 |
| Dome of the Rock |
After the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock became the Templum Domini church, and an altar devoted to St. Nicholas was erected above the Foundation Stone. The rock was surrounded by an iron lattice-work grille, decorated with leaves and branches. The altar was also encompassed by an iron grille on which the date of its creation (1162) was engraved. The two oil candelabra, also made of iron, were placed in the corner southwest of the Foundation Stone, near a lattice-work cell whose function is not known.
Inside the Templum Domini, the Crusaders hung a painting of the presentation of Christ. Accompanying the painting was a rhymed Latin inscription:
The Virgin’s Son, presented here,
 |
| Dome of the Rock Crusader Candelabra |
The King of Kings, the boy most dear,
He makes this spot a holy place,
And this most rightly is the case.
The ladder Jacob saw was near
The altar he erected here
This memory makes more precious yet
The holy place in which it’s set.
A Crusader account of the Dome of the Rock:
“To the east, below Mt. Calvary, is the Temple of the Lord [the Dome of the Rock], in another part of the city, which was built by Solomon… In the middle of the Temple is a great mount [es-Sakhra] surrounded by walls, in which is the Tabernacle; there also was the Ark of the Covenant which, after the destruction of the Temple, was taken away to Rome by the Emperor Vespasian.”
1170s
The Crusader alterations to the Al-Aqsa Mosque were extensive, but they are very difficult to sort out amid the later rebuildings and restorations. During the early years of Crusader rule, the building languished in a sad state of disrepair. The Templars, however, with their vast revenues from land holdings in Europe and the Levant, began a veritable building boom. A contemporary describes additions made by the knights in the 1170s:
On the other side of the palace, that is on the west, the Templars have built a new house, whose height, length and breadth, and all its cellars and refectories, staircase and roof, are far beyond the custom of this land…. There indeed they have constructed a new Palace, just as on the other side they have the old one. There too they have founded on the edge of the outer court a new church of magnificent size and workmanship.
1187
By the time Saladin captured the city in 1187, Imad ad-Din had described extensive additions to the interior of the Dome of the Rock:
They had adorned it with images and statues, set up dwellings there for monks and made it the place for the Gospel, which they venerated and exalted to the heights. Over the place of the Prophet’s holy foot they set an ornamented tabernacle with columns of marble, marking it as the place where the Messiah had set his foot; a holy and exalted place, where flocks of animals, among which I saw species of pig, were carved in marble.
Wilkinson, John, ed. Jerusalem Pilgrimage, 1099-1185. London: Hakluyt Society, 1988, p. 212, 246, 294.
Gabrieli, Francesco, ed. Arab Historians of the Crusades: Selected and Translated from the Arabic Sources. Berkely: Univ. of California Press, 1969, p. 169.
Cited in Meinhardt, Jack, ed. Crusaders in the Holy Land; The Archaeology of Faith. Washington DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2005, p. 18-20.
Epigraphy from the Inner Octagonal Arcade of the Dome of the Rock, the oldest known Islamic inscription on the oldest Islamic building; it is located on the Temple Mount, Jerusalem. “…O People of the Book!
Don’t be excessive in the name of your faith!
Do not say things about God but the truth!
The Messiah Jesus, son of Mary, is indeed a messenger of God:
The Almighty extended a word to Mary,
and a spirit too.
So believe in God and all the messengers,
and stop talking about a Trinity.
 |
| Interior of Al-Aksa Mosque |
Verily God is the God of unity.
Lord Almighty! That God would beget a child?
Either in the Heavens or on the Earth?...”
Nuseibeh, Said, and Oleg Grabar, The Dome of the Rock, Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., New York, 1996.
The origin of the mosque, as given by Muslem authorities, is interesting. It is as follows. After taking the city, the Khalif Omar asked where the Jewish Temple stood. The Patriarch took him to this rock, then covered with ruins. Omar, with his own hands, helped to remove the rubbish, and gave orders for the erection of the mosque. It is further said that it was rebuilt in a style of greater splendour by Abd el-Melek, who covered it with plates of gold. During the temporary rule of the Crusaders it was converted into a church, and they called it "The Temple of the Lord."
When Jerusalem was captured by the Crusaders in 1099, they converted the Dome of the Rock into a church, calling it the Templum Domini. They added a cross on the dome and iron railings for the protection of the Rock. The al-Aksa Mosque became the residence of the first Latin kings of Jerusalem (Palatium Salomonis), with the addition of a front portico. Subsequently it passed to the Templar Knights who constructed their monastery to the west of the Mosque (today the Islamic Museum).