The Construction of the Dome of the Rock

A vast walled rectangular platform on a high stone outcrop in the centre of an ancient walled city. To the east the platform falls away into a deep valley (the Kidron); to the west the city continues in dense low courses of pale limestone; to the south the platform ends abruptly above the southern wall.

At the centre of the platform, raised on a smaller upper terrace approached by short staircases, a great octagonal building is rising. The lower walls of dressed stone are largely complete; the timber-framed wooden dome over the central rock is being clad with sheets of gilded copper. The form is the qubba, the dome, a building whose plan and purpose are sacred: to enshrine the rock (al-sakhra) from which, in the night of al-Isra' wa-l-Mi'raj, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) ascended through the heavens.

Around the foot of the building, scaffolding of cedar poles lashed with rope, mounds of cut limestone, sacks of glass tesserae for the mosaics, and crates of marble slabs from the Byzantine quarries. The labourers and craftsmen, Syrian, Greek, and Coptic mosaicists working under Umayyad supervision, are visible from a distance but not in identifiable form. The Sunni historical sources (Ibn 'Asakir, al-Muqaddasi) preserve the labour organisation and the financing of the project from the kharaj of Misr (Egypt) for seven full years.

To the south of the rising octagon, a long timber-and-stone congregational hall is also under construction, the original al-Masjid al-Aqsa (al-jami' al-aqsa), the southernmost of the platform's buildings, the qibla mosque of the Haram. The platform is the second of the three holy mosques of Islam: 'Do not undertake the journey except to three mosques, the Sacred Mosque, this Mosque of mine, and al-Masjid al-Aqsa' (Sahih al-Bukhari 1189, Sahih Muslim 1397).

The patron of the work is the Umayyad Caliph 'Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (rahimahu Allah), reigning from Damascus, who ordered the construction in 66 AH and saw it completed in 72 AH (691-692 CE). The Kufic inscription which runs the full length of the inner octagonal arcade, the longest early Islamic inscription known, preserves the date and the name of the patron, alongside Qur'anic verses on the oneness of Allah (tawhid) and the prophethood of 'Isa ibn Maryam (peace be upon him) as a servant of Allah.

The building is the visible affirmation of tawhid on the platform which had been the site of the two Temples of the Children of Israel and the place where the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) had led the prophets in prayer on the night of al-Isra' (Sahih Muslim 172). The Qur'an refers to the precinct: 'Glory be to the One who took His servant by night from al-Masjid al-Haram to al-Masjid al-Aqsa, whose surroundings We have blessed' (Q 17:1).

The light is the strong silver-blue light of late spring in the Judaean hills. To the east, over the Kidron, the bare slopes of the Mount of Olives rise. To the west, the rooftops of the old Byzantine city are giving way under Umayyad rule to new construction. The platform is the highest point of the walled city; the Dome rises above the skyline.

The construction of the Dome of the Rock is preserved in the Sunni historical and topographical sources (al-Tabari, Ibn 'Asakir's Tarikh Madinat Dimashq, al-Muqaddasi's Ahsan al-Taqasim, Ibn Kathir, Mujir al-Din's al-Uns al-Jalil bi-Tarikh al-Quds wa-al-Khalil). The Kufic dedicatory inscription itself, in situ, dates the work to 72 AH.

al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Rusul wa-al-Muluk (early 10th c.): Cross-reference for the conventional dating of the construction in the reign of 'Abd al-Malik (rahimahu Allah) and the political context.

Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wa al-Nihaya (14th c.): Standard Sunni history. Synthesises the construction with the broader account of the Umayyad caliphate.