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[[File:Mosque.jpg|right|200px]]

[[File:Mosque.jpg|right|200px]]

The '''Dome of the Rock''' houses the rock upon which [[Mohammed]] is said to have ascended to heaven, coincidentally the same rock upon which [[Abraham]] offered up his son [[Isaac]] to God, to prove his faith.  It is also on the site of the [[Second Temple]] of Jerusalem, or, the platform known as the [[Temple Mount]] which Muslims refer to as the "Noble Sanctuary. The holiness of the site to the three Abrahamic faiths is intense, to say the least.

The '''Dome of the Rock''' is an [[Islamic]] shrine rather than a [[mosque]]; it is considered the oldest extant Islamic building in the world.  

After the Second Temple was destroyed in the Roman years, leaving Jerusalem in [[Roman Empire|Roman]] and later [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine]] hands, the Temple Mount became an empty site, used alternately as empty space, or as a city dump.  According to legend, when the first Muslim conquerors took [[Jerusalem]], they approached the Temple Mount.  There, the conqueror Umar called the Christian [[Patriarch]] of the city before him to answer for the derelict state of the holy site.  Insisting that such a site, sacred to all three religions, deserved respect, Umar insisted that the Patriarch himself begin cleaning the Mount.   

 

After the Second Temple was destroyed in the Roman years, leaving Jerusalem in [[Roman Empire|Roman]] and later [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine]] hands, the Temple Mount became an empty site, used alternately as empty space, or as a city dump.  According to legend, when the first Muslim conquerors took [[Jerusalem]], they approached the Temple Mount.  There, the conqueror Umar (or Omar) called the Christian [[Patriarch]] Sophronius of the city before him to answer for the derelict state of the holy site.  Insisting that such a site, sacred to all three religions, deserved respect, Umar insisted that the Patriarch himself begin cleaning the Mount.   

The Dome was built shortly thereafter, first in a primitive, wooden state between 687 and 691 by caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwān as a placeholder, and in its final spectacular version somewhat later. It has suffered several earthquakes (746, 1033, 1927).  

The Dome was built shortly thereafter, first in a primitive, wooden state between 687 and 691 by caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwān as a placeholder, and in its final spectacular version somewhat later. It has suffered several earthquakes (746, 1033, 1927).