cases by masterpieces of Saracenic architecture, may well, however, be regarded as the greatest monument of all, unique in its compactness, in its appearance of hoar antiquity, and in that homogeneity which it is the aim of its present administrators jealously to preserve.
The Haram al-Sherif is the platform, artificially prolonged towards the east and south on substructures known in part as "Solomon's Stables," upon which stood the Temple of Solomon and its successors. In the centre of the Haram area is an outcrop of the naked rock, now surmounted by the beautiful mosque known as the Dome of the Rock. This rock can probably claim a greater continuity of religious tradition than any other spot in the world. On it there stood in all likelihood the altar of burnt-offerings of the First Temple; traces of a channel for carrying off the blood, which are visible in the rock, would appear to confirm this theory. Here, or hereabouts, stood Hadrian's Temple of Aelia Capitolina; here the Khalif ʾOmar built a small wooden mosque, which subsequently gave place to the present masterpiece of Moslem architecture; on the rock, finally, the Crusaders erected an altar when they converted the mosque into the Templum Domini.'
The Dome of the Rock (in Arabic, Qubbet al-Sakhra),[1] was built by Khalif ʾAbd al-Melek towards the end of the seventh century, and was probably restored by the Khalf al-Mamun in the ninth century, and again in 913. The dome itself, consisting of two concentric wooden vaults, was erected by the mad Khalif Hakim in 1022 in the place of the original dome, which had collapsed six years previously.
The mosque is in the form of a flat-roofed octagon surmounted by a drum, on which is borne the dome. The outer surface is covered, as regards the lower part, with marble slabs, as regards the upper, with a brilliant series of coloured tiles added by Suleyman the Magnificent in 1561. It is of interest to record that the original kilns in
- ↑ See E. T. Richmond, The Dome of the Rock and its present Condition, Oxford 1922.
