The head of a Jewish organization called for its demolition.. Learn more about the Dome of the Rock

The Palestinians denounced calls by the head of the Jewish "Lehava" organization to mobilize settlers to storm the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and start demolishing the Dome of the Rock on Sunday, May 29th.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned the statements of the head of the "Lehava" Organization, Benzi Gopstein, in which he called for the start of dismantling the Dome of the Rock to make way for the construction of the alleged temple in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Dome of the Rock is considered one of the most important Islamic architectural monuments in the world. It is the oldest building erected in the Islamic era, and it has preserved its original geometric form and its architectural and decorative elements mostly unchanged.

The architectural elements in the Dome of the Rock add an incomparable splendor, to the extent that many theories have been researched and published regarding the interpretation of the construction of this dome, its shape, and the reason for its construction on this distinctive and different basis from all buildings of a religious nature in all Muslim eras.

Abd Al-Malik Bin Marwan

The Caliph Abd al-Malik bin Marwan personally came to Bayt al-Maqdis, and he sent his books to the regions to consult his subjects about what to do. Their response was, “We see the opinion of the Commander of the Faithful, successful and wise, God willing, what he intended to build his house, his rock, and his mosque will be accomplished for him, and this is done on his hands and makes it a reminder to him and to those who passed from his predecessor.

- 66 AH / 685 AD: The Umayyad Caliph started work on building the Dome of the Rock and it was completed in 72 AH / 691 AD, and the architects, Raja’ bin Haywa al-Kindi, supervised its construction, one of the well-known followers and his origin from the city of Bisan in Palestine, and Yazid bin Salam Mawla Abd King Bin Marwan, an engineer from Jerusalem.

Abd al-Malik bin Marwan entrusted the engineers to build the Dome of the Chain, which is now located opposite the Rock, and he liked it and ordered it to be built in its shape, as the excise duty of Egypt was placed on it for seven years.

About one hundred thousand dinars were spent on the construction of the Dome of the Rock, so they sent the Caliph Abd al-Malik bin Marwan to spend it on what he likes.

So he wrote to them: I have commanded you a prize for the building of the noble house, so they wrote to him: We are more deserving of our women’s jewelry in addition to our money, so spend it on the things you love, so tell them to pour out on the dome.

As for the motives for building the dome, some historians claim that the Umayyad Caliph built it with a political motive in order to deprive Ibn al-Zubayr of the privilege he had in Mecca and Medina and divert the attention of the people of the Levant to Jerusalem and also deprive him of financial income from pilgrims.

As if by this procedure he wanted to impose an economic blockade on him.

- There is another opinion that the building was purely religious, and that is for Muslims to have a mosque that matches in its beauty the charm and beauty of Christian churches in Jerusalem and the Levant.

building shape

The Dome of the Rock is an octagonal building, and in the middle of the building is the honorable rock. This rock rises about one and a half meters from the floor of the building, and it is irregular in shape with a diameter ranging between 13 and 18 meters. The dome in the center of the building is topped by a circular dome with a diameter of about twenty meters.

The general octagonal shape of the dome building is based on two rows of columns, each row consisting of a group of large rectangular columns called "courses", and a group of small cylindrical marble columns.

The number of courses in the outer row is eight on which the main building is based, and between each two of them there are two small columns, and therefore the total of these small columns in the external valuation is 16 columns.

As for the inner row, it surrounds the rock itself and contains four large courses, and between each two of them there are three small columns, thus a total of 12 columns, and these four internal courses are the foundation upon which the neck of the dome itself is built.

On the upper side of the rock is the “Cave of the Spirits”, which is a small natural cave located in the cavity of the rock in the direction of the qiblah, and it can accommodate about forty people, and there is a hole in the body of the rock that penetrates to the top with a diameter of between forty and fifty centimeters, and is used to illuminate the cave.

There are many superstitions and legends mentioned in this hole, the most important of which is that it was formed by the action of “Gabriel’s finger, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him,” or that it was “pierced because of the ascension of the Prophet, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him, from it to heaven on the night of the Night Journey and Ascension.” The correct view is that this hole was the work of the Crusaders.

Domes and decorations

There are 14 mihrabs in the Dome of the Rock, seven of which are contiguous in front of the northern door of the building, one on the northeastern side at the inner row of columns surrounding the rock, and another in the direction of the qiblah is the main mihrab of the building, and three are contiguous on the western side of the building, and two Umayyad and Fatimid mihrabs are located under The rock in the cave of souls.

The building contains 52 windows, 24 arches covered with mosaics connecting the columns, and 99 distinctive black marble tiles.

The Dome of the Rock contains very rich architectural and decorative elements, especially the Umayyad motifs. The Umayyad mosaic contains images of trees and plants, all mentioned in the Holy Qur’an.

All the Umayyad decorations (whether mosaics or column capitals) are distinguished by the fact that there is no decorative unit in them that is similar to the other at all, and there are Umayyad writings in mosaics that are among the oldest surviving traces of writing in the Umayyad era.

All these writings revolve around monotheism and about the message and nature of Christ, peace and blessings be upon him, and the prophecy of the Prophet Muhammad, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him. Parts of Surah Taha, which mentions the story of Moses, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him, were written with mosaics on the lower frame of the neck of the dome.

As for the golden dome itself, it consists in fact of two inner and outer domes, with a distance of about one meter between them, and the interior is made of wood and covered from the inside with gilded plaster. from the last century when it was re-clad with gilded aluminum panels.

1995: The golden dome was covered with zinc plates, chemically coated with a very thin layer of pure gold. 24 kilograms of gold was used to cover it, and a crescent moon was above it, about five meters high, and the height of the whole building, up to the maximum height of the crescent, was about forty meters.

The dome building in the Umayyad era was covered inside and out with mosaics, until the Ottoman period, when Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent ordered to cover the building from the outside with blue faience tiles instead of mosaics. Mohammad Shafiq.

Crusader occupation

- In 493 AH/1099 AD: When the Crusaders occupied Jerusalem, they converted the Dome of the Rock into a church known as the "Temple of the Lord", as mentioned by some Catholic travelers, and some Orthodox travelers mentioned that the name of this church was "Holy of Holies".

The rock was turned into an altar, and they pierced the rock and made a hole in it, in order to filter the blood of the offerings in the cave.

- In 583 AH / 1187 AD: After the liberation of Jerusalem, Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi restored it to what it was before the Crusaders and removed all their fingerprints on it.

The dome had been exposed to an unintentional fire, as it is said that a child who was fishing for pigeons lit a candle on its roof, which led to the huge fire that broke out in it.

- The gilding of the dome was renewed from the inside, according to what we find today written through the inscription tape located inside the dome, which reads: “In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. He ordered the renewal of the gilding of this honorable dome. May God have mercy on him, in the months of the year 586.

- During the reign of Muhammad ibn Qalawun (693 AH / 1293 AD - 741 AH / 1341 AD) copper doors were made for them, and during the reign of King Al-Zahir Jaqmaq, who ruled Egypt from 842 AH to 857 AH (1438 AD - 1453 AD) he blessed the overseer of the Temple Mount with 2500 A dinar of gold and 120 quintals of lead, so the dome was built with them from the outside.

- In the year 86 AH / 704 AD: the honorable rock was hit by an earthquake, but it did not affect it.

- In the year 872 AH / 1467 AD: Sultan Ashraf Qaytbay renewed the copper doors of the main entrances, and in the Turkish era they added to the sides of the honorable stone al-Qashani.

1958 AD: The Jordanian government carried out five-year restoration work on the Dome of the Rock, and it was renovated in 1995.