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The Dome of the Rock: Jerusalem’s Hallmark 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 the Temple Mount, they think of only one place in the world. It is Jerusalem’s answer to Paris’ Eiffel Tower, Rome’s St. Peter’s Square, and New York’s Empire State Building. The Dome of the Rock is Jerusalem. What is this building? Who built it and why? Sometimes the building with the golden dome is called "the mosque of Umar." While Muslims do pray in the Dome of the Rock, it is not a mosque. Also, the Caliph Umar was not responsible for its construction since it was built almost seventy years after he added Jerusalem to the Muslim empire. It was Caliph ‘Adb al-Malik who, in A.D. 691, commissioned Christian architects to build a shrine over the large outcropping of bedrock on the site where Solomon’s Temple stood. Why al-Malik built the Dome of the Rock has been the subject of some controversy. Some historians suggest that al-Malik ordered the shrine to be built in order to attract Muslim pilgrims to Jerusalem and away from Mecca. He was vying for the leadership of the Muslim world and his chief rival lived in Mecca. Supposedly alMalik thought erecting an impressive building would make him look like the most important Islamic leader. While the caliph would not have been the first person to use religion to support political ambition, it is unlikely that he would have challenged what was one of Islam’s most fundamental practices. The pilgrimage to Mecca was a duty of every Muslim. Substituting any city for Mecca would have been unthinkable less than sixty years after Mohammed’s death. A second explanation for the building of the Dome of the Rock may be in honor of the night journey during which Mohammed, escorted by the angel Gabriel, came to Jerusalem from Mecca to ascend to heaven from the rock over which the Dome of the Rock now stands. The Dome of the Rock contains Qur’anic verses, calling Christians to accept Islam and to recognize the true place of Jesus in the plan of God. Apparently one original purpose of the Islamic shrine was to emphasize the superiority of Islam over Christianity. The Dome of the Rock was built to proclaim the central tenets of Islam: the unity of God and the finality of Mohammed’s role as God’s prophet. It is a statement, in most tangible form that proclaimed that the Arab conquest of what had been a Christian city for four hundred years had more than political consequences. It transformed Jerusalem into an Islamic city that is to proclaim the message of Mohammed to the world. Because the structure was built on a site that Jewish tradition associated with Abraham, it also serves to attempt to persuade Jews to convert to the new faith as well. Many scholars believe, then, that one original purpose of the Dome of the Rock was to emphasize the superiority of Islam over both Judaism and Christianity. The Dome of the Rock symbolized a transformation of Jerusalem. What was once a Jewish city, and then a Christian city during The Crusades, soon after became a Muslim city in 1187, when it was captured by Saladin. Jerusalem was ruled by several Muslim caliphates and the Ottoman Empire, until 1947, when the United Nations voted in favor of the Partition of Palestine, proposing a Jewish state, an Arab state, and a U.N.-controlled state. Jerusalem retained its Islamic character until the beginning of the twentieth century. Today the city is very diverse culturally and religiously. There are small Christian populations divided among Orthodox, Catholic, and Armenian communities. There is a much larger Muslim population concentrated in the Old City and the neighborhoods of eastern Jerusalem adjacent to it. The bulk of the city’s population is Jewish, and represents the spectrum of Jewish observance from the Hassidic to the Reform movements. http://198.62.75.1/www1/ofm/mag/MAen9910.html By Leslie Hoppe Professor of Biblical Interpretation and Archeology Old Testament Professor CTU, Chicago, IL