Jerusalem of 1099, they turned the building into a church, the Templum Domini (Temple of the Lord), placed a cross on the dome and covered the rock with marble.

When Saladin took Jerusalem in 1187 he removed the cross and restored the building as a Muslim shrine. Later the Mamluks and the Ottomans carried out major restorations, including Suleiman’s tiling in the 1540s and 1550s.

In the 20th century the shrine was restored several times. In a Jordanian restoration of the late 1950s and early 1960s the dome was covered with gold-coloured anodised aluminium. In a later restoration, carried out in 1993-1994, it was covered with gold leaf funded by King Hussein of Jordan. Since 1967, when Israel took control of East Jerusalem, the site has been administered by the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, a religious trust linked to Jordan, under a fragile status quo arrangement.

Myths and facts

• Myth: it is the Mosque of Omar. European travellers long called it by that name, but the caliph Umar did not build it, and it is not a mosque. It was built more than 50 years after his visit to Jerusalem.
• Myth: the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa are the same building. The al-Aqsa Mosque is a separate congregational mosque at the southern end of the platform. Muslims often use the name al-Aqsa for the whole sanctuary, which causes confusion.
• Fact: the building is essentially the original one. Despite repairs, a new dome and changes to the exterior, the basic structure and much of the interior mosaic decoration date from the 690s.

Timeline

• c. 637-638: Jerusalem surrenders to the Arab Muslim armies.
• 685: Abd al-Malik becomes Umayyad caliph.
• c. 688: construction of the Dome probably begins.
• 691-692 (72 AH): the year given in the dedicatory inscription.
• 813-833: the caliph al-Ma’mun replaces Abd al-Malik’s name in the inscription with his own.
• 1015: the dome collapses in an earthquake; it is rebuilt in 1022-1023.
• 1099: the crusaders take Jerusalem and turn the shrine into a church.
• 1187: Saladin restores the building to Muslim use.
• 1540s-1550s: Suleiman the Magnificent replaces the exterior mosaics with tiles.
• 1993-1994: a restoration covers the dome in new gold leaf.

Why it matters

The Dome of the Rock is the earliest great building of Islam to survive, and it shows a new religion and empire adapting the architecture of the Roman and Byzantine world to its own message. Its inscriptions are key evidence for the early history of the Quran and of Muslim-Christian relations. Sacred to three faiths, the rock and its shrine remain at the centre of the religious and political life of Jerusalem.