Dome of the Rock

The Dome of the Rock is located at the centre of an ancient man-made platform known as the Temple Mount, which had formerly been the site of the Second Jewish Temple. The area had been greatly enlarged under the rule of Herod the Great during his expansion and rebuilding of the Second Jewish Temple beginning in 19 BCE. Herod's Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

Jerusalem was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate army in 637 CE during the Islamic invasion of the Byzantine empire. In 685 CE Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan initiated construction of the Dome, hoping that it would “house the Muslims from cold and heat” , and intending the building to serve as a shrine for pilgrims and not as a mosque for public worship. Historians contend that the Caliph wished to create a structure which would compete with the existing buildings of other religions in the city. al-Maqdisi writes that he

”sought to build for the Muslims a masjid that should be unique and a wonder to the world. And in like manner, is it not evident that Caliph Abd al-Malik, seeing the greatness of the martyrium of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and its magnificence was moved lest it should dazzle the minds of Muslims and hence erected above the Rock the dome which is now seen there.”