The Aqsa Mosque, also known as the Qibli Mosque, is the main congregational mosque or prayer hall in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem. In some sources the building is also named al-Masjid al-Aqṣā, but this name primarily applies to the wider compound in which the building sits, which is itself also known as 'al-Aqsa Mosque', 'al-Aqsa' or 'Haram al-Sharif'.
According to Islamic tradition, a small prayer hall (musalla), what would later become the al-Aqsa Mosque, was built by Umar (r. 634–644), the second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate. In the reign of Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680), a quadrangular mosque with capacity for 3,000 worshipers is recorded on the compound. The current mosque, located on the south wall of the compound, was originally built by the fifth Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705) or his successor al-Walid I (r. 705–715) (or both) as a congregational mosque on the same axis as the Dome of the Rock, a commemorative Islamic monument. After being destroyed in an earthquake in 746, the mosque was rebuilt in 758 by the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur. It was further expanded upon in 780 by the Abbasid caliph al-Mahdi, after which it consisted of fifteen aisles and a central dome. It was destroyed again during an earthquake in 1033. The mosque was rebuilt by the Fatimid caliph al-Zahir (r. 1021–1036), who reduced it to seven aisles but adorned its interior with an elaborate central archway covered in vegetal mosaics; the current structure preserves the 11th-century outline.
During the periodic renovations, the ruling Islamic dynasties constructed additions to the mosque and its precincts, such as its dome, façade, minarets, and minbar and interior structure. Upon its capture by the Crusaders in 1099, the mosque was used as a palace; it was also the headquarters of the religious order of the Knights Templar. After the area was conquered by Saladin in 1187, the structure's function as a mosque was restored. More renovations, repairs, and expansion projects were undertaken in later centuries by the Ayyubids, the Mamluks, the Ottomans, the Supreme Muslim Council of British Palestine, and during the Jordanian rule of the West Bank. Since the beginning of the ongoing Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the mosque has remained under the independent administration of the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf.
Definition
The English term "Al-Aqsa Mosque" is the translation of two distinct Arabic terms: al-Masjid al-Aqṣā and Jāmiʿ al-Aqṣā. The former name (al-Masjid al-Aqṣā, "the furthest mosque") was first used in the Quran's Surah 17, where it referred to the whole compound of Al Aqsa, or Haram al-Sharif – there were no buildings on the site at the time the Quran was written. The latter name (Jāmiʿ al-Aqṣā) is used for the subject of this article – the silver-domed congregational mosque building. Arabic and Persian writers such as 10th-century geographer al-Muqaddasi, 11th-century scholar Nasir Khusraw, 12th-century geographer al-Idrisi and 15th-century Islamic scholar Mujir al-Din, as well as 19th-century American and British Orientalists Edward Robinson, Guy Le Strange and Edward Henry Palmer explained that the term Masjid al-Aqsa refers to the entire esplanade plaza also known as the Temple Mount or Haram al-Sharif ('Noble Sanctuary') – i.e. the entire area including the Dome of the Rock, the fountains, the gates, and the four minarets – because none of these buildings existed at the time the Quran was written. Al-Muqaddasi referred to the southern building (the subject of this article) as Al Mughattâ ("the covered-part") and Nasir Khusraw referred to it with the Persian word Pushish (also the "covered part", exactly as "Al Mughatta") or the Maqsurah (a part-for-the-whole synecdoche).
The building is also referred to as (al-)Qibli Mosque or (al-)Qibli Chapel (Muṣallā al-Qiblī), in reference to its location on the southern end of the compound as a result of the Islamic qibla being moved from Jerusalem to Mecca. "Qibli" is the name used in official publications by the governmental organization which administers the site, the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf (part of the Jordanian government), and the Jordanian government more widely. It is also the official name used by the Palestine Liberation Organization. It has been used by numerous international organizations such as the United States State Department the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (whose role is to act as "the collective voice of the Muslim world"), and UNESCO, as well as various scholars and media organizations.
History
Pre-construction
The mosque is located on the southern part of the Temple Mount or Haram al-Sharif, an enclosure expanded by King Herod the Great beginning in 20 BCE during his reconstruction of the Second Jewish Temple. The mosque resides on an artificial platform that is supported by arches constructed by Herod's engineers to overcome the difficult topographic conditions resulting from the southward expansion of the enclosure into the Tyropoeon and Kidron valleys. During the late Second Temple period, the present site of the mosque was occupied by the Royal Stoa, a basilica running the southern wall of the enclosure. The Royal Stoa was destroyed along with the Temple during the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE.
It was once thought that Emperor Justinian's "Nea Ekklesia of the Theotokos", lit. 'the New Church of the God-Bearer' and commonly known as the Nea Church, dedicated to the God-bearing Virgin Mary, consecrated in 543, was situated where al-Aqsa Mosque was later constructed. However, remains identified as those of the Nea Church were uncovered in the south part of the Jewish Quarter in 1973.
Analysis of the wooden beams and panels removed from the mosque during renovations in the 1930s shows they are made from Lebanese cedar and cypress. Radiocarbon dating gave a large range of ages, some as old as the 9th century BCE, showing that some of the wood had previously been used in older buildings. However, reexamination of the same beams in the 2010s gave dates in the Byzantine period.
During his excavations in the 1930s, Robert Hamilton uncovered portions of a multicolor mosaic floor with geometric patterns, but did not publish them. The date of the mosaic is disputed: Zachi Dvira considers that they are from the pre-Islamic Byzantine period, while Baruch, Reich and Sandhaus favor a much later Umayyad origin on account of their similarity to a mosaic from an Umayyad palace excavated adjacent to the Temple Mount's southern wall. By comparing the photographs to Hamilton's excavation report, Di Cesare determined that they belong to the second phase of mosque construction in the Umayyad period. Moreover, the mosaic designs were common in Islamic, Jewish and Christian buildings from the 2nd to the 8th century. Di Cesare suggested that Hamilton didn't include the mosaics in his book because they were destroyed to explore beneath them.
Umayyad period
A mostly wooden, rectangular mosque on the Temple Mount site with a capacity for 3,000 worshippers is attested by the Gallic monk Arculf during his pilgrimage to Jerusalem in c. 679–682. Its precise location is not known. The art historian Oleg Grabar deems it likely that it was close to the present mosque, while the historian Yildirim Yavuz asserts it stood at the present site of the Dome of Rock. The architectural historian K. A. C. Creswell notes that Arculf's attestation lends credibility to claims by some Islamic traditions and medieval Christian chronicles, which he otherwise deems legendary or unreliable, that the second Rashidun caliph, Umar (r. 634–644), ordered the construction of a primitive mosque on the Temple Mount. However, Arculf visited Palestine during the reign of Caliph Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680), founder of the Syria-based Umayyad Caliphate. Mu'awiya had been governor of Syria, including Palestine, for about twenty years before becoming caliph and his accession ceremony was held in Jerusalem. The 10th-century Jerusalemite scholar Ibn Tahir claims Mu'awiya built a mosque on the Haram.
There is disagreement as to whether the present al-Aqsa Mosque was originally built by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705) or his successor, his son al-Walid I (r. 705–715). Several architectural historians hold that Abd al-Malik commissioned the project and that al-Walid finished or expanded it. Abd al-Malik inaugurated great architectural works on the Temple Mount, including construction of the Dome of the Rock in c. 691. A common Islamic tradition holds that Abd al-Malik simultaneously commissioned the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque. As both were intentionally built on the same axis, Grabar comments that the two structures form "part of an architecturally thought-out ensemble comprising a congregational and a commemorative building", the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, respectively. Guy le Strange claims that Abd al-Malik used materials from the destroyed Church of Our Lady to build the mosque and points to possible evidence that substructures on the southeast corners of the mosque are remains of the church.
The earliest source indicating al-Walid's work on the mosque is the Aphrodito Papryi. These contain the letters between al-Walid's governor of Egypt in December 708–June 711 and a government official in Upper Egypt which discuss the dispatch of Egyptian laborers and craftsmen to help build the al-Aqsa Mosque, referred to as the "Mosque of Jerusalem". The referenced workers spent between six months and a year on the construction. Several 10th and 13th-century historians credit al-Walid for founding the mosque, though the historian Amikam Elad doubts their reliability on the matter. In 713–714, a series of earthquakes ravaged Jerusalem, destroying the eastern section of the mosque, which was subsequently rebuilt by al-Walid's order. He had gold from the Dome of the Rock melted to use as money to finance the repairs and renovations. He is credited by the early 15th-century historian al-Qalqashandi for covering the mosque's walls with mosaics. Grabar notes that the Umayyad-era mosque was adorned with mosaics, marble, and "remarkable crafted and painted woodwork". The latter are preserved partly in the Palestine Archaeological Museum and partly in the Islamic Museum.
Estimates of the size of the Umayyad-built mosque by architectural historians range from 112 by 39 meters (367 ft × 128 ft) to 114.6 by 69.2 meters (376 ft × 227 ft). The building was rectangular. In the assessment of Grabar, the layout was a modified version of the traditional hypostyle mosque of the period. Its "unusual" characteristic was that its aisles laid perpendicular to the qibla wall. The number of aisles is not definitively known, though fifteen is cited by a number of historians. The central aisle, double the width of the others, was probably topped by a dome.
The last years of Umayyad rule were turbulent for Jerusalem. The last Umayyad caliph, Marwan II (r. 744–750), punished Jerusalem's inhabitants for supporting a rebellion against him by rival princes, and tore down the city's walls. In 746, the al-Aqsa Mosque was ruined in an earthquake. Four years later, the Umayyads were toppled and replaced by the Iraq-based Abbasid Caliphate.
Abbasid period
The Abbasids generally exhibited little interest in Jerusalem, though the historian Shelomo Dov Goitein notes they "paid special tribute" to the city during the early part of their rule, and Grabar asserts that the early Abbasids' work on the mosque suggests "a major attempt to assert Abbasid sponsorship of holy places". Nevertheless, in contrast to the Umayyad period, maintenance of the al-Aqsa Mosque during Abbasid rule often came at the initiative of the local Muslim community, rather than from the caliph. The second Abbasid caliph, al-Mansur (r. 754–775), visited Jerusalem in 758, on his return from the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. He found the structures on the Haram in ruins from the 746 earthquake, including the al-Aqsa Mosque. According to the tradition cited by Mujir al-Din, the caliph was beseeched by the city's Muslim residents to fund the buildings' restoration. In response, he had the gold and silver plaques covering the mosque's doors converted into dinars and dirhams to finance the reconstruction.
A second earthquake damaged most of al-Mansur's repairs, except for the southern portion near the mihrab (prayer niche indicating the qibla). In 780, his successor, al-Mahdi, ordered its reconstruction, mandating that his provincial governors and other commanders each contribute the cost of a colonnade. Al-Mahdi's renovation is the first known to have written records describing it. The Jerusalemite geographer al-Muqaddasi, writing in 985, provided the following description:
This mosque is even more beautiful than that of Damascus ... the edifice [after al-Mahdi's reconstruction] rose firmer and more substantial than ever it had been in former times. The more ancient portion remained, even like a beauty spot, in the midst of the new ... the Aqsa mosque has twenty-six doors ... The centre of the Main-building is covered by a mighty roof, high pitched and gable-wise, over which rises a magnificent dome.
Al-Muqaddasi further noted that the mosque consisted of fifteen aisles aligned perpendicularly to the qibla and possessed an elaborately decorated porch with the names of the Abbasid caliphs inscribed on its gates. According to Hamilton, al-Muqaddasi's description of the Abbasid-era mosque is corroborated by his archaeological findings in 1938–1942, which showed the Abbasid construction retained some parts of the older structure and had a broad central aisle topped by a dome. The mosque described by al-Muqaddasi opened to the north, toward the Dome of the Rock, and, unusually according to Grabar, to the east.