Islamic Objects and Manuscripts

“Dome of the Rock”

Instructor: M. Tarek Swelim, Ph.D.

Student: Aymen Aiblu

“The Dome of the Rock is a building of extraordinary beauty, solidity, elegance, and singularity of
shape… Both outside and inside, the decoration is so magnificent and the workmanship so
surpassing as to defy description. The greater part is covered with gold so that the eyes of one who
gazes on its beauties are dazzled by its brilliance, now glowing like a mass of light, now flashing
like lightning.”
— Ibn Battuta (14th century travel writer).

The Dome of the Rock (Qubbat al-Sakhra),

Umayyad, stone masonry, wooden roof, decorated
with glazed ceramic tile, mosaics, and gilt
aluminium and bronze dome, 691-2, with multiple
renovations, patron the Caliph Abd al-Malik,
Jerusalem (photo: Orientalist, CC BY 3.0)

The most universally recognized symbol of Jerusalem is not a Jewish or Christian holy place but a
Muslim one: The Dome of the Rock. When people see its golden dome rising above the open expanse
of al-Masjid al-Aqsa, they think of only one place in the world.
There is an often quoted statement of Muslim historian al-Muqaddasi on the reason for the building of
Dome of the Rock. Al-Muqaddasi asked his uncle why al-Walid spent so much money on the building
of the mosques in Damascus. The uncle answered:
“O my little son, though has no understanding. Verily al-Walid was right, and he was prompted to a
worthy work. For he beheld Syria to be a country that had long been occupied by the Christians, and he
noted there are beautiful churches still belonging to them, so enchantingly fair, and so renowned for
their spendour, as are the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Churches of Lydda and Edessa. So he
sought to build for the Muslims a mosque that should be unique and a wonder to the world. And in like
manner is it not evident that `Abd al-Malik, seeing the greatness of the martyrium [Qubbah] of the Holy
Sepulchre and its magnificence was moved lest it should dazzle the minds of Muslims and hence erected
above the Rock the Dome which is now seen there.”

1
Arabic QUBBAT AS-SAKHRAH, also erroneously referred to as the MOSQUE OF OMAR, this shrine
in Jerusalem is the oldest extant Islamic monument. The rock over which the shrine was built is sacred
to both Muslims and Jews. The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), prophet of Islam, is traditionally believed
to have ascended into heaven from the site. In Jewish tradition, it is here that Abraham, the progenitor
and first patriarch of the Hebrew people, is said to have prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac. The Dome
and Al-Aqsa Mosque are both located on the Temple Mount, the site of Solomon's Temple and its
successors.
The Dome of the Rock is Jerusalem's answer to Paris' Eiffel Tower, Rome's St. Peter's Square, London's
Big Ben and Kuala Lumpur's Petronas towers; dazzling the minds of Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
The Dome of the Rock is Jerusalem. It is situated on the holy city, undoubtedly one of the most
celebrated and most remarkable monuments of early Islam, visited every year by thousands of pilgrims
and tourists.

History
Pre-Islamic Background,
As aforementioned, the Dome of the Rock is situated in the center of the Temple Mount, the site of the
Temple of Solomon and the Jewish Second 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, a Roman temple to Jupiter Capitolinus was built at the site by Emperor Hadrian.
Jerusalem was ruled by the Christian Byzantine Empire throughout the 4th to 6th centuries. During this
time, Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem began to develop. 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 Julian the Apostate.

Umayyad Caliphate,
Between the death of the prophet Muhammad in 632 and 691/2, when the Dome of the Rock was
completed, there was intermittent warfare in Arabia and Holy Land around Jerusalem. The first Arab
armies who emerged from the Arabian Peninsula were focused on conquering and establishing an
empire—not building.
Thus, the Dome of the Rock was one of the first Islamic buildings ever constructed. It was built between
685 and 691/2 by Abd al-Malik, probably the most important Umayyad caliph, as a religious focal point
for his supporters, while he was fighting a civil war against Ibn Zubayr. When Abd al-Malik began
construction on the Dome of the Rock, he did not have control of the Kaaba, the holiest shrine in Islam,
which is located in Mecca.
The Dome is located on the Haram al-Sharif, an enormous open-air platform that now houses Al-Aqsa
mosque, madrasas and several other religious buildings. Few places are as holy for Christians, Jews and
Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif. It is the Temple Mount, the site of the Jewish second temple, which
the Roman Emperor Titus destroyed in 70 C.E. while subduing the Jewish revolt; a Roman temple was
later built on the site. The Temple Mount was abandoned in Late Antiquity.
The initial octagonal structure of the Dome of the Rock and its round wooden dome had basically the
same shape as it does today. 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. Some scholars have suggested that the dome was added to an existing building,
built either by Muawiyah I (r. 661–680), or indeed a Byzantine building dating to before the Muslim
conquest, built under Heraclius (r. 610–641).

2
The Dome of the Rock's architecture and mosaics were patterned after nearby Byzantine churches and
palaces. The supervisor and engineer in charge of the project were Raja ibn Haywa, Yazid ibn Salam,
and the latter's son Baha. 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. The Caliph employed expert
works from across his domain, at the time restricted to Syria and Egypt, who were presumably
Christians. Construction cost was reportedly seven times the yearly tax income of Egypt. 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).

Reasons of building the Dome of the Rock,

Narratives by the medieval sources about Abd al-Malik's motivations in building the Dome of the Rock
vary. 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. 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. 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."

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.
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.

Description
Basic Structure,
The structure is basically octagonal. It is
capped at its centre by a dome,
approximately 20.20m (66.3ft) in
diameter, mounted on an elevated
circular drum standing on 16 supports (4
tiers and 12 columns).
Surrounding this circle is an octagonal
arcade of 24 piers and columns. 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 11m (36ft) high. 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.

3
Interior Decoration,
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.
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.

Exterior Decoration,
The decoration of the outer walls went through two major phases: the initial Umayyad scheme
comprised marble and mosaics, much like the interior walls. 16th-century Ottoman sultan Suleyman the
Magnificent replaced it with Turkish faience tiles. The Ottoman tile decoration was replaced in the 1960s
with faithful copies produced in Italy.
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. Al-Isra, the Surah 17 which tells the story of the Isra
or Night Journey, is inscribed above this.

The Rock in the Dome of the Rock,

At the center of the Dome of the Rock sits a large
rock, which is believed to be the location where
Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son Ismail
(Isaac in the Judeo/Christian tradition). Today,
Muslims believe that the Rock commemorates
the night journey of prophet Muhammad peace be
up on him. One night the Angel Gabriel came to
prophet Muhammad while he slept near the
Kaaba in Mecca and took him to al-Masjid al-
Aqsa (the farthest mosque) in Jerusalem. From
the Rock, prophet Muhammad journeyed to
heaven, where he met other prophets, such as
Moses and Christ, witnessed paradise and hell
and finally saw Allah enthroned and circumambulated by angels.
The Rock is enclosed by two ambulatories (in this case the aisles that
circle the rock) and an octagonal exterior wall. The central colonnade
(row of columns) was composed of four piers and twelve columns
supporting a rounded drum that transitions into the two-layered dome
more than 20 meters in diameter.
The colonnades are clad in marble on their lower registers, and their
upper registers are adorned with exceptional mosaics. The ethereal
interior atmosphere is a result of light that pours in from grilled windows
located in the drum and exterior walls. Golden mosaics depicting jewels
shimmer in this glittering light. Byzantine and Sassanian crowns in the
midst of vegetal motifs are also visible.
The Byzantine Empire stood to the North and to the West of the new Islamic Empire until 1453, when
its capital, Constantinople, fell to the Ottoman Empire. To the East, the old Sasanian Empire of Persia
imploded under pressure from the Arabs, but nevertheless provided winged crown motifs that can be
found in the Dome of the Rock.

4
Mosaics,
Wall and ceiling mosaics became very popular in Late Antiquity and adorn many Byzantine churches,
including San Vitale in Ravenna and Aya Sophia in Constantinople. Thus, the use of mosaics reflects
an artistic tie to the world of Late Antiquity. Late Antiquity is a period from about 300-800, when the
Classical world dissolves and the Medieval period emerges.

The mosaics in the Dome of the Rock contain no human figures or animals. the religion of Islam does
prohibit the use of figurative art. We see vegetative scrolls and motifs, as well as vessels and winged
crowns, which were worn by Sasanian kings. Thus, the iconography of the Dome of the Rock also
includes the other major pre-Islamic civilization of the region, the Sasanian Empire, which the Arab
armies had defeated.

5
References:
 Islamic Awareness, The Dome Of The Rock (Qubbat Al-Sakhra) https://www.islamic-
awareness.org/history/islam/dome_of_the_rock/
 Khan Academy, The Dome Of The Rock (Qubbat Al-Sakhra)
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/west-and-central-asia-apahh/west-
asia/a/the-dome-of-the-rock-qubbat-al-sakhra
 Images of the Dome of the Rock from Manar Al-Athar http://www.manar-al-
athar.ox.ac.uk/dams/pages/search.php?search=!related28360
 Fordham University, Medieval Sourcebook: Ibn Battuta: Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/1354-ibnbattuta.asp
 Pre-Islamic History of the Dome of the Rock, Davidson, Linda Kay and David Martin Gitlitz
Pilgrimage: From the Ganges to Graceland : an Encyclopedia Volume 1, ABC-CLIO, Inc, Santa
Barbara, CA 2002, p. 274.
 Pre-Islamic History of the Dome of the Rock, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Aelia Capitolina".
Encyclopedia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 256. Lester L. Grabbe
(2010). An Introduction to Second Temple Judaism: History and Religion of the Jews in the
Time of Nehemiah, the Maccabees, Hillel, and Jesus. A&C Black. p. 29.
 History of the Dome of the Rock, Sheila Blair, "What Is The Date Of The Dome Of The Rock?"
in J. Raby & J. Johns (ed.), "Bayt Al-Maqdis: `Abd al-Malik's Jerusalem", 1992, Part 1, Oxford
University Press: Oxford (UK), pp. 59-87.
 Busse, Heribert (1991). "Zur Geschichte und Deutung der frühislamischen Ḥarambauten in
Jerusalem". Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins (in German). 107: 144–154. JSTOR
27931418.
 Oleg Grabar: The Meaning of the Dome of the Rock.
 Richard Ettinghausen; Oleg Grabar; Marilyn Jenkins (2001). Islamic Art and Architecture 650–
1250. Yale University Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-300-08869-4.
 Cross section of the Dome (print from 1887, after the first detailed drawings of the Dome, made
by Frederick Catherwood in 1833)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dome_of_the_Rock#/media/File:Dehio_10_Dome_of_the_Rock
_Section.jpg
 "Dome of the Rock". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 15 June 2008.
Retrieved 4 April 2012.
 The Dome of the Rock. Glass Steel and Stone. Archived 11 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine.
 Robert Schick, Archaeology and the Quran, Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an.
 "Qubba al-Sakhra". ArchNet. Archived from the original on 14 August 2019. Retrieved 8 April
2020.
 Palestine: Masjid al-Aqsa:The Dome of the Rock Archived 15 January 2019 at the Wayback
Machine, at IslamicLandmarks.com, accessed 18 February 2019.
 Photo of The Rock in the Dome of the Rock, Interior of the Dome of the Rock (photo: Robert
Smythe Hitchens, public domain).
 K.A.C. Creswell, Sectional axonometric view through dome, ©Creswell Archive, Ashmolean
Museum, Image courtesy of Fine Arts Library, Harvard College Library.
 Mosaic detail from the Dome of the Rock (public domain), Khan Academy.