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The Marwani Musalla In Jerusalem: New Findings, Beatrice St. Laurent, Isam Awwad

Art and Art History Faculty Publications

Shortly after Caliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab’s (579-644, caliph 634-644) arrival in Jerusalem in 638, he is said to have constructed a rudimentary mosque or prayer space south of the historical Rock now contained within the Dome of the Rock (completed 691) on the former Temple Mount or Bayt al-Maqdis known popularly since Mamluk and Ottoman times as the Haram al-Sharif. Though later textual evidence indicates that ‘Umar prayed somewhere south of the “rock” and later scholars suggest that he constructed a rudimentary prayer space on the site, there is no surviving physical evidence of that initial structure. After his appointment …