Perspectives on Early Islamic Art in Jerusalem

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Arts and Archaeology of the
Islamic World
Edited by

Marcus Milwright (University of Victoria)

Mariam Rosser-Owen (Victoria and Albert Museum)
Lorenz Korn (University of Bamberg)

VOLUME 5

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/aaiw

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Perspectives on Early Islamic
Art in Jerusalem

By

Lawrence Nees

LEIDEN | BOSTON

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Cover illustration: Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Chain and Dome of the Rock, from southeast,
in 1999 (photograph Lawrence Nees)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Nees, Lawrence.
Perspectives on early Islamic art in Jerusalem / By Lawrence Nees.
pages cm. -- (Arts and archaeology of the Islamic world ; VOLUME 5)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-30176-4 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-30207-5 (e-book) 1. Islamic architecture--
Jerusalem. 2. Islamic art and symbolism--Jerusalem. 3. Dome of the Chain (Jerusalem) 4. Qubbat
al-Sakhrah (Mosque : Jerusalem) 5. Temple Mount (Jerusalem)--Buildings, structures, etc. 6. Jerusalem--
Buildings, structures, etc. I. Title.
NA5978.J4N44 2015
726’.209569442--dc23
2015026806

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issn 2213-3844
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For Vicky, and in memory of Oleg

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 Lawrence Nees - 978-90-04-30207-5
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Contents

Acknowledgements ix
Preface on Sources xiii
List of Illustrations xvi

1 Introduction 1

2 The Earliest Mosque in Jerusalem  5

3 The Problem of “Arculf” and the Earliest Mosque in Jerusalem  33

4 The Dome of the Chain: An Essay in Interpretation 58

5 The Columns and Eagle Capitals in the Dome of the Rock  100

6 Conclusion: Crossing Borders 144

Bibliography 163
Index 186
Figures

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Acknowledgements
The origin of this book is long ago and far away.
During my first semester in graduate school, I
enrolled in Oleg Grabar’s lecture course on Islamic
art during the central medieval period, which was
my first exposure to Islamic art, and also to Oleg.
He was a charismatic teacher, and made the mate-
rial that excited him exciting also to his students.
One could watch and almost hear him thinking,
trying out new questions as well as new answers,
and of course making lists, as those who had the
privilege of studying with him will remember. My
primary scholarly interest had been and remained
the art of the medieval period in the ­predominantly
Christian world of the continuing Roman imperial
tradition. That tradition was pan-European, for a
millennium until 1453 centered on the Roman capi-
tal in Constantinople, which scholars have since
the seventeenth century termed Byzantium, and
was famously revived in Western Europe by
Charlemagne in 800, living on in various forms
until 1806. My special interests came to focus on
the early part of this long span of time, what I often
think of as “the long eighth century,” including
large chunks of the seventh and ninth, because it
has always seemed to me a fascinating period, and
embodied the crux of the change from the ancient
to the medieval and modern world. For many years
I did not study Islamic art or teach it, but retained a
strong interest and read some of the new scholar-
ship as it appeared, and on many occasions I met
Oleg, and some of the wonderful students who
worked with him, and whom I came to know. My
interest only increased over time, at least in part
reflecting the importance of the Islamic world for
contemporary events and cultural developments. I
was never able to persuade my academic col-
leagues that we could and should add a specialist
in Islamic art history to our department, and by
1999 my own conviction that students ought to
have at the very least an opportunity to study this
great tradition led me to begin teaching an intro-
ductory overview of the arts of the Islamic world.
That new area of teaching led eventually to this
book. My first class of students was wonderfully
enthusiastic and supportive, understanding the
limitations of my knowledge, and often helping
me in countless ways, from correcting my pronun-
ciation of Arabic words and names, to posing
­queries beyond my current knowledge. Seeking
answers for my students’ questions, and my own
that began to form, I sought answers, and most
often found them in the rich scholarship devoted
to Islamic art over the last century. Some ques-
tions, however, seemed not to have been posed
before, or were posed without an intense effort to
address them. Several of those questions became
the germ of this book.
Two other events encouraged me to continue
teaching Islamic art and also to begin conducting
research in the area. In 1999 I was invited to par-
ticipate in the 6th International Seminar on Jewish
Art, sponsored by the Center for Jewish Art at the
Hebrew University in Jerusalem, on the theme
“Scripture and Pictures: the Bible in Jewish,
Christian and Islamic Art.” I presented to the con-
ference a lecture “On the Earliest Illuminated
Books,” in which I attempted to address some of
the commonalities in the earliest stages of what I
have come to term the “medieval illuminated
manuscript,” by which I mean the decoration with
ornament and color of parchment codices pro-
duced in by all three of the Abrahamic religions
during the later centuries of the first millennium
of the common era. That attempt to find common-
alities of interest, theme and function is at the core
of this book, although I will be addressing illumi-
nated manuscripts in a different volume and
related studies. The conference encouraged me to
continue such studies and introduced me to other
scholars in the field, and made possible my first
visit to Israel and Palestine. There I was able to
visit not only the structures on the Haram al-Sharif
that are the focus of this book, entering the Dome
of the Rock and the Aqsa mosque, which were
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x Acknowledgements
then open for visitors even if they were not
Muslims, but also sites such as Khirbat al-Mafjar
and Bethlehem. The second event was a small col-
loquium in 2002 organized by the Aga Khan
Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard
University. A group of distinguished Islamicists
who had just published general books on Islamic
art gathered for discussion of the problems of pro-
viding such an overview, and the thinking behind
their respective choices and strategies. The partici-
pants included Sheila Blair, Jonathan Bloom,
Barbara Brend, Robert Hillenbrand, Robert Irwin,
and Oleg Grabar among others, and it was a revela-
tion to me. I was fortunate to have been invited
because Oleg knew that I had just published a gen-
eral book in the Oxford History of Art series, Early
Medieval Art, in which I had wrestled with similar
problems, and might bring a different perspective
to the discussions.
Another important part of the background to
this book is travel. After I began teaching Islamic
art, my dear wife Vicky encouraged me to visit at
least some of the great Islamic monuments. We
had already visited Sicily, but added al-Andalus
(especially Cordoba and Granada), Egypt, and
Turkey (especially Istanbul) to the list. Without
her encouragement I might well not have made
these trips, which proved indispensable. In 2007 I
won a Hamad Bin Khalifa Fellowship to attend the
biennial symposium on Islamic art organized by
Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom, that year meet-
ing in Doha, Qatar, and devoted to the theme of
water (the proceedings published as Rivers of
Paradise), which supported my growing interest in
pursuing research on Islamic art subsequently led
to a series of conference lectures, in which I pre-
sented some of my ideas to specialists, and bene-
fitted enormously from their comments and cor-
rections, and often generous support.
My public scholarly presentations on Islamic art
began in 2008, at the first biennial Historians of
Islamic Art Association (hiaa) conference, “Spaces
and Visions,” at the University of Pennsylvania,
where I presented “Decorated Verse Markers in
Early Qur’an Manuscripts and their Trans-regional
Connections,” in a panel organized by Finbarr
Barry Flood. Also in 2008 I made a first presenta-
tion on “The Dome of the Chain and the begin-
nings of Islamic architecture in Jerusalem,” in a
workshop in honor of Richard Hodges on “The
Dark Ages Enlightened,” at the University of
Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology. Later that same year, I was invited to
present that material at the University of East
Anglia’s World Art Research Seminar, to which I
had been invited by John Mitchell and Sandy
Heslop. Much reworked, some of that material
eventually found its place in Chapter 4 of this
book. In 2009 I was invited to the Seminar on the
Evidence for the Early History of the Qur’an, spon-
sored by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at
Stanford, organized by Behnam Sadeghi, where I
presented “Notes on the evidence from Latin and
other Christian manuscripts for the dating of the
earliest Qur’an manuscripts.” In 2009 I participated
in the biennial Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium on
Islamic Art, at Córdoba, organized by Sheila Blair
and Jonathan Bloom on the theme “And Diverse
are Their Hues: Colour in Islamic Art and Culture.”
My lecture there, “Blue behind Gold: the inscrip-
tion of the Dome of the Rock and its relatives,” was
published in the conference proceedings volume
in 2011. In 2010, at the Second Biennial Conference
hiaa, “Objects on the Borders of Islamic Art” at the
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
in Washington, d.c., I presented a workshop on “A
Late Antique, Sasanian or early Islamic Silver Stand
in the Freer Gallery of Art”; an article stemming
from that material was published by Ars Orientalis,
and forms a small portion of Chapter 5 in this book.
At the Annual Meeting of the Southeastern
Medieval Association (sema) at Roanoke College,
on the theme “Natural, Unnatural, & Supernatural,”
I presented a lecture on “The Eagle Capitals in the
Dome of the Rock,” which was my first presenta-
tion of the material that became the core of
Chapter 5 of this book. Changing and, I hope,
improving versions of the presentation were given
in 2011 at a joint meeting of Harvard University’s
Medieval Studies Program and Aga Khan Program
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Acknowledgements
for Islamic Architecture, at the University of
Minnesota in Minneapolis, and at Sweet Briar
College, and in 2014 at Trinity College, Dublin. In
2012, I was invited by Helen Evans to present a lec-
ture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New
York, at the opening of her great exhibition
“Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition (7th–9th
centuries in the Eastern Mediterranean),” on the
topic “Muslim, Jewish and Christian traditions in
the art of seventh-century Jerusalem,” a concise
presentation of some material from Chapter 4 and
from the Conclusion of this book. I am profoundly
grateful to all who invited me to present my ideas
about aspects of early Islamic art, and to those who
offered helpful suggestions, criticisms, comments,
and encouragement to continue.
Some portions of this book have appeared previ-
ously, generally in earlier versions or in abbreviated
form in the following publications: One section of
Chapter 3 appeared as “Insular Latin sources,
‘Arculf,’ and early Islamic Jerusalem,” in Michael
Frassetto, Matthew Gabriele, and John Hosler, eds.,
Where Heaven and Earth Meet: Essays on Medieval
Europe in Honor of Daniel F. Callahan (Leiden: Brill,
2014), pp. 81–100. A condensed portion of part of
Chapter 4 and Chapter 6 appeared as “Muslim,
Jewish and Christian traditions in the art of seventh-
century Jerusalem,” in Helen Evans, ed., Age of
Transition: Byzantine Culture in the Islamic World
(New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015),
pp.  94–111. Chapter 5 includes material separately
published at greater length as “A Silver ‘Stand’ with
Eagles in the Freer Gallery,” Ars Orientalis 42 (2012),
219–228, and to appear as “Moving Stones: on the
columns of the Dome of the Rock, their history
and meaning,” in Bianca Kühnel, Renana Bartal and
Neta Bodner, eds., Natural Materials of the Holy
Land and  the Visual Translation of Place, 500–1500
(Aldershot: Ashgate). Chapter 6 includes a very
brief summary of “Blue behind Gold: the inscrip-
tion of the Dome of the Rock and its relatives,” in
Jonathan Bloom and Sheila Blair, eds., “And Diverse
are Their Hues”: Color in Islamic Art and Culture
(New Haven and London: Yale University Press,
2011), pp. 152–173.
xi
Gratitude is owed to many. Most of the writing
of this book was carried out in the ideal and idyl-
lic surroundings of the National Humanities
Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina,
where I spent 2010–2011 as the Allen W. Clowes
Fellow and neh Fellow. I am grateful to the Clowes
Foundation and to the National Endowment for
the Humanities for providing the financial
resources to make this research year possible, and
to all the wonderful staff of the Center for their
assistance, from the Director Geoffrey Harpham
and Deputy Director Kent Mullikin to so many
others, including but not limited to Joel Elliott for
indispensable assistance with all things tech,
Karen Carroll for wonderful editing help, and the
remarkable efforts and consistently kind cheerful-
ness of the library staff, Eliza Robertson, Jean
Houston, and Brooke Andrade, upon whose good
offices I depended almost daily throughout the
year. The Barakat Trust provided a generous grant
supporting the acquisition and production of the
illustrations for this volume, for which I am much
indebted. I am grateful to my home institution,
the University of Delaware, for supporting my
shift toward teaching and studying Islamic art,
and for making it possible for me to accept the fel-
lowship at the National Humanities Center.
Through its College of Arts and Science research
grant program, I was able to make a last-minute
trip to Jerusalem that proved highly beneficial,
and I am grateful to Dean George Watson and
Associate Dean Matthew Kinservik for their assis-
tance, and to successive Chairs of the Art History
Department Michael Leja, Bernard Herman and
Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer. Susan Davi in the
Morris Library at Delaware has supported my
desire to acquire publications on Islamic art not
previously in the collection, and the staff of the
Interlibrary Loan office have efficiently and grace-
fully helped me to acquire hundreds of items that
I needed to consult. Derek Churchill, Director of
the Visual Resources Center, has been tireless in
helping with the acquisition of images, and
George Freeman has made wonderful photo-
graphs, as good as the originals would permit.
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xii
Heartfelt thanks are owed to the students in my
undergraduate survey course on the arts of the
Islamic World over the years, and most especially
to those in that first course, without whose enthu-
siastic support I might never have continued the
effort. Thanks also to the students in two seminars
devoted to the Umayyad period, including both
graduate students and advanced undergraduates,
who like me started as neophytes but who
responded so well with their questions and insights
to the material that I presented. Thanks to the
broader world of those who study Islamic art and
early Islamic culture. They have been consistently
helpful and welcoming, not policing the borders of
their field but going out of their way to encourage
someone bringing a different background and dif-
ferent perspectives to bear upon the material.
There are far too many to mention all by name, but
I feel that I must single out Sheila Canby, Barry
Flood, Robert Gregg, Carole Hillenbrand and
Robert Hillenbrand, Eva Hoffman, Renata Holod,
Jeremy Johns, Gulrü Necipoglü, Saïd Nuseibeh,
Nasser Rabbat, David Roxburgh, Behnam Sadeghi,
Shreve Simpson, and Eleanor Sims. Saïd Nuseibeh
helped with many comments and suggestions, and
friendship, and his wonderful photographs are
unique and indispensable, and I am grateful for
the opportunity to include several in this volume.
I owe a very special debt to Sheila Blair and Jonathan
Bloom for so many conversations, suggestions, sup-
port, and encouragement, for allowing me to par-
ticipate in their biennial symposia on two occa-
sions, for writing letters of recommendation on my
behalf, for such a splendid example of engagement
with the fascinating material and questions around
Acknowledgements
Islamic Art, and for wonderful friendship, main-
taining a sense of fun. In the final stage, I ­benefitted
enormously from the helpful and critical com-
ments of two anonymous readers for the publisher,
who saved me from many omissions and errors,
but bear no responsibility for those that remain.
Teddi Dols at Brill was patient and helpful on many
occasions, and her flexibility was enormously
helpful. Pierke Bosschieter ably undertook the
making of the index. The eagle eye of my wife
Vicky caught many more errors before the manu-
script went off to the press, truly a labor of love.
As I stated at the outset, my engagement with
Islamic art began with Oleg Grabar, and he was
always generous and helpful, answering questions
or suggesting who might be able to answer when
he could not, patiently talking about the material
with a neophyte, enthusiastically encouraging me
to go forward with my research even when it
seemed to be leading in directions different from
what he had taken in addressing the same mate-
rial, making introductions and writing recommen-
dations. His death in 2011 was a shock to me and to
many others, for I had certainly hoped to be able to
present him with a copy of this book, which he did
so much to stimulate, beyond all else through his
marvelously stimulating scholarship devoted to
early Islamic Jerusalem over more than half a cen-
tury. The co-dedication of this book to him reflects
my debt and my gratitude. My greatest debt, for
this book and for all else, is to the second dedica-
tee, my partner, friend, and traveling companion
both literally and metaphorically, who for  forty-
four years has enriched my life with probing ques-
tions and loving support, my dear wife Vicky.
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Preface on Sources
The Arabic textual sources for the first long cen-
tury of Islamic culture, through the end of the
Umayyad period, pose many problems, addressed
repeatedly by scholars over the last century. In the
most recent book I have seen, by Stephen C. Judd,
Religious Scholars and the Umayyads. Piety-minded
supporters of the Marwanid caliphate (London and
New York, 2014), brought to my attention by an
anonymous reader, the second chapter is devoted
to “the problem of sources,” among the least of
which, in Judd’s view is that “written sources…are
extraordinarily sparse.”1 His main effort was to
explore the sources that we have and, to some
extent, to address a different problem, the “intense
skepticism about the veracity and authenticity of
early Islamic sources, especially those addressing
pre-Abbasid eras [that] remains the norm.2
Textual sources are fundamental to historical
study, and best practice is certainly to use them in
the original language, which in most cases, with
the notable exception of Adomnán’s De locis sanc-
tis, I have neither done nor pretend to have done. I
am not an Arabist by any means, and have con-
sulted Arabic sources only in translation, although
I have tried to identify key words used in the
Arabic and rendered in many different ways by
translators. For example, such words as caliph and
mulk are rendered in many different ways in trans-
lation, but on occasion it is important to know
that one or the other of these, and not some other
term, is used in the Arabic sources. Those sources,
and the discussion of them by scholars in the field,
are very different in nature from those to which I
have become accustomed in studying art of the
same early medieval period in western Europe.
One fundamental difference is the use of manu-
scripts. In studying western Europe, modern
1 Stephen C. Judd, Religious Scholars and the Umayyads.
Piety-minded supporters of the Marwanid caliphate
(London and New York, 2014), p. 17.
2 Judd, Religious scholars and the Umayyads, p. 10.
scholars have learned that reliance on even excel-
lent critical editions can be problematic, and they
have recourse to manuscripts, carefully addressing
the transmission of those manuscripts, reckoning
with possible agenda surrounding their produc-
tion, and of course considering the possibility of
interpolation.
Almost the first questions modern scholars
studying the early medieval European world asks
about their textual sources are these: What is the
earliest manuscript? How close or far is it in time
or place from the composition of the text?
Scholarship on early Islamic art and culture sel-
dom mentions manuscripts at all, in part because
of the huge role and prestige of oral transmission,
whether or not one accepts the “disdain for writ-
ten transmission attributed to many early Islamic
sources,” to use a phrase from Judd’s recent book.3
He mentioned manuscripts only in passing,
remarking that manuscripts from the Umayyad
period are “extremely rare” and the study of papyri
from that period is in its infancy.4 He provided a
long list of the primary sources consulted, all of
them in printed editions, and never discussed the
manuscripts upon which those printed editions
surely depend. Judd was very critical of an over-
reliance on al-Tabari, but said nothing about the
manuscripts in which Tabari’s works are found, or
any of the other sources that he marshaled to
present a quite different picture of the Umayyad
period. Do we have a tenth-century manuscript of
Tabari’s History, or any part thereof, or a twelfth-
century manuscript, or a later one? In the general
introduction to the English translations of al-
Tabari’s History, Franz Rosenthal mentioned man-
uscripts that he consulted in several libraries, and
mentioned that the best title for the work is “the
one indicated by Tabari himself in the colophon
of one of the manuscripts,” but he gives no details
3 Judd, Religious scholars and the Umayyads, p. 18.
4 Judd, Religious scholars and the Umayyads, p. 17.
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xiv
concerning the manuscripts to which he refers.
For the establishment of the text Rosenthal related
that the Leiden edition by M.J. de Goeje published
by Brill from 1879–1901 used “the necessary manu-
script material…[that] presented an accurate text
with a full critical apparatus,” but no further sense
of manuscripts was given.5 This sort of question is
so seldom posed that when working on the source
for a statement about the earliest building on the
Haram al-Sharif, I was surprised when Bernard
Flusin related not only the arguments for a dating
of the story to the seventh century but also said
that the story is attested in a tenth century manu-
script, the earliest witness. It is a Georgian source,
added to a Greek one, and its analysis by Flusin
follows the traditions usual for Greek and Latin
sources, not for Arabic sources.
Some scholars have pointed out the possible
importance of addressing the manuscript evidence
relating to early Islamic history. For example, R.
Stephen Humphreys listed five important ques-
tions that need to be asked of the sources, and put
first the form in which the ancient historical tradi-
tion has come down to us, a query that he clearly
indicated elsewhere ought to include a study of
manuscripts as well as of the oral transmission.6
Fundamental to this book are the other questions,
for example the authenticity of traditions cited,
and the degree to which they can or cannot be used
to elucidate the events of the Islamic world in the
seventh century. It is not my intent, and it is often
beyond my abilities and knowledge to address the
reliability of the sources themselves, a highly con-
troversial topic at the core of scholarly and for that
matter also the non-scholarly discussion of early
5 Franz Rosenthal, General Introduction and From the
Creation to the Flood, The History of al-Tabari (Taʾrikh al-
rusul waʾl-muluk) 1 (Albany, ny, 1989), pp. 3–4, 130 and
141–144.
6 On the use of manuscripts see R. Stephen Humphreys,
Islamic History. A Framework for Inquiry (rev. ed.; Princeton,
1991), pp. 70–71 for the five questions, and. pp. 32–35 on the
issue of using manuscripts, with an assertion that “in an
ideal world” one would cite manuscript evidence for any
text used by a historian
Preface on Sources
Islam. Humphreys gave as an example the recep-
tion of Fred Donner’s book on the early Islamic
conquests, which he himself found a clear and
“admirably integrated interpretation,” but which
other scholars have found arbitrary, selecting some
sources when others tell a different story and may
have an equal claim to reliability.7
I acknowledge that the nature and interpreta-
tion of textual sources has been a problem through-
out my research in this area, and I am well aware of
the dangers of picking and choosing among sources
those that are most consistent with the interpreta-
tion being advanced. Presumably I have done so,
and thereby have formed hypotheses that are in
some cases new, and in many if not all cases subject
to reasonable doubt. I am confident that when and
if an expert Arabist reads, or for that matter reviews,
this book, she or he will find fault with sources upon
which I have relied, or have failed to consider. I have
sought to identify sources that might elucidate the
material evidence of early Islam in Jerusalem, or in
some cases the absence of that evidence. Chapters
2 and 3 review the almost exclusively textual evi-
dence for the position and form of the earliest place
of prayer in the city, for which we have little mate-
rial evidence but a strong tradition of using textual
sources to fill that gap. Reading through the general
and then the specialized scholarly literature on the
issue, I assumed that there would be substantial
and credible evidence upon which the scholarly
tradition that there was some prayer hall con-
structed where the al-Aqsa mosque now stands, but
found that this was not the case, and the tradition
rested largely on repetition rather than evidence,
and to an extraordinary degree on an uncritical reli-
ance on a tiny fragment extracted from a distant
Latin course. In the investigation of the Dome of
the Chain, or of the Roman columns and eagle capi-
tals in the Dome of the Chain, I have addressed
issues almost completely absent from previous
scholarly discussions of early Islamic Jerusalem,
and I hope that critical readers of my work will
point out errors, and advance new hypotheses that
7 Humphreys, Islamic History, p. 70.
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Preface On Sources
may be better. The issues and material deserve
attention and interpretation beyond what has been
given, and through such attention our knowledge
and understanding of this fascinating and critical
material and period will be advanced.
As far as spelling and diacritical marks are con-
cerned, I have tried to be consistent insofar as is
possible, although usages vary widely. I have pre-
ferred the simpler spelling where modern scholars
use several differing versions, and I have used no
diacritical marks other than the ʿayn and hamza,
which I have struggled to use accurately, and of
course I regret any mistakes that remain. I have,
however, left spellings that appear in titles in the
xv
authors’ usages, rather than changing to the form I
am using in the text, and this can occasionally be
jarring (Nasir-i Khosraw is one of the most obvi-
ous, but hardly alone). Insofar as is possible, I have
adopted the forms in the International Journal of
Middle East Studies word list, as revised 5 October
2010, and have followed it in treating such words as
mihrab and minbar as English words, not itali-
cized. A great many of the terms and proper names
used in this book are not on the ijmes word list,
and I have tried to be consistent and clear, and
hope that the Arabists who read this book will do
so with some indulgence and find some value in a
different perspective upon the sources.
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List of Illustrations
1.1 Jerusalem, aerial view
1.2 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, site plan
1.3 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock
and Dome of the Chain, exterior view
1.4 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, al-Aqsa mosque,
exterior view
2.1 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, aerial view early 20th
c.
2.2 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, R.W. Hamilton’s plan
al-Aqsa mosque
2.3 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, plan of southwestern
corner
2.4 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, reconstruction plan
of the earliest al-Aqsa mosque
2.5 Jerusalem, plan of the city at the time of the
Muslim conquest
2.6 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, general view of the
Dome of the Chain from the north
2.7 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, view of the upper
platform of the Haram, from north to south, in
1999
2.8 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, view of the upper
platform of the Haram, the eastern side, from
south to north, in 1999
3.1 Jerusalem, Holy Sepulchre complex, from manu-
script of Adomnán De locis sanctis
3.2 Sichem, martyrium at Jacob’s well, from manu-
script of Adomnán De locis sanctis
3.3 Jerusalem, plan of Holy Sepulchre complex in 7th c.
3.4 Samson destroying the Temple at Gaza, from the
“Old Testament Picture Book,” Paris, mid-13th c.
4.1 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Chain,
plan and elevation
4.2 Butrint, view of baptistery
4.3 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Chain,
view of columns
4.4 Damascus, Great Mosque, Treasury
4.5 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, plan showing axes
with the Dome of the Chain at the center
4.6 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Chain,
capital
4.7 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Chain,
view from south, showing the mihrab
4.8 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Chain,
plan of with columns numbered
4.9 Coin of ʿAbd al-Malik, reverse, with “mihrab”
4.10 Ramla, floor mosaic from a house, with mihrab
and inscription
4.11 Sardis, synagogue, plan
4.12 Beth Alpha, synagogue, floor mosaic with bema
base
4.13 Beth Alpha, synagogue, plan
4.14 Resafa, Basilica A, interior of nave with bema
4.15 Resafa, Basilica A and mosque of Caliph Hisham,
plan
4.16 Bennawi, lectern from the bema
4.17 Resafa, Basilica A, colonettes from the bema
4.18 Aleppo, al-Hayyat mosque, plan and drawing of
bema and/or minbar found there
4.19 Aleppo, al-Hayyat mosque, photograph of bema
and/or minbar found there
4.20 Khirbat al-Mafjar, stone chain
4.21 Khirbat al-Mafjar, reconstruction of stone chain
in original location
4.22 Kairouan, Great Mosque, mihrab, minbar and
maqsura
5.1 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock,
general interior view from south side
5.2 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock,
plan
5.3 Sohag, Red Monastery, interior of the triconch
5.4 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock,
inner ambulatory, columns on north side
5.5 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock,
inner ambulatory, columns on east side
5.6 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock,
inner ambulatory, columns on south side
5.7 “pavonazetto” marble
5.8 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock,
exterior north porch with “pavonazetto” columns
5.9 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock,
exterior south porch, columns on east side
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List Of Illustrations
5.10 Jerusalem, Nea Ekklesia, lintel, re-used in the wall
of the Umayyad Palace at the southwest corner of
the Haram
5.11 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock,
eagle capital, Wilkinson #58
5.12 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock,
Wilkinson’s plan of the capitals in the Dome of the
Rock
5.13 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock,
eagle capital Wilkinson #59
5.14 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock,
eagle capital Wilkinson #37
5.15 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock,
metal inscribed plaque formerly on the north
door
5.16 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock,
metal inscribed plaque formerly on the east door
5.17 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Chain,
eagle capital Wilkinson #151
5.18 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, eagle capital formerly
in the Aqsa mosque, now outside the Islamic
Museum on the Haram, Wilkinson #18
5.19 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, eagle capital formerly
in the Aqsa mosque, now outside the Islamic
Museum on the Haram, Wilkinson #18, detail of
recut eagle
5.20 Cairo al-Azhar mosque, eagle capital
xvii
5.21 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock,
capital with wreath and erased cross or mono-
gram, Wilkinson #41
5.22 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock,
capital with wreath and erased cross or mono-
gram, Wilkinson #42
5.23 Umayyad “Arab-Byzantine” imitative gold solidus
with three rulers standing on from and T on steps
on reverse
5.24 Roman altar of the 6th legion, from Megiddo,
with eagle and Nike
5.25 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock,
mosaic from the drum under the dome, west side,
lower register
5.26 Resafa, al-Mundhir building, eagle capital on
south side of apse
5.27 Umayyad “Arab-Byzantine” copper coin, obverse,
with standing caliph and bird
5.28 Zvart’noc’, church, eagle capital
5.29 Chorazin, synagogue, eagles flanking wreath on
lintel
5.30 Silver “stand” with eagles
5.31 Silver censer from the Sion Treasure.
5.32 Bronze censer, with dome and eagles
5.33 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, al-Aqsa mosque, cap-
ital from the mihrab of Saladin
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 chapter 1
Introduction
Jerusalem has been throughout its long history
the site of spiritual striving, the home of religious
institutions, and the focus of contention among
and within various groups, all of which continue
today.1 It has been a great prize for three thou-
sand years, built up, sacked, transformed, sacked
again, always surviving while changing and
remaining the same remarkably inspiring center.
According to the Biblical accounts, Jerusalem was
first a Jebusite center until taken or purchased by
King David as the new political and religious cen-
ter of his kingdom, an event usually dated to the
eleventh or tenth century bce, and the first
Temple was then built by David’s son Solomon.
Jerusalem remained the capital of ancient Judah
(and for a time also Israel) until the sack of the
city by Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonians in 587
bce, the destruction of the first Temple, and the
removal of the city’s population. After the con-
quest of Babylon, the Persian empire estab-
lished control, and as rather confusingly related
in the Biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah, the
Jewish population gradually returned over a
period of two centuries, rebuilding the Temple
and re-establishing the Temple cult and religious
practices.
The city remained under Persian rule until the
later fourth century, when it became part of the
Hellenistic world, being ruled for the third
1 For recent history of the Haram and Dome of the Rock in
current politics and religious thinking see Gershom
Gorenberg, The End of Days. Fundamentalism and the
Struggle for the Temple Mount (Oxford, 2000). This is not a
topic that I will be addressing in this book, which is con-
cerned with Jerusalem in the past, although I recognize of
course that our understanding of the past conditions our
present and our future.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi 10.1163/9789004302075_002
c­ entury and well into the second century bce
first by Ptolemaic Egypt and then by Seleucid
Syria. An independent state, and subsequently
kingdom, of Judaea was established by Simeon
Maccabeus in 142 bce, which lasted until Pompey
stormed and sacked the city in 63 bce, and
Crassus again sacked it in 54 bce. Herod became
a Roman client king in 37 bce, and set about
building the second Temple, and enlarging the
great earlier platform upon which stood
Solomon’s temple and its successor to its pres-
ent size, with colossal masonry which still
remains in large part, spectacularly visible in
the high southwestern corner. Direct Roman
rule began in about 6 ce [henceforth all dates
will be ce unless otherwise noted], and eventu-
ally led to the revolt of 66–70 that culminated in
the sack of Jerusalem by Titus, and the looting
and destruction of the second Temple. Another
revolt ending in 135 was put down by the
Romans, and led to the expulsion of the Jews
from the city, which became a provincial city, no
longer a capital, known as Aelia Capitolina
rather than Jerusalem.
In a non-violent revolution in the early fourth
century, in the time of Emperor Constantine, the
city became an important Christian city, with
many large structures built in various part of the
city under his patronage and that of his successors
during the following centuries, but with the
Temple mount apparently left largely untouched,
left in ruins. Still not an important government
center, the city thrived and grew as a site of
Christian pilgrimage, especially to the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre and the relics of the Passion
kept there, including the True Cross. The city was
taken and sacked again by the Sasanian Persian
army in 614, and the True Cross and other relics
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2 chapter 1
taken away.2 The extent of the destruction of the
city by the Sasanians, and the possibility of any
new building undertaken by them, is a difficult and
controversial topic.3 The Persians were defeated,
and the city re-occupied by the Roman Empire
under the emperor Heraclius in 628, but the True
Cross was not restored to it, but was instead taken
to the imperial capital at Constantinople.
Within a few years of Heraclius’ triumphant
recovery of Jerusalem, it was lost again to the
Roman empire and became part of the new Islamic
world. This certainly took place in the mid-630s,
although the exact date is a subject of contentious
dispute, and the nature of this event is even more
uncertain, and far more important for this study,
as will become clear. Jerusalem in its first six
decades under Islamic rule, until the end of the
seventh century, is the subject of this book. The
city’s later history, its bloody conquest by the first
Crusade in 1099 and the establishment as the capi-
tal of a short-lived Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem,
and its reconquest by Muslims in 1187, will figure
only occasionally here, as possibly shedding some
light on the history and especially the monuments
from the seventh century, but it is important to
2 For a recent study of this event and a review of the earlier
literature see Yuri Stoyanov, Defenders and Enemies of the
True Cross. The Sasanian Conquest of Jerusalem in 614 and
Byzantine Ideology of Anti-Persian Warfare, Österreichische
Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische
Klasse, Sitzungsberichte 819, Veröffentlichungen zur
Iranistik 61 (Vienna, 2011). See especially here a discussion
of the contrast between the literary sources on the event,
which tell of widespread destruction and slaughter, and
archaeological evidence, which reveals scant if any evi-
dence of such a cataclysm. This study of the immediate
pre-Islamic period should be a salutary reminder that the
written sources ought not to be accepted uncritically.
3 For a recent review of the archaeological situation see Jodi
Magness, “Archaeological Evidence for the Sasanid Persian
Invasion of Jerusalem,” in City of David. Studies of Ancient
Jerusalem. The Eleventh Annual Conference (Jerusalem,
2010), pp. 41–61, and Gideon Avni, “The Sack of Jerusalem
by the Sassanian Persians (614) – an Archaeological
Assessment,” Bulletin of the American School of Oriental
Research 357(2010), 35–48.
point out here at the outset that what is now
regarded as the “old city” (Fig.  1.1) within its
remarkably intact walls, is primarily the work of
the Ottoman Turks in the sixteenth century. The
troubled recent history of the city figures here only
insofar as some part of the reason for the difficulty
of access to the early Islamic monuments over
recent decades and still today.4 It seems that
hardly a week passes without a new book devoted
to Jerusalem at some point in its history, most
commonly during the Temple period but often
reaching to the present. Recently the city was even
made the subject of a biography!5
The area of Jerusalem commonly known as
either the Temple Mount or the Haram al-Sharif,
rising over the southeastern corner of the walled
city (Fig. 1.2), scarcely needs introduction to the
readers of this book, and it is difficult, at least for
me, to imagine an area where systematic archae-
ological investigation is more desirable, more
likely to achieve startling results of the widest
possible interest, more troubling, and less likely
to happen in the foreseeable future. An enormous
scholarly literature already exists concerning the
Haram al-Sharif, as it is known to Muslims and as
it will be referred to here unless in reference to
the pre-Islamic period. That literature continues
to grow with astonishing rapidity, and of course
4 For a recent overview of the city in the pre-Islamic period, see
Zeidan Abdel-Kafi Kafafi and Robert Schick, Jerusalem before
Islam, bar International series 1699 (Oxford, 2007). Most of
the articles deal with much earlier material, but especially
relevant to what follows here are Chapters 15, on the Roman
city of Aelia Capitolina (by Klaus Bieberstein), 16 on Byzantine
Jerusalem (by Robert Schick), and 17 on Churches in
Jerusalem (by Michele Piccirillo). For an overview of the early
Muslim period see H[amilton] A.R. Gibb, ed., Encyclopedia of
Islam (new [2nd] ed.; Leiden: Brill, 1954–2007), s.v. “al-Kuds.”
For a recent overview of the Haram al-Sharif from its origins
to the present see Oleg Grabar and Benjamin Z. Kedar, eds.,
Where Heaven and Earth Meet: Jerusalem’s Sacred Esplanade
(Jerusalem and Austin tx, 2009). Both volumes offer exten-
sive notes with earlier bibliography.
5 Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem. The Biography (New
York, 2011).
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Introduction
there are enormously rich and varied primary
textual sources of many kinds stretching back
millennia, and in many languages. By far the
greatest attention has been paid to the great
structure now still dominating the center of this
enormous and for the most part internally open
enclosure, the Dome of the Rock (Fig.  1.3), con-
structed by Caliph ʿAbd al-Malik and datable by
inscription to 72 ah, 691–692 ce, and to the ear-
lier monuments whose exact form and location
and relationship to the Dome of the Rock remain
much debated, the Jerusalem Temple destroyed
by the Romans, and its predecessor associated
with Solomon. The other structure on the Haram
that has received considerable attention is the
Aqsa mosque on the southern edge of the plat-
form (Fig.  1.4), the successor to a structure first
built by ʿAbd al-Malik’s son Walid i (705–715).6
Both the Dome of the Rock and the Aqsa Mosque
will be addressed in the later chapters of this
book, especially the Dome of the Rock, but nei-
ther will be addressed as a totality. The former,
the Dome of the Rock, has already been the
subject of many detailed studies, and the Aqsa
Mosque has been relatively neglected, a new
archaeological and historical study of this impor-
tant building being now long overdue.7 For the
numerous other structures and monuments of
differing kinds and periods now on the Haram al-
Sharif, there are relatively few studies, and they
6 See for an overview Oleg Grabar, “The Haram al-Sharif: An
Essay in Interpretation” Bulletin of the Royal Institute for
Inter-Faith Studies 2(2000), 1–13, reprinted in his Jerusalem,
Constructing the Study of Islamic Art 4 (Aldershot, 2005),
no. xi, pp. 203–215 at.208.
7 The only monographic study remains R[obert] W.
Hamilton, The Structural History of the Aqsa Mosque. A
record of Archaeological Gleanings from the repairs of 1938–
1942 (Jerusalem, 1949). Julian Raby has in the past prom-
ised a new study as forthcoming, but it has not yet
appeared; see Marcus Milwright, An Introduction to Islamic
Archaeology, The New Edinburgh Islamic Surveys
(Edinburgh, 2010), pp. 126–128 and Fig.  6.1 showing the
sketch plan proposed by Raby, and for further discussion
the next chapter of this book.
3
have seldom been regarded as of great impor-
tance, at least in comparison to the two large
structures, and the mysterious Temples that for-
merly rose somewhere on the great platform.
My own study deliberately takes a narrowly
focused approach, eschewing any claim to making
an exhaustive and comprehensive study of the
early Islamic monuments in Jerusalem. Instead, in
the following chapters I will examine: the historical
and physical evidence for the appearance and func-
tion of the Haram al-Sharif in the period between
the conquest of the city by Muslim armies in the
630s and the construction of the Dome of the Rock
in the 690s (Chapter 2); the best-known textual
source possibly bearing upon early Islamic building
and prayer on the Haram, the alleged “eyewitness”
account of a Frankish bishop called “Arculf” by
Abbot Adomnán of the remote island monastery of
Iona off the western coast of modern Scotland
(Chapter 3); the remarkable eleven-sided structure
that sits at the very center of the Haram and has
hitherto remained almost un-studied, the Dome of
the Chain (Chapter 4); and the existence in the
Dome of the Rock, and indeed in prominent and
evidently planned positions, of re-used Roman col-
umn shafts and especially of capitals with images
of eagles (Chapter 5). As will, I hope, become evi-
dent, although the focus is on very specific monu-
ments, and specific problems and questions, the
investigation necessarily leads to a consideration of
much larger issues, including the relationship
between the new Muslim rulers of the city and its
inhabitants, primarily Christian at this period, the
role of its earlier traditions, both Jewish and
Christian, in the development of the earliest Islamic
structures, and the place of Jerusalem within the
larger world of the eastern Mediterranean at what
is often considered the end of the period of Late
Antiquity. These larger issues have been addressed
before by many scholars, upon whose extraordi-
narily intense and penetrating work my own largely
depends, but all of my detailed investigations focus
upon problems that have received little attention
previously, and in some cases seem to have escaped
notice altogether. My perspective and background
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4 chapter 1
is very different from most scholars working with
this fascinating material, coming to it after a schol-
arly career primarily devoted to the medieval
Christian world, especially in Western Europe.
Sometimes distance can bring into focus what is
difficult to see when standing very close, and my
perspective is at least a different, and perhaps a
fresh one. It is my hope that from this perspective I
might pose some unexpected and provocative but
also fruitful questions, as indeed some of my ques-
tions were posed by students when I first began to
teach Islamic art, or rose in my mind while trying to
find a way to clarify some wonderful but perplexing
artistic and cultural phenomena.
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 chapter 2
The Earliest Mosque in Jerusalem
Jerusalem was a troubled city in the early seventh
century, tossed back and forth between different
political entities representing different religious
faiths. As noted in the introductory chapter, there is
nothing new about Jerusalem being a site of conten-
tion. A provincial Roman city of no great political
significance in a secular sense, not even the capital
of its province, early seventh-century Jerusalem had
enormous religious importance as the paramount
Christian sacred city in a Roman Empire that had
become thoroughly Christian­ized over the preced-
ing three centuries. When Jerusalem was sacked by
the Sasanian Persians in 614, the violence was expe-
rienced not only physically but surely also emotion-
ally, as the city’s greatest sacred Christian relics,
including the object venerated as the True Cross on
which Christ had been crucified, were taken away
by non-believers following a different religious tra-
dition.1 Recaptured by the Roman Empire in 628,
and visited by the Emperor the following year, its
greatest relics were not, however, restored but taken
instead to Constantinople, and whatever damage
Jerusalem sustained from the Persian sack cannot
have been thoroughly restored when, only about
five years later, it was again occupied by rulers fol-
lowing a different religious tradition, Islam.
Many modern scholars often give the date of 636
for the Islamic occupation of Jerusalem,2 although
1 Yuri Stoyanov, Defenders and Enemies of the True Cross.
The Sasanian Conquest of Jerusalem in 614 and Byzan­
tine  Ideology of Anti-Persian Warfare, Österreichische
Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische
Klasse, Sitzungsberichte 819, Veröffentlichungen zur
Iranistik 61 (Vienna, 2011), provides the most recent per-
spective on the event, with extensive review of earlier lit-
erature. As noted in the previous chapter, archaeological
evidence provides little support for the textual sources’
picture of widespread destruction.
2 Fred M[cGraw] Donner, Muhammad and the Believers.
At the Origins of Islam (Cambridge, ma and London, 2010),
p. 125, revising his earlier opinion, for which note 3.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi 10.1163/9789004302075_003
there is no real consensus, some giving 637,3 some
a date as late as 638.4 The most commonly cited
Christian source, the early ninth-century chronicle
of Theophanes (d. 818) puts the event in Annus
Mundi 6127, but modern translations differ as to
whether this should be taken as 635–636 ce, the
view of the older translation by Harry Turtledove,
or 634–635, the opinion of the more recent transla-
tion, with extensive preliminary discussion of
Theophanes’s sources and issues of chronology, by
Cyril Mango and Roger Scott.5 The most commonly
cited Muslim source, the History of the Prophets
and Kings, by Abu Jaʿfar Muhammad ibn Jarir
al-Tabari, written probably for the most part in
Baghdad before his death in 923, places the event
late in his discussion of the year 15 ah of the Islamic
calendar (February 14, 636–February 1, 637),6 but
3 For what it is worth as an indication of the communis
opinio, Wikipedia is certain that Caliph ʿUmar entered
Jerusalem in April 637; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Siege_of_Jerusalem_ (637) [accessed Feb. 1, 2011]. This is
also the suggestion of Walter E. Kaegi, Byzantium and the
early Islamic conquests (Cambridge, 1992), p. 146.
4 Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab Conquests. How the Spread
of Islam Changed the World We Live In (London, 2007), p. 91,
sets the event in 637 or 638, as does Fred McGraw Donner,
The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton, 1981), pp. 151–152.
Leone Caetani, Annali dell’Islam (Milan, 1910), vol. 3,
pp. 920–959 puts the conquest in 17 ah, which would be
638 ce. Most recently, Robert G. Hoyland, Theophilus
of Edessa’s Chronicle and the Circulation of Historical
Knowledge in Late Antiquity and Early Islam (Liverpool,
2011), uses several surviving texts to reconstruct and trans-
late what he takes to be the source of many later texts, and
this version puts the conquest of Jerusalem in 638.
5 Harry Turtledove, trans., The Chronicle of Theophanes
(Philadelphia, 1982), p. 39. Cyril Mango and Roger Scott,
trans., The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor. Byzantine and
Near Eastern History ad 284–813 (Oxford, 1997), p ­ p. 471–472.
6 Yohanan Friedmann, trans., The Battle of al-Qadisiyyah
and the Conquest of Syria and Palestine, a.d. 635–637/a.h.
14–15, The History of al-Tabari (Taʾrikh al-rusul waʾl-muluk)
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6 chapter 2
also includes a report that some sources (he cites
here Abu ʿUthman and Abu Harithah) put the con-
quest of Jerusalem in what would be May 637, his
year 16.7 Recently, James Howard-Johnston has
proposed that the date ought to be 634, at the very
beginning of the Muslim campaigns in Palestine
and then Syria. In his view, Jerusalem was both
nearer to the bases in Arabia than other cities fur-
ther north, and the first great goal of the campaign,
largely for religious reasons, because of its immense
importance to the Prophet Muhammad and his
followers.8 For the purposes of this book, the exact
date of the capture and occupation of the city by
Muslims is not of great importance. What matters
far more is the Muslim historical consciousness of
the circumstances of that capture and the subse-
quent events. All the sources and all modern
scholars appear to envisage the Muslim occupation
not as a violent capture or sack of the city, after
military resistance was overcome, but as a peaceful
surrender, in some accounts following a siege.9
xii (Albany ny, 1992), pp. 189–207(2403–2418) on the con-
quest of Jerusalem. Here and throughout, the numbers in
parentheses following the pages of the English translation
refer to the locations given there for the Arabic original,
for which see al-Tabari (Abu Jaʿfar Muhammad b. Jarir al-
Tabari, [839–923]), Taʾrikh al-rusul waʾl-muluk, ed. M.J. de
Goeje (13 vols.; Leiden, 1879–1901).
7 Friedman, Tabari 12, p. 193 (2408).
8 James Howard-Johnston, Witnesses to a World Crisis.
Historians and Histories of the Middle East in the Seventh
Century (Oxford, 2010), pp. 370–387.
9 See for discussion Robert Schick, The Christian Commu­
nities of Palestine from Byzantine to Islamic Rule. A Histor­
ical and Archaeological Study, Studies in Late Antiquity
and early Islam 2 (Princeton, 1995), pp. 68–84, with many
sources, concluding that in comparison to the Sasanian
sacking of the city in 614, and in comparison to the experi-
ences of the Islamic conquest in Gaza and Caesarea and
some other sites, the Islamic conquest of Jerusalem appears
to have been peaceful, although one should avoid over-
emphasizing the ease of what must have been a difficult
and tumultuous event. For the most recent study see now
Gideon Avni, The Byzantine-Islamic Transition in Palestine.
An Archaeological Approach, Oxford Studies in Byzantium
(Oxford, 2014). Avni argues for a very slow transition,
Perhaps the best-known tradition, based on the
chronicle composed in the tenth century by the
Christian Arab author Saʿid ibn Batriq, usually
referred to by the Christian name Eutychius, states
that the city was spared and remained indepen-
dent until Archbishop Sophronius turned it over
to Caliph ʿUmar ibn al Khattab, who arrived in per-
son to accept the surrender and also to pray in this
holy city.10 The details of this important account,
commonly repeated in modern scholarship, will
be considered at some length at several different
places in this study. Al-Tabari agrees with Eutychius
that ʿUmar went to Jerusalem, although al-Tabari’s
account is rather confused by the fact that he
reports that ʿUmar “went to Syria four times,” the
first time riding a horse, the second riding a camel,
the third failing to get there because of a plague,
and the last riding a donkey.11 In the version of
Theophanes, ʿUmar arrived in Jerusalem in a filthy
camel-hair garment, and “showing a devilish pre-
tense, sought the Temple of the Jews – the one
built by Solomon – that he might make it a place
of worship for his own blasphemous religion.”12
A version of this story is told in the “reconstituted”
chronicle of Dionysius of Tel Mahre (the Orthodox
Patriarch 818–845), which also has ʿUmar arriving
Jerusalem being still predominantly Christian into the
tenth century, and Islamic settlement apparently hav-
ing been restricted to the immediate area of the Haram
al-Sharif in the eighth and ninth century.
10 M. Breydy, ed., Das Annalenwerk des Eutychios von
Alexandrien. Ausgewählte Geschichten und Legenden
kompiliert von Saʿid ibn Batriq, Corpus Scriptorum
Christianorum Orientalium 471–472, Scriptores Arabici
44–45 (Louvain, 1985), vol. 44 (Arabic text), vol. 45
(German translation), Section 280 at pp. 118–120. For an
English translation of the Eutychius text see Robert
L. Wilken, The Land called Holy: Palestine in Christian
History and Thought (New Haven and London, 1992),
pp. 236–237. On Eutychius see the most recent discus-
sion, by Howard-Johnston, Witnesses, pp. 331–341, who
considers Eutychius’ version “one of the best accounts of
what transpired during ʿUmar’s visit to Jerusalem” (p. 341).
11 Friedmann, Tabari 12, p. 188 (2401).
12 Mango and Scott, Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor,
p. 471.
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The Earliest Mosque In Jerusalem
in Jerusalem on a camel, and wearing filthy clothes.
Most of the passage is about the filthiness of the
conquering caliph’s coarse clothing, and about
Patriarch Sophronius attempting to give him
something better, unsuccessfully.13 Others ver-
sions of the story address a grander agenda.
Patricia Crone and Michael Cook cited several
texts, drawn from Jewish and Islamic traditions,
which linked ʿUmar and his entry into Jerusalem
with messianic ideas, extending even to the appli-
cation to ʿUmar of the word al-faruq, which might
be understood as “the redeemer.”14
The varied sources have been compiled and
analyzed by many scholars, many already col-
lected and translated by Guy Le Strange as early as
1890,15 and they have even been considered at
length in a well-known historical novel.16 Two
13 See Andrew Palmer, The Seventh Century in West-Syrian
Chronicles, Translated Texts for Historians 15 (Liverpool,
1993), pp. 161–163. As pointed out by Daniel J. Sahas,
“The Face to Face Encounter between Patriarch
Sophronius of Jerusalem and the Caliph ʿUmar ibn al-
Khattab: Friends or Foes?” in Emmanouela Grypeou,
Mark Swanson and David Thomas, eds., The Encounter
of Eastern Christianity with Early Islam, The History of
Christian-Muslim Relations  5 (Leiden and Boston,
2006), pp. 33–44, Eutychius offers a different and less
derogatory description of ʿUmar’s visit to Jerusalem,
which has nothing to say about the caliph’s dirtiness.
14 Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, Hagarism. The
Making of the Islamic World (Cambridge, 1977), p. 5.
15 Guy Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems. A
Description of Syria and the Holy Land from a.d. 650 to
1500 (Cambridge, 1890).
16 Kanan Makiya, The Rock: A Tale of Seventh-century
Jerusalem (New York, 2001) focuses on the Jewish con-
vert Kaʿb. It is thoroughly grounded in the sources, and
indeed has as an appendix a long discussion of them.
There the author says (p. 317) that the kernel from which
his book was conceived is the story conveyed in
al-Tabari’s History of the Prophets and Kings (see
Friedmann, Tabari 12, pp. 194–195 [2408]) of Umar’s
decision to locate his mosque south, not north, of the
Rock, a rebuke to Kaʿb’s attempt to have him locate it
north, so that the qibla would encompass both
Jerusalem’s Rock and Mecca’s Kaʿba. This moment is told
in the novel on pp. 140–142, with Makiya introducing
7
a­ rticles by Heribert Busse discuss ʿUmar’s visit to
Jerusalem in detail.17 There is no need to review all
of the sources here, although some of them will be
discussed in the appropriate place, insofar as they
may shed possible light on the buildings of early
Islamic Jerusalem. That ʿUmar ever went to
Jerusalem at all has been and may well be doubt-
ed.18 Oleg Grabar suggested that the long journey
from Medina is implausible, and pointed out that
all of the accounts are not only much later but also
tendentious, with details that are anachronistic,
implausible or obviously prejudicial in one man-
ner or another.19 That the Caliph’s mount was, or
became, an important thematic sign is clear from
the fact that al-Tabari returns to it at surprising
length in a strange passage. On the way to
Jerusalem, ʿUmar’s horse had injured hooves, so he
changed to a “jade” or broken-down horse [bird­
hawn], who shook him so much that the caliph
dismounted and struck the animal with his man-
tle, and then re-mounted. The story is repeated in
a variant which concludes with the statement that
“He [ʿUmar] had not ridden a jade before that or
after that.”20 The issue of the caliph’s mount might
have some connection with representations of the
entry into Jerusalem by Jesus, who is often shown
(as he knows without evidence) Sophronius into the
scene, who recommends building the mosque on top of
the Rock, advice also rejected by ʻUmar.
17 Heribert Busse, “ʿOmar b. al-Khattab in Jerusalem,”
Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 5(1984), 73–119,
and Heribert Busse, “ʿOmar’s Image as the Conqueror
of Jerusalem,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam
8(1986), 149–168.
18 Busse, “ʿOmar’s Image,” p. 164 asks why the Islamic tra-
dition “has taken so much trouble to connect the sur-
render of Jerusalem to the Arabs with the person of
ʿOmar b. al-Khattab,” and ends (p. 168) by asserting that
any such visit is “highly questionable” in part because
the various sources all have obvious prejudices and
agendas.
19 Oleg Grabar, The Shape of the Holy. Early Islamic
Jerusalem (Princeton, 1996), p. 198, note 63.
20 Friedmann, Tabari 12, p. 193 (2407–2408). I am grateful
to Professor Friedmann for his assistance with this
passage.
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8 chapter 2
on a very long-eared beast that presumably repre-
sents a “jade” or donkey, and in other examples is
shown riding a fine-looking horse.21 Muslim and
Christian sources alike contrast the simple (for the
former) or filthy (for the latter) garments worn by
Caliph ʿUmar with the “silk and brocade” garments
of the Muslim amirs already resident in Syria (for
the former) or with the appropriate (for the latter)
garments offered by the Christian authorities. The
theme of early Islamic filthiness is common in
early Christian sources, and will be discussed at
length in the next chapter. Suffice it to say here
that the comments tell us more about hostile reac-
tions in Christian sources than about early caliphal
wardrobe preferences or choice of mounts.22
Textual Sources for the “First Mosque”
in Jerusalem
Where did Caliph ʿUmar, or for that matter any
Muslim, pray after taking possession of the city of
Jerusalem, at some point in the 630s? Some
21 In Matthew 21 and Luke 19 the Latin versions of the
event specify that the animal ridden is an ass, a donkey,
essential for the fulfillment of a prophecy, and some of
the earliest representation seem to take this literally.
Some later versions ennoble the beast, perhaps because
the representation of the scene came to be associated
with images of imperial victory and the adventus cere-
mony. See on this issue, and its problems, Thomas
Mathews, The Clash of Gods: A Reinterpretation of Early
Christian Art (rev. ed.; Princeton, 1999), pp. 39–50.
Mathews sought to downplay the connection with the
imperial tradition, and his illustrations show mainly
donkeys, recognizable (presumably!) by enlarged
pointed ears; for a broader series of illustrations see
Gertrud Schiller, Iconography of Christian Art, vol. 2:
The Passion of Jesus Christ, trans. Janet Seligman
(London, 1972), pp. 18–23, Figs. 2, 11, 13, 25, 31–34, 36–37.
22 For a recent attempt to survey the sources for the visual
appearance of early Muslim soldiers see Patricia Crone,
“‘Barefoot and Naked’. What did the Bedouin of the
Arab Conquests Look Like?” Muqarnas 25 [Frontiers of
Islamic Art and Architecture. Essays in Celebration of
Oleg Grabar’s Eightieth Birthday] (2008), 1–10.
sources, notably Eutychius, suggest that prayer
within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was sug-
gested, but rejected, with ʿUmar performing his
own prayer alone on the steps outside the church,
then asking the Patriarch Sophronius to suggest a
place of communal prayer, a masjid (mosque).
Thereupon Sophronius suggested the Rock that
had been the place where God spoke to Jacob, and
where the Jewish Temple had been located, with
ʿUmar then insisting upon being taken to the
Temple Mount for prayer.23 Eutychius states that
ʿUmar entered Jerusalem only after having agreed
to a treaty whereby Jews would be banned from
the city, and that “his first action was to order a
mosque, that is an Arab house of prayer, to be built
on the site of the temple of Solomon.”24 Recently
Robert Hoyland has identified the source of this
statement in the chronicle by Theophilus of Edessa
(d. ca. 785), which he has reconstructed and trans-
lated, giving it an earlier written existence than
hitherto.25 Whatever “building a mosque” means,
one must note the highly pejorative context with
far greater attention paid to the caliph’s filthy
clothing than to the place of prayer. Leone Caetani
cited several sources on the construction of the
first mosque in Jerusalem, one reporting that
ʿUmar and 4000 companions used spades to clear
the site and dig, but greater space is given to the
attempts by the Patriarch to lead him to the wrong
place.26 Andrew Marsham has accepted that ʿUmar
constructed a mosque in Jerusalem, citing the evi-
dence from al-Muqaddasi (fl. 966) that the site had
been marked out as a mosque by Jacob, developed
by David and completed by Solomon, destroyed by
Nebuchadnezzar and again by “Titus the Cursed
Roman” and “remained destroyed until Islam came
and ʿUmar b. al-Khattab restored it.”27 The context
23 Breydy, Das Annalenwerk des Eutychios, vol. 2, p. 119.
24 In Palmer, Seventh Century in West-Syrian Chronicles,
pp. 161–162.
25 Hoyland, Theophilus of Edessa, pp. 115–117.
26 Caetani, Annali dell’Islam, pp. 920–959.
27 Andrew Marsham, “The Architecture of Allegiance in
Early Islamic Late Antiquity: the Accession of Muʿawiya
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The Earliest Mosque In Jerusalem
does not encourage confidence that the statement
about ʿUmar is based on reliable information, and
the notion of “restoring” is quite different from
“building” a place of prayer. Marsham saw corrob-
oration of the account in a Hebrew midrash “which
refers to Muʿawiya building the walls of the Temple
Mount.”28 Since, as will be discussed shortly, the
mosque in Jerusalem was considered, as it still is
today, to comprise the entire area of the Haram
al-Sharif, the midrash and the alleged restoration
by ʿUmar may both refer, if they are to be believed,
as referring to repairs of the upper walls of
the Haram, and perhaps also to the cleaning of the
site, as reported in other sources and discussed
by modern scholars.29 The 4000 followers of the
caliph who helped him clear the site and dig
reported by Caetani certainly sound more like a
cleaning than a construction crew.
The sacred character of Jerusalem was by no
means limited to the Jewish and Christian tradi-
tions, for from the very beginning of his revela-
tions, Jerusalem held a very special place for the
Prophet Muhammad, having been the first qibla,
the first center to which prayer was to be directed,
before a subsequent revelation ordered that the
qibla should be changed to Mecca.30 I know of no
evidence from the Qurʾan specifying exactly where
in Jerusalem prayer was to be directed. Nothing
having the same role as the Kaʿba in Mecca, a par-
ticular place within the city of Jerusalem serving
as the qibla, is mentioned in the Qurʾan, which
would not in any event have been necessary when
in Jerusalem, ca. 661ce,” in Alexander Beihammer,
Stavroula Constantinou, and Maria Parani, eds., Court
Ceremonies and Rituals of Power in Byzantium and the
Medieval Mediterranean, The Medieval Mediterranean.
Peoples, Economies and Cultures, 400–1500 (Leiden,
2013), pp. 87–112 at 97.
28 Marsham, “Architecture of Allegiance,” p. 98, with ear-
lier literature.
29 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, p. 47.
30 Qurʾan 2: 136. Why the change was made need not con-
cern this investigation. For recent consideration, likely
to be highly controversial, see Howard-Johnston,
Witnesses, pp. 413–416.
9
prayer was made from a great distance, as from the
Hijaz. Precisely where in Jerusalem prayers should
be directed could only become an issue after the
city had been captured, and prayers were being
made within the city.
At least some of the many stories that accumu-
lated around the Rock now enshrined under the
Dome of the Rock may be later, as scholars have
discussed at length.31 We cannot know what
ʿUmar, or whoever was the first Muslim to seek a
place for prayer in Jerusalem, knew about the city
before arriving there, or what if anything he might
have been looking for after arrival there.32 The fact
that several important stories, passed down by the
tradition, suggest that guides were either sought
by the Muslims or sought to thrust themselves
upon the Muslims, may support a view that at
the  beginning there was uncertainty. Heribert
Busse has written about al-Wasiti’s story that upon
arrival in Jerusalem, “ʿUmar went to the “mihrab of
David” (mihrab Daud) where he recited Sura 38 of
the Qurʾan, which has an important passage on
David and his judgment to which I shall return lat-
er.33 What seems the general view is that the
sacred center of Islam in Jerusalem was never,
according to any scheme, elsewhere than on the
Haram al-Sharif,34 and within at most two genera-
tions this area saw the great monumental con-
structions of early Islam in the city, certainly ʿAbd
al-Malik’s Dome of the Rock ca. 692 (Fig. 1.3), and
31 Grabar, Dome of the Rock, passim, esp. 36–58.
32 Crone and Cook, Hagarism, pp. 3–5 attribute to the
Prophet Muhammad a messianic message and focus
on Jerusalem.
33 Busse, “ʿOmar’s Image,” p. 165. Following later tradition,
especially al-Tabari’s commentary, Busse identifies the
mihrab of David with David’s Tower, near the Jaffa
Gate, but it may be worth considering that the empha-
sis on David and judgment should be linked with a site
on the Haram al-Sharif, notably the Dome of the Chain,
as discussed in Chapter 4 below.
34 Here Busse’s articles suggesting an original sacred cen-
ter elsewhere (see above, note 15), either at David’s
Tower at the Jaffa Gate, or near the Holy Sepulchre,
seem isolated suggestions to the contrary.
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10
al-Walid’s Aqsa mosque after 705 (Fig.  1.4).
Moreover, it seems beyond doubt that however
pious we credit the earliest Muslims in the city
with having been, or not having been, they would
have made some attempt to pray, and pray
together, from the very beginning of their pres-
ence in the city, and they cannot have done so in a
ready-made building waiting for them. No source
suggests that they utilized a structure already in
existence, and indeed the sources emphasize that
they did not do so. The sources, written much later,
assume that there were Muslims in Jerusalem
immediately after its conquest, that those Muslims
would have needed a place for communal prayer,
and thus would certainly have set about construct-
ing such a place immediately. Are these assump-
tions reasonable, or not? This brings us directly to
the problem of the “first mosque” in Jerusalem.
When al-Tabari’s account finally has ʿUmar
enter Jerusalem, it immediately has him “enter the
mosque.”35 According to the footnote provided by
the editor, Yohanan Friedmann, this statement,
employing the Arabic term al-masjid commonly
used for a building used for communal prayer,
must in this context refer to the “Temple Mount”
as a whole, to the masjid al-aqsa of Qurʾan 17: 1,
interpreted as a location in Jerusalem.36 The
Qurʾan passage specifies no particular structure,
but a place from which prayer would be made, and
obviously cannot be referring to a building erected
for Muslim prayers. Tabari’s account assumes that
it was possible for ʿUmar to “enter the mosque”
before anything whatsoever was newly built.
Indeed the notion that the Haram al-Sharif as a
whole (Fig.  2.1) is a mosque is an important and
continuing theme in Islamic sources, as noted
35 Friedmann, Tabari 12, p. 193 (2408).
36 A separate problem, not needing to be addressed here,
is whether the “furthest mosque” referred to in the
Qurʾan, Surah 17, was in Jerusalem, or was believed to
be in Jerusalem in the earliest Islamic traditions; on
this point see Alfred Guillaume, “Where was al-Masyid
al-Aqsa?” Al-Andalus 18(1953), 323–336, for an argu-
ment that the “further mosque” was in the Hijaz.
chapter 2
long ago, for example by Henri Lammens, who
traced this to pre-Islamic roots emphasizing a holy
place, not a building.37 The mid-eleventh-century
description of Jerusalem by Nasir-i Khosraw says
that Jerusalem’s eastern wall was “attached to the
congregational mosque [ jami],” by which he man-
ifestly means the entire space of what we term
the Haram al-Sharif, and his description of the
Jerusalem mosque includes not only the Dome of
the Rock but other domes on the upper platform,
and specifies that the main entrance to the mosque
was from the gate on the western side,38 which
clearly refers to the Haram and not to what we
usually term the Aqsa mosque building along its
southern edge. The issue of defining the extent of
the mosque in Jerusalem has also been addressed
at length by Andreas Kaplony. He argued that the
Haram al-Sharif as it developed over later centu-
ries has the architectural features (minarets,
arcades, ablution places, covered spaces, a dome,
and a “pulpit or standing place [maqam]”) com-
monly associated with mosques, and bears an
inscription on the north wall referring to the entire
Haram, whose dimensions it gives, explicitly
describing it as a mosque (masjid). The call to
prayer came not from the Aqsa Mosque building,
but from the minarets erected in the walls of the
Haram.39 Kaplony quotes the tenth-century trav-
eler Ibn Hawqal’s description of Jerusalem thus:
“And in Jerusalem there is a mosque…. This
mosque has, in the southwest corner, a roofed
37 Henri Lammens, Étude sur le siècle des Omayyades
(Beirut, 1930), pp. 115 and 278.
38 Jonathan M. Bloom, “Nasir Khusraw’s Description of
Jerusalem,” in Alireza Korangy and Daniel J. Sheffield,
eds., No Tapping around Philology. A Festschrift in Honor
of Wheeler McIntosh Thackston Jr.’s 70th Birthday
(Wiesbaden, 2014), pp. 395–406 at 396–398. For the text
see Wheeler M. Thackston, trans., Nasir-i Khusraw,
Persian heritage series, 36 (Albany ny, 1986).
39 Andreas Kaplony, “635/638–1099: The Mosque of
Jerusalem (Masjid Bayt al-Maqdis),” in Oleg Grabar
and Benjamin Z. Kedar, eds., Where Heaven and Earth
Meet: Jerusalem’s Sacred Esplanade (Jerusalem, 2009),
pp. 100–131, esp. 118–119.
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The Earliest Mosque In Jerusalem
building. This roofing covers about half of the
width of the mosque and all other space of
the mosque is empty, with no buildings, except the
Place of the Rock.”40
Kaplony took Ibn Hawqal’s “mosque” to be the
Haram as a whole, the “roofed building” to be
what we term today the Aqsa Mosque, and the
“place of the Rock” to be the Dome of the Rock.
This much seems clear, or at least seemed clear to
a tenth-century observer. How the area of the
Haram, and its mosque, was understood in the
seventh century might, of course, have been dif-
ferent. Kaplony’s view is that the original (he
seems to mean pre-Umayyad, i.e. before 661, in the
first two decades after the Muslim occupation of
the city) conception of the mosque on the Haram
was much more restricted, in effect restricted to
the area where the Aqsa mosque now stands, on
the southern edge of the Haram, but that “the
Umayyads extend[ed] the mosque in the south of
the Haram to the four corners of the Former
Temple, to equate the mosque with the Temple.”
In Kaplony’s view
“the former conception continues to exist. This
results in two contradicting positions: the new one
of a greater mosque (the whole Haram) and the
old one of a smaller mosque (the Aqsa Mosque) –
a mosque with another mosque inside it. The
authorities propagate the new conception through
architecture, names, and ritual, but the old con-
ception is surprisingly persistent and deeply
rooted: the south building continues to be called a
mosque, and traditions and rituals clearly main-
tain that this is the only place where congrega-
tional prayer may be performed.”41
40 Ibn Hawqal (Abu al-Kasim ibn Ali al-Nasibi ibn Hawqal),
Liber Imaginis Terrae, ed. Johannes H. Kramers,
Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum 2 (2nd ed.,
Leiden, 1938–1939), p. 171, quoted in Kaplony, “Mosque,”
and in Grabar and Kedar, Where Heaven and Earth
Meet, p. 119.
41 Kaplony, “Mosque,” in Grabar and Kedar, Where Heaven
and Earth Meet, pp. 119–120.
11
I wonder if one could not in effect invert Kaplony’s
suggestion, keeping his analysis of the conflict and
sense of a change with the Umayyads? He assumes
that the “original” mosque as a built structure, the
mosque of ʿUmar, is on the south side of the plat-
form, but there is no evidence supporting this
claim. The religious tradition, like the modern
scholarly tradition, is uniform in saying so,42 but
some of the sources directly contradict this claim,
al-Tabari stating that ʿUmar entered the city and
immediately went to and entered the mosque,
which obviously cannot have been, or have been
thought to have been, a built structure. In a similar
vein, Amikam Elad says that “it may be assumed
[my emphasis] that the Muslims erected a mosque
[building] immediately after their conquest of
Jerusalem.”43 Elad reviewed the various sources for
the early history of Islamic building on the Haram
al-Sharif, and said that although there are various
42 On this point see A Brief Guide to the Dome of the Rock
and al-Haram al-Sharif published by the Supreme
Awqaf Council (Jerusalem, 1959). On the title page is
written that “This is a summary of the book of Aref el
Aref, ex-Mayor of Jerusalem, entitled ‘The Dome of the
Rock,’” and states on p. 11” that “Most Arab historians
believe that ʿOmar ibn al Khattab…built his mosque in
the area near the present mosque” although Sophronius
tried unsuccessfully to have him build it over the Rock.
In this view, “although the exact spot where ʿOmar
built his simple mosque of wood is not known, two
scholars [among many others] believe that it was on
the site of the present building, although Richard
Hartman is said to favor a site more to the west.” On
p. 47, in the discussion of the Aqsa Mosque it is stated
that “At the end of the mosque on the southeast corner
there is a small mosque known as the Mosque of ʿOmar
which is connected with the larger mosque by an arch-
way. This small mosque is thirty meters long and eight
wide and is made of ordinary limestone. It has three
large and three small windows and a prayer niche with
two lovely pillars on each side. According to Mujeer-
ud-Din it is the remnant of the mosque built by ʿOmar,
the second caliph.”
43 Amikam Elad, Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship.
Holy Places, Ceremonies, Pilgrimage, Islamic History
and Civilization, Studies and Texts 8 (Leiden, 1995),
pp. 29–35.
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12
traditions associating ʿUmar with the construction
of a mosque there, none are demonstrably trace-
able to the seventh century, and the most famous
of them, the story of Kaʿb al-Akbar, has an isnad
tracing it back only to the time of ʿAbd al-Malik
and his sons in the early eighth-century, and none
of the Christian or Muslim sources allow us to
assume an ʿUmar-period construction.44 Elad thinks
that a number of sources affirm the “existence of a
mosque (al-Aqsa) on the Haram, during the reign
of Muʿawiya,”45 that is, to use the conventional
dates for his rule as caliph, by the years 661–680.
Elad’s “first, and clearest” evidence is what he
terms “the testimony of Arculf,” which will be eval-
uated, and in my view eliminated as a useful source
for this issue, in the next chapter. Elad’s other wit-
nesses are either late, as a tenth-century midrash,
or ambiguous, precisely because the use of the
term “mosque” that occurs in many of the sources
refer to the entire Haram and not to a building
within it. Thus the source concerning a late seventh-
or early eighth-century Egyptian visit to Jerusalem
merely says that the visitors sat in the mosque, and
it is modern readers who assume that this can only
designate a building.46 Similarly, there is an inter-
esting statement, to be discussed subsequently in
connection with the Dome of the Chain, based on
a tradition of the earlier eighth century that
“Muʿawiya stood on the minbar of Jerusalem say-
ing: Everything between the two walls of this
mosque is loved by Allah, may He be exalted, more
than any on earth.”47 This statement does imply
that the Haram is a mosque, since it has a minbar,
but does not necessarily imply a building like or
anticipating the al-Aqsa mosque. Indeed, quite the
reverse; if the “two walls” containing within them
all that is most loved by Allah refer to a building on
the Haram like al-Aqsa or its forerunner, then it
44 Elad, Medieval Jerusalem, pp. 30–31 and note 36.
45 Elad, Medieval Jerusalem, p. 33.
46 Elad, Medieval Jerusalem, pp. 34–35.
47 Elad, Medieval Jerusalem, p. 33. Note that al-Tabari
refers to the maqsura and minbar already in the time of
Muʿawiya, although his references do not specify
whether he is talking about something in the mosque
in Jerusalem or in Damascus.
chapter 2
would exclude the Rock over which the Dome of
the Rock was built as being among these holiest of
things, which seems highly unlikely. If the “two
walls” are the outer walls of the Haram as a whole,
then the passage makes better sense, even if the
notion of two walls rather than four is to say the
least perplexing.
What is the visual or material evidence for
Islamic building on the Haram al-Sharif prior to the
Dome of the Rock? K.A.C. Creswell dismissed
accounts of early Islamic building on the Haram in
Jerusalem by early writers, because in his view they
were “accompanied by legendary details.” Creswell
made an exception for the source he refers to as
“Arculf,” however, quoting him and taking this Latin
text at face value, as will be discussed in the next
chapter of this book.48 Among the other non-Muslim
sources that have been thought to bear upon the
earliest mosque on the Haram is a passage dis-
cussed by Robert Hoyland from John Moschus’
Pratum spirituale stating that immediately upon
entering Jerusalem, the “godless Saracens” went to
the “place called the Capitol” and cleaned it “in
order to build that cursed thing, intended for their
prayer and which they call a mosque (midzgitha).”49
This source is complex. John Moschus died in
either 619 or 634, that is, almost certainly before the
Muslim occupation of the city. The passage in ques-
tion is one of many augmentations to the original
text, this one surviving only in Georgian, in a sec-
tion datable to the seventh century, before the end
of the reign of Emperor Constans ii in 668, in
Hoyland’s view probably added to the text at the
Mar Saba monastery ca. 670.50 In this source, it
seems clear that the “mosque” being referred to was
48 K.A.C. Creswell, A Short Account of Early Muslim
Architecture (Beirut, 1958), p. 10.
49 Robert G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others Saw It.
A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and
Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam, Studies in Late
Antiquity and early Islam 13 (Princeton, 1997), p. 63.
I am grateful to Marcus Milwright for noting that this
passage ought to be considered.
50 Hoyland, Seeing Islam, pp. 62–63, following Gérard
Garitte, “Histoires édifiantes Géorgiennes,” Byzantion
36(1966), 396–423.
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The Earliest Mosque In Jerusalem
not the existing Haram as a whole, but a separate
building, for the passage goes on to its main point,
that a skilled marble-worker participated in the
construction of the “Saracen” building over the
objections of Patriarch Sophronius, and subse-
quently died after falling from a ladder, punish-
ment for his disobedience. If taken literally, this
would surely imply that a new building was con-
structed by that date, if indeed the passage dates
from ca. 670 and is not a later interpolation.
Taking this story literally is problematic on
another score, however, for those who accept the
account by “Arculf” have accepted his view that
the first mosque in Jerusalem was a rude structure
made in wood, not marble. If the proposal that I
will advance in Chapter 4 is accepted, that the
Dome of the Chain should be dated to the time of
Muʿawiya, very possibly to the 660s, one could
argue that “Arculf” is referring to the rude wooden
structure erected by ʿUmar, and the Pratum spiri­
tuale to the splendid little mostly-marble Dome of
the Chain, and thus take both sources literally. The
Georgian source, referring specifically to a marble
worker, could be taken as referring to the building
of the Dome of the Chain, and mis-applies a story
inspired by its creation a few decades later to the
time of ʿUmar. In my view, such interpretation
would be tendentious, and far less likely than that
neither source should be taken literally,51 espe-
cially given their shared palpably hostile confes-
sional emphasis, to say nothing of the focus on the
miraculous. As is the case of the “Arculf” text to be
discussed in the next chapter, the Georgian source
seems to me to yield nothing substantial concern-
ing a seventh-century Islamic mosque building on
the Haram in Jerusalem.52 The Georgian source is
51 See also Hoyland, Seeing Islam, pp. 61–65 for discussion
of this text and its problems, and for the earlier scholar-
ship devoted to it, including Jerome Murphy-O’Connor,
“The Location of the Capitol in Aelia Capitolina,” Revue
biblique 101(1994), 407–415, who argued that the Capitol
referred to should not be linked with the former
Temple Mount but with the Holy Sepulchre church.
52 I agree here with Creswell, against Johns, “House of the
Prophet,” p. 109, who seems to accept the testimony of
this text for the mid-seventh century.
13
transmitted in a tenth-century manuscript (Mount
Athos, Iviron, cod. ibericus 9),53 so there was
plenty of time for an interpolation to occur, one
made after the massive constructions in marble of
the later seventh and early eighth century would
have made any description of the Islamic struc-
tures on the Haram that did not include fine mar-
bles seem incongruous and odd.
More interesting is a text transmitted in Greek
under the name of Anastasius of Sinai, which tells
of a large number of Egyptians laboring on what is
also termed, as in the Georgian text just discussed,
the “Capitol.”54 The work involved seems, according
to the text, more demolition than construction on
the Haram, and Flusin thought that the text should
be dated not long after 700,55 and therefore has no
bearing on the issue here. The discovery of papyri
at Aphrodito in Egypt relating to the dispatch of
resources from Egypt for construction in Jerusalem
also supports the dating of the work on a mosque
there to the eighth century, not the seventh,
although of course it is not impossible that similar
documents were produced in the seventh century,
but have not survived, or have not been found.56
Architectural and Archaeological Evidence
for the “First Mosque” in Jerusalem
Oleg Grabar concluded that during the early
decades of Islamic Jerusalem, up to ca. 660 and the
beginning of the Umayyad period, the large struc-
tures south and west of the Haram, and generally
associated with the residence of high Islamic offi-
cials, might have been begun, that most of the
Haram was likely to have been cleared of debris,
53 Bernard Flusin, “L’esplanade du Temple à l’arrivée des
Arabes,” in Julian Raby and Jeremy Johns, eds., Bayt al-
Maqdis. ʿAbd al-Malik’s Jerusalem, Oxford Studies in
Islamic Art ix, Part 1 (Oxford, 1992), pp. 17–31.
54 Flusin, “L’esplanade du Temple,” pp. 22–26.
55 Flusin, “L’esplanade du Temple,” p. 24.
56 Max Küchler, “Moschee und Kalifenpaläste Jerusalems
nach den Aphrodito-Papyri,” Zeitschrift des Deutschen
Palästinavereins 107(1991), 120–143, discussed also by
Grabar, Shape of the Holy, p. 118.
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14
that a “rude mosque had been built on its southern
end,” and that possibly the Dome of the Chain had
been completed.57 Recently Andrew Marsham has
followed this hypothesis, and even provided a
sketch of the appearance of the mosque of ʿUmar
and the palace that he thought should be linked to
it.58 Marsham relied on earlier scholarship that
indeed assumed that the administrative and/or
palatial structures south and west of the Haram
dated to the seventh century.59 More recent evi-
dence has suggested, however, that those build-
ings should be dated to the eighth, not the seventh
century.60 For the building of the “rude mosque”
Grabar depended, as did Marsham, entirely upon
the supposed testimony of “Arculf” to be addressed
in the next chapter. Here it may suffice to say that
no physical traces of a mosque building pre-dating
the construction by al-Walid i on the present site
of the Aqsa mosque, on the southwestern portion
57 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, pp. 51 and 118.
58 Marsham, “Architecture of Allegiance,” pp. 98–100 and
Fig. 4.2.
59 Marsham, “Architecture of Allegiance,” p. 98, with ear-
lier literature. The suggestion that these structures
would date from the early Marwanid period would
make them too late to form part of a building campaign
in the time of Muʿawiya, which Marsham envisaged in
what he labelled as a “speculative reconstruction.”
60 The fundamental study is Kay Prag, Excavations by
K.M. Kenyon in Jerusalem 1961–1967, vol. v: Discoveries in
Hellenistic to Ottoman Jerusalem, Centenary volume:
Kathleen M. Kenyon 1906–1978 (Oxford, 2008), pp. 101–241,
at 157 advancing the precise dates 707–714 for the com-
plex; that is, at exactly the same time as the Aqsa
mosque was being constructed by al-Walid immedi-
ately above. Here it is assumed, citing “Arculf” as the
only specific source, that the building continued a
“long term Umayyad development,” since “Some
administrative or palatial buildings must have been
needed, for council, reception, residential and judicial
purposes, and some structure serving this purpose
must have existed earlier” (p. 104). See now also Avni,
Byzantine-Islamic Transition in Palestine, p. 135 that “it
is widely accepted that the monumental constructions
south and west of the Haram were started by al-Walid
in the early eighth century.”
chapter 2
of the platform, has been clearly identified.
Fundamental for the structural history of the Aqsa
Mosque remains the investigations by Robert
Hamilton more than half a century ago, which
identified the lowest levels within the current
Aqsa mosque as the remains of al-Walid’s mosque,
from the eighth century, not from an earlier struc-
ture dated to the seventh century. Hamilton’s pub-
lished plan of his excavations remains the best
evidence we have, pending future excavation
(Fig. 2.2).61
Hamilton’s claim that the earliest evidence for
an Aqsa mosque on its present location was from
the time of al-Walid was subsequently challenged
by Julian Raby, as reported by Jeremy Johns, who
also published a simplified sketch plan of the
allegedly seventh-century mosque based on
Hamilton’s examination of the remains, but the
promised study has never been published.62 The
61 R[obert] W. Hamilton, The Structural History of the
Aqsa Mosque. A record of Archaeological Gleanings from
the repairs of 1938–1942 (Jerusalem, 1949), pp. 22–23,
the plan a large fold-out facing p. 53. Hamilton made
no clear statement about the date of his “Aqsa i” that
I can find, which was probably judicious on his part.
In his study of the capitals from the Aqsa Mosque, he
suggested that the building campaign to which the
first Aqsa belongs, and from which its capitals derive
their form and ornament, should be dated in the
seventh century, but he allowed for either a date soon
after the Islamic conquest or during the time of ʿAbd
al-Malik and al-Walid i, in the late seventh or early
eighth century. See R[obert] W. Hamilton, “Some
Capitals from the Aqsa Mosque,” in The Quarterly of the
Department of Antiquities in Palestine 13 (2048), 103–119,
at 117.
62 See Jeremy Johns, “The ‘House of the Prophet’ and the
Concept of the Mosque,” in Jeremy Johns, ed., Bayt al-
Maqdis. Jerusalem and Early Islam, Oxford Studies in
Islamic Art, ix, Part 2 (Oxford, 1999), pp. 59–112, at p. 62,
with Fig. 9 representing Raby’s sketch plan of the “first”
Aqsa mosque, from the seventh century. Johns reported
that Raby will argue that Hamilton’s Aqsa i is earlier in
date than the excavator believed, likely dating from the
time of Muʿawiya in the early 660s, that it was a stone
structure also with marble, with traces of a portico or
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The Earliest Mosque In Jerusalem
claim that an original seventh-century mosque
lies beneath the current structure remains the
standard version in discussions of Islamic art and
architecture, being repeated most recently by
Marcus Milwright in his valuable introduction to
Islamic archaeology, which provides a concise and
cogent review of the shifting understanding of the
archaeology,63 but this claim is based upon no
physical evidence. One claim that physical evi-
dence of the “first mosque” does survive was
advanced in 1999 by Rafi Grafman and Myriam
Rosen-Ayalon, who argued that the earliest
mosque building on the Haram was constructed
on the “ruins” of Herod’s Stoa, and stretched
112 meters along the southern edge of the Haram,
starting near its southwestern corner.64 In their
view, “extant parts of the structure” are found
today in the Islamic Museum and the Women’s
Mosque to the west of the current Aqsa mosque
building, some of whose piers are alleged to cor-
respond to and to “reflect” the Herodian stoa.
Grafman and Rosen-Ayalon’s plan of this area
(Fig.  2.3) shows a meaningful correspondence
between extant structures and their plan of
Herod’s stoa only in the piers set in the center of
the Islamic Museum’s southern gallery and in the
women’s mosque, and since the location of Herod’s
columns is unknown, the plan is entirely hypo-
thetical.65 Its point of departure is the statement
atrium in front of it, on the site of the current Aqsa
mosque. Raby’s study has not yet been published.
63 Marcus Milwright, An Introduction to Islamic Archae­
ology, The New Edinburgh Islamic Surveys (Edinburgh,
2010), pp. 126–128 and Fig. 6.1 showing the sketch plan
proposed by Raby.
64 Rafi Grafman and Myriam Rosen-Ayalon, “The Two
Great Syrian Umayyad Mosques: Jerusalem and
Damascus,” Muqarnas 16(1999), 1–15.
65 Grafman and Rosen-Ayalon, “Two Great Syrian
Umayyad Mosques,” 1–2 and Fig. 2. Critical to their argu-
ment is the claim that the space between the piers in
the southwest gallery of the Islamic Museum is less than
the space between the last free-standing pier on the
west and the western wall, which in their view corre-
sponds to the end aisles of Herod’s stoa. The hypothesis
15
by “Arculf” that the mosque on the Haram accom-
modated 3000 worshippers, which is printed as a
heading for their article, and from which Grafman
and Rosen-Ayalon calculate that the building mea-
sured “some 4800 square meters in area,”66 and
that the “‘remains of ruins’ [upon which it was
constructed according to “Arculf”] can safely be
regarded as those of the Herodian structure.”67
Marsham has recently used “Arculf’s” description
and modern formulas for mosque design to calcu-
late a building with an area of 2100 square meters,
perhaps 70m wide and 30m deep, “allocating
0.7square meters to each of the stipulated 3000
worshippers.”68 Again, as so often, the material
evidence is read in relation to the supposed testi-
mony of “Arculf” about the earliest mosque, which
drives the hypothesis that the earliest remains on
the site of the Aqsa mosque appear sufficiently
“rude” to have been constructed during the time of
Caliph Muʿawiya and seen by “Arculf.” Grafman
and Rosen-Ayalon accept and emphasize the pejo-
rative character of the description attributed to
“Arculf,” referring to a “rough-and-ready building”
and to “jury-rigging initial Muslim builders.”69
Al-Walid’s construction of the Aqsa Mosque is
then identified as the second rather than the first
building on the site, agreeing with Raby against
Hamilton. Without “Arculf,” this reconstruction
collapses, and in the next chapter I will show just
how weak “Arculf’s” evidence is.
Michael Burgoyne’s study of Mamluk Jerusalem
presents the traditional view, and its conflicts, very
succinctly. He quotes the testimony of “Arculf,”
explicitly relying upon Creswell’s presentation of
is intriguing, but I cannot see that it constitutes evi-
dence, in the absence of any basis for locating Herod’s
columns except the extant structures presumed to
reflect them.
66 Grafmann and Rosen-Ayalon, “Two Great Syrian
Umayyad Mosques,” 1 and note 2.
67 Grafmann and Rosen-Ayalon, “Two Great Syrian
Umayyad Mosques,” 2.
68 Marsham, “Architecture of Allegiance,” p. 99.
69 Grafmann and Rosen-Ayalon, “Two Great Syrian
Umayyad Mosques,” 2.
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16
it, in support of the existence of some “roughly
built” place of prayer on the Haram constructed
during the time of Caliph ʿUmar, located “amongst
the ruins of the southern portico (Herod’s Royal
Stoa).” Burgoyne noted, however, that “nothing
survives of this first mosque in Jerusalem,” and
then proceeds to follow Henri Stern and Hamilton
in seeing the first Aqsa mosque, of which we do
have remains, as having been begun by ʿAbd al-
Malik and finished by his son al-Walid.70 The last
word of Hamilton was his contribution to the first
Bayt al Maqdis volume in 1992, in which he stated
that the archaeological evidence revealed three
successive stages in the building of the Aqsa
mosque, which was difficult to reconcile exactly
with the four caliphs (two Umayyad and two
Abbasid) who were said in various documentary
sources to have built or restored the building. He
concluded that the first building should be
assigned to ʿAbd al-Malik, possibly having been
completed by his son, or possibly having been
rebuilt by his son as the second mosque.71
Hamilton makes no claim that the earliest build-
ing on the site could have been the one seen by
“Arculf” as reported by Adomnán, not because he
doubted the reliability of “Arculf,” which like every-
one else he accepted without further consider-
ation, but because he felt that the archaeological
70 Michael Burgoyne, Mamluk Jerusalem. An Architectural
Study (Jerusalem, 1987), p. 45.
71 It may be noted that, although he does not address the
problem of the earliest mosque explicitly, Nasser
Rabbat, “The Meaning of the Umayyad Dome of the
Rock,” Muqarnas 6(1989), 12–21 at 18, observes that, in
his view, the significance of the Dome of the Rock
shifted when the Aqsa mosque was built, with its
mihrab aligned with the Rock, creating a complex
whose meaning was less political and more clearly reli-
gious than hitherto. If Rabbat’s theory is correct, it
entails the conclusion that if there was a mosque build-
ing on the Haram before 705, then it was not in the
location of the current and early eighth-century Aqsa
mosque but somewhere else, or the post-705 construc-
tion would have involved no alteration in the funda-
mental plan of the complex.
chapter 2
evidence did not support a date for even the earli-
est part of the structure in the seventh century.72
Grabar’s discussion of the history of the Aqsa
mosque emphasized that “the written observation
of a visitor like Arculf or of a native like Muqaddasi
cannot really be combined with an archaeologi-
cally defined, physically demonstrable change or
even with simple assessment of structural and
decorative properties.”73 He argued that the evi-
dence of graffiti in Greek and of preserved orna-
mental panels both associated with “Aqsa ii” sug-
gest a date in the Umayyad or early Abbasid period
for that structure, and favors the former.74 In his
view “Aqsa i,” the earliest remains on the site exca-
vated by Hamilton, would belong to a structure
likely begun by ʿAbd al-Malik and completed by
his son al-Walid. He assumed that the new build-
ing replaced the inadequate earlier mosque, of
which no traces remain.75 In other words, Grabar
follows Hamilton’s published work on the history
of the Aqsa mosque.
The Haram al-Sharif as the “First Mosque”
in Jerusalem
The absence of any identifiable remains of ʿUmar’s
mosque on the site, having left not the slightest
trace under the Aqsa mosque, where it was sup-
posedly located, has been left as an unresolved
mystery, unresolved in part because never actually
72 Robert Hamilton, “Once again the Aqsa,” in Raby and
Johns, Bayt al-Maqdis i (as above, n. 53), pp. 141–144 at
144.
73 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, p. 121.
74 It is tempting to suggest that this phase may have been
brought about by extensive repairs necessitated by the
damage from a major earthquake about 747 ce, which
would accord well with the stylistic parallels between
the wooden panels from the Aqsa mosque and the
stuccoes at Khirbat al-Mafjar, generally dated to the
second quarter of the eighth century, but although
Grabar, Shape of the Holy, p. 122, cites these parallels, he
did not explicitly relate Aqsa ii to the earthquake.
75 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, p. 122.
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The Earliest Mosque In Jerusalem
investigated. Elad is laudably explicit in saying
that he “assumes” the existence of such a struc-
ture, while other scholars seem implicitly to have
assumed it. Perhaps there is a simpler, albeit sur-
prising, solution to the problem posed by the
phantom first (“ʿUmar’s”) mosque in Jerusalem. Is
it possible that no one has found, and no one
(other than “Arculf”) describes, a mosque building
on the Haram in Jerusalem before al-Walid’s con-
struction after 705, because there was none, that
the Haram as a whole simply was the mosque?
There is significant evidence in support of this
view from Muslim sources even beyond those con-
sidered in Kaplony’s summary of the evidence. For
example, writing in the later tenth century, and in
Jerusalem, as a local author praising local sites and
sights, al-Muqaddasi says that “the Masjid al-Aqsa
(the Further Mosque) lies at the southeastern cor-
ner of the city. Its foundations were laid by David,
the length of each stone being ten cubits or less.
They are carefully draughted and faced, fitted well
together, and are of the hardest material. On these
ʿAbd al-Malik built, using small but well-shaped
stones, and crenellated it. This mosque was even
more beautiful than that of Damascus.”76 That this
signifies the author’s view that the whole Haram,
on which ʿAbd al-Malik erected crenellations, was
the primary referent of the term “mosque” here in
Jerusalem at that time is supported by the next
line, in which al-Muqaddasi says that “an earth-
quake occurred in the time of the Abbasids that
threw down the covered portion, except the part
around the mihrab.” The covered portion of the
mosque was thrown down; again the uncovered
portion of the mosque that was not damaged was
76 Al-Muqaddasi (Shams al-Din Abu ʿAbd Allah
Muhammad bin Ahmad bin Abi Bakr al-Bannaʾ al-
Shami al-Muqaddasi al-maʿruf bi al-Bashshari), The
Best Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions (Ahsan al-
Taqasin fi Maʿrifat al-Aqalin), trans. Basil Collins
(Reading, 2001), p. 142. Here may also lie an explanation
for the midrash discussed previously, in note 28 above,
which credits a caliph (in that case Muʿawiya rather
than ʿAbd al-Malik) with work on the walls surround-
ing the Haram or in the midrash of the Temple Mount.
17
the entire Haram. Al- Muqaddasi repeatedly refers
to the “covered portion of the mosque” when refer-
ring to the Aqsa building, before continuing his
description of the mosque on the Haram, writ-
ing  that “The entire court is paved. In its center
stands  a platform, as in the mosque at Yathrib
(al-Madina),” on which are four domes, which he
names.77 He does not indicate that this area is out-
side the mosque, only outside the covered portion
of the mosque, and the comparison of the plat-
form with domes to the mosque in Medina, which
also has domes in the mosque, underscores that
these structures are all within, not outside, the
Jerusalem mosque as he understood it.
To be sure, al- Muqaddasi is writing in the tenth
century, not in the seventh, and it is always dan-
gerous to read later evidence into the past. Is it not
worth at the very least considering, however, that,
the original conception, prior to the building of
the Dome of the Rock in 692,78 was that the entire
Haram was the mosque, and focused on the Rock
near the center of it?79 This would have been a
natural area for prayer, and available from the first
moment of the Muslims’ arrival in the city, and it is
indeed specified as such in several important sto-
ries, to be considered later, stories that argue
against the location of the “mosque” near the
Rock. Why would this have been important if the
place for communal prayer had never been near
the Rock? The later sources would be tilting at
windmills in that case, but if they were responding
to the place of prayer having been moved, then
their motivation is more easily grasped. If this
77 Al-Muqaddasi, Best Divisions for Knowledge, pp. 142–143.
78 For the date of the Dome of the Rock see below,
Chapter 6.
79 For a drawing showing the north–south and east–west
central axes of the Haram meeting just east of the
Dome of the Rock, specifically at the Dome of the
Chain, see Myriam Rosen-Ayalon, The Early Islamic
Monuments of al-Haram al-Sharif. An Iconographic
Study, qedem, Monographs of the Institute of
Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 28
(Jerusalem, 1989), pp. 25–29, to be discussed in
Chapter 4 below.
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18
hypothesis is correct, then the construction of the
Dome of the Rock toward the end of the seventh
century monumentalized this central area for the
first time. Might it be that only with the construc-
tion of the Aqsa mosque in its present location,
under al-Walid i ca. 705, that the masjid area is
narrowed and specified, but that the older tradi-
tion, presumably indicating prayer outside any
monumental structure, was never entirely lost?
It may be that the unusual minarets of the
Jerusalem mosque reflect a tradition of the impor-
tance of the center of the Haram as a place for
gathering of the Muslim community. Jonathan
Bloom has discussed the Umayyad reconstruction
of the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina with four
corner towers,80 and the four manayir [towers,
“minarets”] on the Haram al-Sharif which might
have been located there by the tenth century,
according to some sources.81 Bloom pointed out
the oddity of the locations of the Jerusalem tow-
ers, at the southwest and northwest corners, but
not on the eastern corners, which might be due to
the geography of the site, and he points out that
the one on the western edge, near the gate known
as Bab al-Silsila “makes sense in the greater urban
context, for the gate provided the major access
from the city to the Haram” and both leads to and
is named after the Dome of the Chain (al-Silsila).
The fourth tower, on the north wall, he related to
the Abbasid practice of having a single large tower
opposite the qibla wall, but he says nothing about
its exact location beyond terming it “opposite the
Aqsa mosque.” This description is not quite accu-
rate. The minaret on the north wall of the Haram is
far to the east of the center line, and looking
toward the qibla from this point the Aqsa mosque
is not in front of one standing there, but distinctly
off to the right. I will return to the possible impor-
tance of this area east of the Dome of the Rock
later in this chapter.
80 Jonathan M. Bloom, The Minaret, Edinburgh Studies in
Islamic Art (Edinburgh, 2013) [rev. version of book pub-
lished by Oxford in 1989], pp. 49–54 and Fig. 3.1.
81 Bloom, Minaret, and pp. 54–56 and Fig. 3.3.
chapter 2
That the earliest place of prayer of the Islamic
community in Jerusalem might have been a
mosque without a roof, in the open air (although
within a walled enclosure), seems at first strange.
It should not be thought so. In his important study
of the earliest development of the mosque as a
building type, Jeremy Johns noted that the Qurʾan
itself does not determine the mosque as a type of
building, or make reference to the house of the
prophet in Medina, and thus it seems that the
“concept of the mosque” was determined by some-
one later, presumably a caliph. Johns suggested
that the formulator of the mosque as a building
type was Caliph ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab, who, in
Johns’ reading of the sources
“is portrayed as an almost obsessive mosque-
builder. He is said to have enclosed the haram at
Mecca, to have rebuilt the Prophet’s Mosque in
Medina, to have built the first Masjid al-Aqsa, to
have commanded and supervised from afar the
foundation of mosques in the amsar, including
Basra, Kufa, and Fustat, and in the conquests,
including Alexandria, Damascus, Mada’in and
Mosul.”82
Creswell’s exhaustive study of the textual and
material evidence for mosques during the seventh
century yielded but scanty physical evidence for
such extensive building, and none of it can be reli-
ably attributed to the period of ʿUmar. The earliest
Islamic building for which we have archaeological
evidence is probably the Dar al-Imara at Kufa, the
administrative complex usually interpreted as a
project of Ziyad ibn Sumayya [ibn Abihi],83 Caliph
Muʿawiya’s governor of Kufa from 668 to 673,
whom Stephen Humphreys recently termed the
82 Jeremy Johns, “House of the Prophet,” 109–110.
83 K.A.C. Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture (2nd ed.,
Oxford, 1969; reprint New York, 1979), vol. i, Part i:
Umayyads a.d. 622–750, pp. 46–58. On Ziyad and his
activity as a builder see also the extended discussion,
with sources, by Henri Lammens, Étude sur le siècle des
Omayyades (Beirut, 1930), pp. 27–161.
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The Earliest Mosque In Jerusalem
caliph’s “viceroy of the East”.84 Ziyad is an impor-
tant figure for this study, especially with regard to
the subsequent investigation of the Dome of the
Chain. At Kufa, Ziyad is also associated with the
rebuilding of the original mosque, which dates
from the foundation of the city as a military
encampment near the Sasanian capital of
Ctesiphon in 638/9 ce (16 ah), certainly during
the time of Caliph ʿUmar. Kufa was constructed on
an empty site, as a new city, with no earlier build-
ings at all, the mosque supposedly, according to
al-Tabari, laid out first, before anything else was
done. Al-Tabari also says that the place of the
mosque was defined not by a wall but only by a
ditch (khandaq), and that inside the mosque “the
only architectural feature…was a covered colon-
nade (zulla)” along the southern, qibla, wall, made
with spoliated columns.85 At Basra, founded a year
or two before Kufa, and also an entirely new estab-
lishment with no pre-existing buildings, “the first
mosque, according to Baladhuri, was simply
marked out (ikhtatta) and the people prayed
within it,” while in another tradition the boundar-
ies of the site were solely marked by reeds.86
Al-Baladhuri dates the first construction to the
year 14 ah (635/6 ce), making the founding of
the city in that place a directive of Caliph ʿUmar.
In the traditions transmitted by al- Baladhuri the
entire settlement was of reeds, and disassembled
during military campaigns, then re-assembled
afterward, and “this custom lasted some time.
Then the people marked out limits, and built regu-
lar dwellings. And Abu-Musa al-Shari built the
mosque and official residence of dried brick and
clay, and roofed them with grass, at the same time
84 R. Stephen Humphreys, Muʿawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, From
Arabia to Empire (Oxford, 2006), p. 92.
85 Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, pp. 22–26, See
more recently Ulya Vogt-Göknil, Frühislamische
Bogenwände. Ihre Bedeutung zwischen der Antike und
dem westlichen Mittelalter (Graz, 1982), p. 4, which
offers two fanciful reconstruction drawings, one with a
surrounding ditch only, and the second with a wall, the
earlier version clearly without any surrounding wall.
86 Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, p. 22.
19
enlarging the mosque,” no date being given for this
change.87 In other words, even if all the building
activity during the time of Caliph ʿUmar suggested
by textual sources really did take place, the evi-
dence we have suggests that it was extremely mod-
est, and the mosque at Basra certainly, and the
mosque at Kufa probably, in its earliest stage was
not at all what we would call a building, but a des-
ignated place, marked out rather than constructed
in the usual sense, at Kufa perhaps with an added
colonnade along one side. Thus the absence of a
mosque building at Jerusalem at this period should
not be altogether surprising.
It also needs to be noted that Jerusalem is in any
event and in many respects a special case, and it
may well be that one ought not to assume that a
mosque there would be “a typically early Islamic
hypostyle mosque.”88 Basra, Kufa and Fustat were
entirely new settlements with no buildings at all,
and no sacred center or sacred history for the
Muslims. One might well add Wasit, on the
Euphrates, to the list, where the construction of a
monumental mosque (and palace beside it) imme-
diately followed the foundation of the new city
87 Francis Lark Murgotten, trans., The Origins of the
Islamic State, Being a translation from the Arabic accom­
panied with annotations geographic and historic notes
of the Kitab Futuh al-Buldan of al-Imam abu-l ‘Abbas
Ahmad ibn-Jabir al-Baladhuri, Columbia University
Studies in History, Economics and Public Law,
vol. lxviiii, nos. 163 and 163a (New York, 1924), Part 2,
pp. 60–61.
88 As suggested by in his important reference work by
Oleg Grabar, “al-Kuds, Monuments,” in Encyclopedia of
Islam, vol. 2 (2nd ed.; Leiden, 1980), pp. 339–344,
reprinted in his Jerusalem, Constructing the Study of
Islamic Art 4 (Aldershot, 2005), no. vi, pp. 117–129 at 119.
Indeed, later in the same article (p. 121 in the reprinted
version) Grabar points out that when we have clear evi-
dence for the Aqsa mosque, that built by al-Walid in
the early eighth century, “the plan was an unusual one
for its time.” His hypothetical explanation for the
unusual character involves the substructure, but for
whatever reason, grants that the Jerusalem mosque
was unique among early Islamic mosques, and not
“typical.”
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20
during the caliphate of ʿAbd al-Malik at the end of
the seventh or beginning of the eighth century,
likely as a base for Syrian troops brought to the
region.89 The situation at Tiberias in the Galilee,
and thus not so far removed from Jerusalem, is
intriguing, if one accepts a cogent recent argu-
ment that what had previously been thought a late
Roman market was converted for use as a mosque,
and a mosque similar in form to, albeit much
smaller than, the Great Mosque at Damascus. If
this was a mosque, its form points toward an
eighth-century rather than a seventh-century
date.90 The plan of the mosque in Ramla, which
appears similar in overall form and of the
“Damascus” type, cannot be earlier than the sec-
ond decade of the eighth century, when the city
was founded by Sulayman ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, and
the earliest form for which we have evidence may
be later than that.91 Alexandria, Damascus,
Madaʾin and Mosul are different again, having
older buildings aplenty, but also with no center or
status sacred to the new Muslim rulers and com-
munity. Jean Sauvaget published a chart with
schematic views of ten Umayyad mosques, all of
which have an enclosed courtyard except for the
mosque in Jerusalem, which is shown as a central
nave with three aisles at either side, essentially
based on the current mosque building. The chart
89 Johns, “House of the Prophet,” p. 59, Fig. 1. On the Wasit
excavations see Fuad Safar, Wasit: the Sixth Season’s
Excavations (Cairo, 1945), Creswell, Early Muslim
Architecture, vol. i, 1, pp. 132–138, Marie-Odile Rousset,
L’archéologie islamique en Iraq: bilan et perspective
(Damascus, 1992), pp. 44 and 142, and note 205 with
bibliography. On the foundation of Wasit as a base for
Syrian troops see G.R. Hawting, The First Dynasty of
Islam. The Umayyad Caliphate ad 661–750 (2nd ed.;
London and New York, 2000), p. 67.
90 Katia Cytryn-Silverman, “The Umayyad Mosque at
Tiberias,” Muqarnas 26(2009), 37–61.
91 Myriam Rosen-Ayalon, “The White Mosque at Ramla:
Retracing its History,” Israel Exploration Journal
56(2006), 67–83, and more recently Avni, Byzantine-
Islamic Transition in Palestine, pp. 163–170 and Figs. 3.18
and 3.19.
chapter 2
is striking, and the Jerusalem mosque jumps out as
fundamentally different from all the others, yet
Sauvaget follows Creswell in thinking that the
“mosque of ʿUmar in Jerusalem was a ‘grande-
mosquée monumentale’ and ends with a resound-
ing double negative that this conclusion “peut
donc être reçue comme ne se heurtant à aucune
invraisemblance historique.”92 Creswell’s main
evidence was the testimony of “Arculf,” and
Sauvaget’s analysis assumes that Jerusalem’s
mosque should be like the other Umayyad
mosques in Syria and Iraq. It is striking also that
neither Sauvaget nor Creswell include a consider-
ation of Mecca, even though, as Johns noted, the
sources tell us that among the building activities
of ʿUmar was having enclosed the haram at
Mecca.93
The Haram al-Sharif at Jerusalem and the
Haram al-Sharif at Mecca
Only Mecca is really comparable to Jerusalem as
an ancient sacred center in the earliest Muslim
tradition, and it is interesting that at Mecca ʿUmar
is said to have enclosed the haram, not said to
have built a mosque. Indeed, Creswell begins his
study of early Islamic architecture with the follow-
ing statement: “The sanctuary at Mekka, in the
time of Muhammad, merely consisted of a small
roofless enclosure formed by four walls [my empha-
sis] a little higher than a man, according to Ibn
Hisham.”94 Creswell is emphatic that the pre-
Islamic sanctuary at Mecca “cannot have influ-
enced the plan of early mosques” built elsewhere,95
and that although some sources indicated that the
haram area of Mecca was enlarged by Caliph
ʿUmar, the enlargement entailed only an enclosing
92 Jean Sauvaget, La mosquée Omeyyade de Médine. Étude
sur les origines architecturales de la mosquée et de la
basilique (Paris, 1947), chart p. 109, Fig. 10.
93 Jeremy Johns, “House of the Prophet,” 109–110.
94 Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, vol. 1, Part 1, p. 1.
95 Ibidem.
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The Earliest Mosque In Jerusalem
wall for the precinct, which had been absent in
the time of the Prophet Muhammad and of Caliph
Abu Bakr.96 In Jerusalem, the Haram al-Sharif was
already enclosed when ʿUmar (or whoever was the
first Muslim leader to come to Jerusalem) arrived,
and he did not need to do anything in order to
make it a suitable place for communal prayer,
analogous to the second qibla, Mecca. Perhaps he
did not in fact do anything, at least not anything in
the way of building. At Mecca, the sources say that
the first building of any kind within the haram,
other than the Kaʿba, of course, was created dur-
ing the time of Caliph ʿUthman in 646/7 (26 ah),
who added porticoes (arwiqa), and there is no
indication that anything like the mosque build-
ings erected elsewhere was involved.97 Indeed,
even the extensive rebuilding at Mecca toward the
end of the century by Ibn al-Zubayr, including the
rebuilding of the Kaʿba, and another enlargement
of the haram, seems not to have involved the con-
struction of a mosque building.98 In other studies
of the development of the mosque as a building
type, such as that by Jeremy Johns, Mecca is not
mentioned, or rather is mentioned, along with
Jerusalem, as the only exceptions to the develop-
ing mosque building type.99
That Jerusalem and Mecca were special cases
within the early Islamic world needs little elabora-
tion.100 They were the first qibla, the direction of
96 Ibid., p. 27.
97 Ibid., p. 40.
98 Ibid., pp. 62–64.
99 Johns, “House of the Prophet,” p. 68.
100 See Francis Edward Peters, Mecca and Jerusalem: The
Typology of the Holy City in the Near East, New York
University Studies in Near Eastern Civilization 11 (New
York, 1986), chiefly compares the cities in general
terms, and has relatively little to say about the form of
the architecture in the cities. His discussion of Islamic
Jerusalem is today problematic, since although I think
he is correct in noting that the city was important for
Muʿawiya, and may have had eschatological signifi-
cance, there is no evidence that the caliph “intended to
rule the Dar al-Islam from Jerusalem” (p. 93), a view
that rests on a mistaken belief (widely shared when the
21
prayer, and after a new revelation, the second and
final qibla, respectively. Neither was an adminis-
trative capital or caliphal residence, a role played
first by Medina, and then shifted by the Umayyads,
by Muʿawiya, to Damascus, and eventually to
Resafa and other sites. The recent study by Stephen
Judd of religious scholars, and especially qadis,
during the Umayyad period has lists of those who
served in this capacity at Damascus, Medina, Kufa,
Basra and in Egypt, but not in either Jerusalem or
Mecca.101 Jerusalem and Mecca have sometimes
been seen as rivals, especially during the second
civil war of 684–692 between the Marwanid
branch of the Umayyads, first Marwan and then
from 685 his son ʿAbd al-Malik, ruling from
Damascus, and Ibn al-Zubayr, ruling from the
Hijaz.102 The war ended in 692 with the siege of
Mecca and the killing of Ibn al-Zubayr there, in the
very year mentioned in the dedication inscription
of the Dome of the Rock, coincident also with the
first issues of caliphal gold coinage.103 Some
sources claim that ʿAbd al-Malik sought to make
Jerusalem, rather than Mecca, the site of the great
Muslim pilgrimage.104 Whatever one thinks of the
validity or even plausibility of such a claim, it is
indicative of something of the special character of
Jerusalem that some Muslims could make, or take
book was published) that the extensive residential
complex southwest of the Haram al-Sharif dated from
the seventh century.
101 Stephen C. Judd, Religious Scholars and the Umayyads.
Piety-minded supporters of the Marwanid caliphate
(London and New York, 2014). Indeed, Jerusalem is only
mentioned once in the book, p. 63, in a report that al-
Zuhri while in Damascus “conveyed to ʿAbd al-Malik a
hadith that justified Jerusalem as an alternate pilgrimage
site [to Mecca] (p. 53).” I am grateful to an anonymous
reader for having brought this work to my attention.
102 See the important discussion by Chase F. Robinson,
ʿAbd al-Malik, Makers of the Muslim World (Oxford,
2005), esp. pp. 32–44.
103 The coincidence of dates is remarkable and often
remarked; see for example Oleg Grabar, The Dome of
the Rock (Cambridge, ma and London, 2006), p. 62.
104 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, pp. 111–112; see also n. 91
above.
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22
seriously enough to transmit, such a claim. In the
early period Jerusalem seems to have been primar-
ily a symbolic and ritual center, not a political
one,105 although others have argued that as least in
spiritual terms it was essential from the begin-
nings of the Islamic tradition.106 Only these two
places advanced a claim to be the omphalos, the
center of the world, in cosmographical terms.107
Jerusalem was commonly identified, at least in
both Jewish and Christian traditions, as the center
of the world, the omphalos, and is so depicted on
world maps, for example the common so-called
T-O schematic maps.108 At least by the ninth cen-
tury the conception was not limited to texts but
was marked out on the ground with chains.109
Probably by the tenth century, Mecca was firmly
established at the center of the world as conceived
105 As argued forcefully by Rabbat, “Meaning of the
Umayyad Dome of the Rock,” passim. Amikam Elad,
“Why did ʿAbd al-Malik build the Dome of the Rock?
A re-examination of the Muslim sources,” in Raby
and Johns, Bayt al-Maqdis. ʿAbd al-Malik’s Jerusalem
(as above, n. 53), esp. pp. 48–49, argues “that the
Umayyads intended to develop Jerusalem into a politi-
cal and religious center which, if it were not intended
to surpass Mecca would at least be its equal,” and
claims that this effort began in the time of Muʿawiya,
an argument that seems to me unconvincing.
106 Most recently Donner, Muhammad and the Believers,
p. 125. See in general S[helemoh] D[ov] Goitein, “The
Sanctity of Jerusalem and Palestine in Islamic History
and Institutions,” in his Studies in Islamic History and
Institutions (Leiden, 1966), pp. 135–148.
107 This issue is discussed in Lawrence Nees, “Blue behind
Gold: the inscription of the Dome of the Rock and its
relatives,” in Jonathan Bloom and Sheila Blair, eds., “And
Diverse are Their Hues”: Color in Islamic Art and Culture
(New Haven and London, 2011), pp. 152–173 at 163–164.
108 For a recent discussion of this type, whose exact origin
in the Late Antique period is uncertain, see Margriet
Hoogvliet, Pictura et scriptura. Textes, images et hermé­
neutique des Mappae Mundi (xiiie–xvie siècle)
(Turnhout, 2007), pp. 35–51.
109 See most recently Rodney Aist, The Christian
Topography of Early Islamic Jerusalem. The Evidence of
Willibald of Eichstätt (700–787 ce) (Turnhout, 2009),
pp. 88–89 with references.
chapter 2
by Islamic scholars,110 although what would have
been the conception among Muslims at the end of
the seventh century is difficult to define.111
Jerusalem was special, very special, and indeed
more like Mecca than other places,112 but in certain
respects it was unique in the early Islamic world. It
was not the site of a large garrison, like Basra, Kufa,
and Fustat, nor was it a center of government
administration, like Alexandria and Damascus, or
for that matter Hims or Qinnasrin.113 Although
there are a few coins minted in Jerusalem (identi-
fied with the Roman name for the city, Aelia),
Stephen Album has termed them “extremely rare”
and “very rare,” only a “handful” being known, the
first published only in 1987.114 Coins were minted
110 The shift from Jerusalem to Mecca as world center is
discussed by Paul Wheatley, The Places where men pray
together. Cities in Islamic lands seventh through the
tenth centuries (Chicago and London, 2001), p. 95.
111 See David A. King, World-Maps for finding the direc­
tion  and distance to Mecca, Innovation and Tradition
in Islamic Science (Leiden, 1999), esp. pp. 51–55. A
fifteenth-century manuscript of al-Maqdisi’s tenth-
century schematic world map places the Kaʿba at the
center rather than Jerusalem, as do the later examples
known to me; see King, World-Maps, p. 52, Fig. 2.3.1, from
Berlin, Staatsbibliothek cod. Ahlwardt 6034, fol. 34r.
112 The special linkage of Jerusalem with Mecca was
suggested, albeit with a different focus, by Rabbat,
“Meaning of the Umayyad Dome of the Rock,” at 14 and
again with greater force at 16–17, citing a poem by the
Umayyad court poet al-Farazdaq linking specifically
these two cities and no others. See also Hava Lazarus-
Yafeh, “Jerusalem and Mecca,” in Lee I. Levine, ed.,
Jerusalem. Its Sanctity and Centrality to Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam (New York, 1999), pp. 287–299.
113 See Paul M. Cobb, “The Empire in Syria, 705–763,” in
Chase Robinson, ed., The Formation of the Islamic
World. Sixth to Eleventh Centuries, The New Cambridge
History of Islam 1 (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 226–268 at
242, for the unique importance of Syria among the
Umayyad provinces, the only one divided into districts,
but none of the four had headquarters in Jerusalem
(they were at al-Ramla, Tiberias, Damascus and Hims).
114 Tony Goodwin, Arab-Byzantine Coinage, Studies in the
Khalili Collection 4 (London, 2005), pp. 86–102.
Goodwin says that the city was an important early
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The Earliest Mosque In Jerusalem
during this period in many other places in Syria
and Palestine, so their rare issuance in Jerusalem
seems of no very great significance.115 The evidence
for Jerusalem as “a capital of Muslim Palestine” in
the seventh century as suggested recently by
Hoyland and Waidler amounts only to the minting
of coins, the undoubted importance of Muʿawiya’s
acclamation there as caliph, and the presence of
large “administrative headquarters” buildings that
they thought might have been part of Muʿawiya’s
(unattested) palace in the city,116 which have
recently shown to date only from the eighth cen-
tury, as discussed below. The assumption by
Grafman and Rosen-Ayalon that the mosque built
by al-Walid in Jerusalem would have been similar
to plan to the mosque building in Damascus, and
may be reconstructed as having had a similar plan
(Fig.  2.4) misses this point.117 Jerusalem is like
Mecca, fundamentally a holy site, venerated even
Islamic center in the seventh century, but as evidence
cites only the acclamation of Muʿawiya as caliph, and
the “description by the Gallic bishop Arculf,” for which
see the next chapter.
115 Clive Foss, Arab-Byzantine Coins. An Introduction, with
a Catalogue of the Dumbarton Oaks Collection,
Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Collection Publications 12
(Washington, d.c., 2008), pp. 44 and 132 no. 45.; see also
Stephen Album and Tony Goodwin, The Pre-Reform
Coinage of the Early Islamic Period, Sylloge of Islamic
Coins in the Ashmolean (Oxford, 2002), nos. 730 and
731, only two coins from Jerusalem/Iliya, among the
twenty-two mints that I count from this collection pro-
ducing pre-reform “Arab-Byzantine” coins. Yaakov
Meshorer, “Coins of Jerusalem under the Umayyads
and the ʻAbbasids,” in Prawer, Joshua and Haggai Ben-
Shammai, eds., The History of Jerusalem. The Early
Muslim Period 638–1099 (Jerusalem and New York,
1996), pp. 413–419 at 413 stated that Jerusalem “minted a
large number of coins, both before and after the reform”
of ʿAbd al-Malik, but he does not give a reference in
support of this claim, and shows only two coins.
116 Robert G. Hoyland and Sarah Waidler, “Adomnán’s De
Locis Sanctis and the Seventh-Century Near East,” English
Historical Review 129, no. 539 (2014), 787–807 at 796.
117 Grafman and Rosen-Ayalon, “The Two Great Syrian
Umayyad Mosques,” as above, n. 64.
23
in pre-Islamic times, not like Damascus, fundamen­
tally an administrative center.
Evidence for Muslim Population in
Jerusalem before ʿAbd al-Malik
On the other hand, unlike Mecca or Medina, or for
that matter Kufa and other garrisons, all by the 630s
populated largely or entirely by Muslims, there is no
evidence that in the seventh century Jerusalem had
a substantial permanent Muslim population.118
Nasser Rabbat noted that even in the period of ʿAbd
al-Malik at the end of the seventh century “Christians
constituted the overwhelming majority” of the pop-
ulation, and that al-Muqaddasi writing at the very
end of the ninth century, two centuries later, said
that “Jerusalem is a town whose ʿulama are few and
whose Christians are many.”119 Moreover, the “pal-
aces” south of the Temple Mount are now generally
thought to date from the eighth century, not the sev-
enth, and recent archaeological work strongly sup-
ports a date in the eighth century for these buildings
adjacent to the Haram al-Sharif,120 the recent review
118 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, p. 51, thinks that however
many Muslims came to Jerusalem during this period,
they seem to have come primarily from Medina and
Yemen, although his statement follows upon his accep-
tance of the flawed evidence from Adomnán of Iona
about a mosque that would accommodate 3000 wor-
shippers. The source he cites for the Islamic immigra-
tion is Heribert Busse and Georg Kretschmar,
Jerusalemische Heiligtumstraditionen in altkirchlicher
und frühislamischer Zeit (Wiesbaden, 1987), pp. 24–27.
See also Rabbat, “Meaning of the Umayyad Dome of
the Rock,” at 16 and 20 note 55.
119 Rabbat, “Meaning of the Umayyad Dome of the Rock,”
pp. 16 and 20 note 55. In this respect Jerusalem was not
unusual among major cities conquered by the Muslims;
on the evidence from Aleppo, also occupied in the
630s, but with the first large built mosque dating
ca. 715, see Jean Sauvaget, Alep, essai sur le développe­
ment d’une grande ville syrienne, des origines au milieu
du xixe siècle (Paris, 1941), pp. 74–75.
120 See Dan Bahat, “The Physical Infrastructure,” in Joshua
Prawer and Haggai Ben-Shammai, eds., The History of
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24
by Jodi Magness suggesting that the buildings are
more likely from the later Umayyad period than the
early eighth century.121 Some fascinating papyrus
correspondence found at Aphrodito in Egypt indi-
cates that during the governorship of Qurra ibn
Sharik (709–714), laborers and provisions for their
maintenance while doing extensive work on the
mosque of Jerusalem had to be sent from Egypt.
Clearly this evidence does not mean that there was
no Muslim permanent population in the city, but it
does not support the existence of a large population
resident in Jerusalem capable of carrying out the
work; workers needed to be imported.122 The
Georgian source discussed previously, which sug-
gests that building work in early Islamic Jerusalem
required the employment of non-Muslims points in
the same direction, a lack of Muslim population in
the city.123 Indeed there is much evidence for quite
the opposite view, namely that Jerusalem remained
Jerusalem. The Early Muslim Period 638–1099 (Jerusalem
and New York, 1996), pp. 38–100 at 71 (with plan) and
note 203, which reports that the excavation uncovered
an inscription dated 701 in secondary use within the
structure (referring to Benjamin Mazar, “The
Excavations n the Old City of Jerusalem,” Eretz-Israel
9[1969], 161–174 at 173[in Hebrew]), and Prag,
Excavations by K.M. Kenyon in Jerusalem, pp. 101–241. For
a useful overview of the excavation of these structures,
with nice if somewhat imaginative reconstructions, see
Meir Ben-Dov, In the Shadow of the Temple. The Discovery
of Ancient Jerusalem, trans. [from Hebrew] Ina Friedman
(New York, 1982), especially pp. 290–321.
121 Jodi Magness, “Early Islamic Urbanism and Building
Activity in Jerusalem and at Hammath Gader,” in John
Haldon, ed. Money, Power and Politics in Early Islamic
Syria. A Review of Current Debates (Farnham (Surrey),
2010), pp. 147–163, with her conclusion p. 153. Note also
that Magness thinks the archaeological evidence
makes Islamic occupation and building activity likely
at Hammath Gader in northern Palestine during the
seventh century.
122 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, p. 118, Creswell, Early Muslim
Architecture, vol. i, p. 373, and Küchler, “Moschee und
Kalifenpaläste Jerusalems nach den Aphrodito-Papyri.”
The correspondence is also discussed in Prag,
Excavations by K.M. Kenyon in Jerusalem, p. 104.
123 See above, notes 49–51 and discussion.
chapter 2
primarily a Christian city. Al-Tabari quotes from let-
ters said to have been given by Caliph ʿUmar to the
citizens of Jerusalem assuring them that their
churches would not be occupied or destroyed, that
they could keep their property, that “nor their ritu-
als, nor their crosses, nor their property will be dam-
aged. They will not be forcibly converted, and none
of them will be harmed.”124 The sources indicate
that such terms were extended before Jerusalem
surrendered, and that the terms were honored. Any
survey of the city in the early Islamic period shows
the continuing presence of Christians there in large
numbers.125
As will be discussed later in detail, Jerusalem
was highly, even critically important as a symbolic
center of the new Muslim world, especially during
the period of the Umayyad dynasty. Nasser
Rabbat’s important article of 1989 on the Dome of
the Rock stressed the city’s role, and thus in his
view the meaning of that great building, in what he
terms a “political” sense.126 The city was chosen by
Muʿawiya as the place for recognition of his place
as caliph, and the rendering of allegiance to him,
an event commonly dated to 660.127 Al-Tabari gives
only a very brief note at the very end of his narra-
tive of the year 40 (660–661): “In this year Muʿawiya
was rendered allegiance as Caliph in Jerusalem.”128
124 Friedmann, Tabari 12, pp. 191–192. Cited also in Hoyland,
Theophilus of Edessa, pp. 116–117.
125 For example see the studies in Prawer and Ben-Shammai,
History of Jerusalem, and Avni, Byzantine-Islamic
Transition in Palestine (as above, n. 9), which argues for a
very slow transition, Jerusalem being still predominantly
Christian into the tenth century, and Islamic settlement
apparently having been restricted to the immediate area
of the Haram al-Sharif in the eighth and ninth century.
126 Rabbat, “Meaning of the Umayyad Dome of the Rock,”
passim.
127 See most recently Marsham, “Architecture of
Allegiance,” as above, n. 27.
128 Michael G. Morony, Between Civil Wars: the Caliphate of
Muʿawiyah, a.d. 661–680/a.h. 40–60, al-Tabari (Abu
Jaʿfar Muhammad b. Jarir al-Tabari, [839–923]), The
History of Prophets and Kings (Taʾrikh al-rusul waʾl-
muluk) 18 (Albany, 1987), p. 6.
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The Earliest Mosque In Jerusalem
A far more detailed narrative, written much closer
to the event, was given by the so-called Maronite
Chronicler writing probably in the later seventh
century, who wrote that “In 971 of the Seleucid
year, [Emperor] Constans’ 18th year (39 ah/659–60
ce), many nomads gathered at Jerusalem and
made Muʿawiya king (Syriac we”badwhu malka
l’Maʾwiya) and he went up and sat down on
Golgotha; he prayed there, and went to Gethsemane
and went down to the tomb of the blessed Mary to
pray in it…”129 This early source does not specify
where the acclamation by the assembled people
took place within the city of Jerusalem, although
the phrasing that they “assembled in Jerusalem”
indicates clearly that the people who acclaimed
Muʿawiya were not already there. Muʿawiya’s “capi-
tal” and primary residence, known in the texts as
qubbat al-khadra,130 was in Damascus during his
previous nearly twenty years as governor of Syria
and remained there during his caliphate, much
better placed for his campaigns against the Roman
Empire to his north, and against his rivals or pos-
sible rivals in Iraq.131 That Muʿawiya is said to have
129 Andrew Marsham, Rituals of Islamic Monarchy.
Accession and Succession in the first Muslim Empire
(Edinburgh, 2009), p. 87. See also Palmer, Seventh
Century in West-Syrian Chronicles, p. 31 – in note 141 on
that page, the translator’s note explains that the ag 971
is 659, probably not so much a mistake as the author’s
association of the accession of Muʿawiya in Jerusalem
with an earthquake of 659 that he describes in the
immediately succeeding passage.
130 See extended discussion in Finbarr Barry Flood, The
Great Mosque of Damascus. Studies on the Makings of
an Umayyad Visual Culture, Islamic History and
Civilization, Studies and Texts 33 (Leiden and Boston,
2001), pp. 147–159 and for the important demonstration
that the term should not be translated, as Creswell and
others had it, as “green dome” but rather as “heavenly
dome” see Jonathan M. Bloom, “The Qubbat al-Khadraʾ
and the Iconography of Height in Early Islamic
Architecture,” Ars Orientalis 23(1993), 21–28.
131 See Andrew Marsham, Rituals of Islamic Monarchy
p. 125–157 for a listing of the residences of the various
Umayyad rulers, none of whom resided primarily in
Jerusalem. Only Sulayman ibn ʿAbd al-Malik’s had a
25
visited the venerated Christian sites of Golgotha
and Gethsemane may reflect the interests of the
Christian chronicler rather than reflect anything
the new caliph did. Whether or not, as James
Howard-Johnston has suggested, this visit might
be taken as “an important piece of evidence for the
inclusiveness of Islam in its earliest phase, as a reli-
gion which embraced the two established mono-
theist faiths,”132 is a tantalizing idea resting on one
shaky and manifestly partisan source. Stephen
Humphreys makes an analogous suggestion, that
Muʿawiya’s actions might have been intended both
to have him play the part of the successor to the
Roman Emperor as guardian of the holy city, and
also perhaps to indicate that “Islam had come not
to supplant Christianity but to fulfill it.”133
Marsham recently used this story to open his arti-
cle devoted to the acclamation of Muʿawiya as
caliph in Jerusalem, and believed that there are
good reasons to accept this story as factual.134
Nasser Rabbat discussed at length a “little-
known tale” that closely connects Muʿawiya spe-
cifically with Jerusalem.135 In Rabbat’s presenta-
tion, al-Tabari transmits a story of a prediction
conveyed from Oman to the Prophet Muhammad
in 629, foretelling the first four of the Prophet’s
successors, and naming the next ruler, the fifth
after the Prophet, corresponding to Muʿawiya, as
“Prince of the Holy Land” (amir al-ard al-muqad­
dasa), here probably meaning Palestine.136
Whether or not he believed that this prophecy
buttressed his claim to the caliphate, as Rabbat
suggests, it might help “to explain the alliance
between ʿAmru [ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAs] and Muʿawiya
primary residence in the jund of Filastin, but it was at
Ramla, not Jerusalem. Most of the primary residences
were farther to the north and east, for example
Hisham’s at Resafa/Sergiopolis.
132 Howard-Johnston, Witnesses, p. 177.
133 Humphreys, Muʿawiya, p. 84.
134 Marsham, “Architecture of Allegiance,” pp. 87–88.
135 Rabbat, “Meaning of the Umayyad Dome of the Rock,”
at 15.
136 Rabbat cites here Goitein, “Sanctity of Jerusalem and
Palestine in Early Islam,” pp. 135–148.
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26
which was concluded in Jerusalem in the year
658.”137 Rabbat cites another text suggesting that
in the year 672 Muʿawiya was addressed as “King of
the Holy Land” and the title was extended to his
son and successor Yazid, creating a dynastic suc-
cession in the royal city analogous to that of David
and Solomon.
Where was the Center of Muslim Presence
on the Haram al-Sharif?
When Muslim arrived in the city, all accounts
agree that the Haram al-Sharif was in some impor-
tant sense “empty,” and it is shown thus in the
graphic computer reconstructions published by
Oleg Grabar in his 1996 book The Shape of the
Holy.138 “Empty” is not perhaps to be taken too
strictly. Many sources speak of the site being used
as in effect a dump site for trash from the city, cov-
ered with refuse and filth. Despite the undoubted
and unsightly presence of trash mountains around
many modern cities and towns, this seems to me
more likely a trope, and a pejorative one, than a
reality. Carrying trash uphill a significant distance
seems on the whole unlikely, and in the next chap-
ter evidence for the currency of the “filth” trope
and also for the disposal of waste not atop but
beside and below the Haram will be presented.
Certainly it is likely that some ruins of the Roman
imperial period remained on the Haram into the
early seventh century, even if Cyril Mango’s argu-
ment that the earliest mosque on the Haram “was
built in 638 on the site of Jupiter’s temple [the
Capitolium dating from the time of Hadrian] and
incorporated some of its walls,” a claim that is sup-
ported, yet again, by the indispensable “Arculf’s”
137 Rabbat, “Meaning of the Umayyad Dome of the Rock,”
p. 15, referring for the treaty to Encyclopedia of Islam,
2nd ed., vol. 1, p. 451 for discussion of this treaty.
138 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, Figs.  8–14 and 16. See also
F.E. Peters, “Who built the Dome of the Rock?” Graeco-
Arabica 1(1983), 119–138, a reference I owe to the kind-
ness of Hagith Sivan.
chapter 2
words,139 has found little support by other schol-
ars. That Roman remains were extensively used in
the early Islamic buildings on the Haram is clear,
especially the columns and capitals employed in
great numbers in all the early structures, to be dis-
cussed at length in Chapter 5 below. We do not
know whence stemmed these spoliated Roman
materials; some likely came from elsewhere in the
city and its surroundings, but it is likely that some
at least were already on the Haram when Muslims
arrived there. One possible source for late Roman
architectural fragments is the Golden Gate on the
northern part of the east wall of the Haram, which
Cyril Mango believed to have been extensively
rebuilt in the late sixth or early seventh century, in
his view very likely in the period of Heraclius, and
thus immediately preceding the Muslim occupa-
tion. Mango suggested that this, the only construc-
tion in the area plausibly dated to the immediately
pre-Islamic period on the Haram, should be related
to the ceremonial, triumphal use of the site, its use
not as a place for prayer so much as for imperial
display and triumph. For the Christian Romans,
the religious center was elsewhere, at the Holy
Sepulchre and other sites, but the Temple Mount,
soon to be the Haram al-Sharif, was a ceremonial
center, possibly with eschatological overtones.
Whether or not Caliph ʿUmar, or any of
the earliest Muslims in Jerusalem, knew that the
Haram al-Sharif was believed to have been
the site of the Temples of Solomon and its suc-
cessors is uncertain,140 and whether it was really
139 Cyril Mango, “The Temple Mount ad 614–638,” in Raby
and Johns, Bayt al-Maqdis (as above, n. 95), pp. 1–16.
140 For sources, all significantly later, identifying the Haram
as site of the Temple see Andreas Kaplony, The Haram
of Jerusalem 324–1099. Temple, Friday Mosque, Area of
Spiritual Power, Freiburger Islamstudien 22 (Stuttgart,
2002), p. 231. For the identification of the Dome of the
Rock as the Temple see Robert Timothy Chasson,
“Prophetic Imagery and Lections at Passiontide: the
Jeremiah illustrations in a Tuscan Romanesque Bible,”
Gesta 42(2003), 89–114, where the twelfth-century
Tuscan Bible in Florence, Bibl. Medicea-Laurenziana
ms Edili 125, fol. 212r is the interesting bit of evidence,
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The Earliest Mosque In Jerusalem
entirely barren, strewn with ruins, or with filth,
is also uncertain. Clearly, however, the earliest
Muslim prayers on the site were made in the
open, not in any building, much less a specially
constructed Muslim building, and were directed
toward Mecca. Even those who want to accept
the story of Caliph ʿUmar’s arrival at the city and
his inauguration of prayer there, must accept
that the earliest prayers must have preceded any
construction. It is well to beware of the dangers
of hindsight. We do not know that in the 660s or
670s the monumental structures that were
erected a few decades later were imaginatively
envisaged or even desired, much less planned.141
The center of the Christian city of Jerusalem at
that time was to the north and west of the Haram
(Fig. 2.5),142 including not only the main areas of
settlement but also on the rising ground to the
west the most sacred Christian center, the basil-
ica and rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre con-
structed by Constantine in the fourth century.
Traditions associated with Caliph ʿUmar’s sup-
posed refusal to worship in the Christian area, so
that later Muslims would not desire to do the
same, and thus either compete with or take over
from the Christians, attest to the fact that wor-
ship by Christians and Muslims took place
separately within the city, although there is
some evidence that might be interpreted as
shared usage of some sites outside the city, in
Palestine and in Syria.143
which is from much later and far away, the point being
that earlier sources are lacking.
141 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, p. 51, argued that to date
monuments into the “first decades of Muslim presence
in Jerusalem…requires the existence, almost from the
beginning, of a sort of visual and religious Muslim mas-
ter plan for the Haram. The existence of such a plan,
even an inchoate one, is hardly likely.”
142 This plan was prepared by Yoram Tsafrir, and published
in his “70–638: The Temple-less Mountain,” in Grabar
and Kedar, Where Heaven and Earth Meet (as above, n.
39), pp. 72–99 at 95, Fig. 57.
143 The remarkable Kathisma church on the road from
Jerusalem to Bethlehem will be considered in Chapter
27
Later tradition identifies the earliest place of
Muslim prayer as the southern edge of the great
platform of the Haram (Fig.  1.2), where the Aqsa
mosque now stands. Indeed, the Aqsa mosque has
a secondary mihrab to the east of the main mihrab
(located at the end of the main nave of the build-
ing and on axis with the Dome of the Rock) farther
east along the qibla wall (and on axis with the
Dome of the Chain) that is traditionally associated
with Caliph ʿUmar.144 One famous story alludes to
a proposal that prayer should be conducted from
the center of the Haram, near where the Dome of
the Rock now stands, but that ʿUmar rejected this
suggestion. The story is that the Jewish convert
Kaʿb al-Akbar “proposed to ʿUmar that he pray
north of the rock facing southward, so that both
qiblas, the old and the new, would be in front of
him. ʿUmar refused, upbraiding Kaʿb for trying to
force a Jewish practice on him, and prayed to the
south of the rock, where he eventually ordered the
building of a masjid or mosque for the faithful.”145
As al-Tabari tells the story, with an isnad traced
back to Rajaʾ ibn Haywah,146 an important early
figure said by some sources to have been put in
charge of the building of the Dome of the Rock by
ʿAbd al-Malik:
“When ʿUmar came from al-Jabiyah to Jerusalem
and drew near the gate of the mosque, he said:
“Watch out for Kaʿb on my behalf!” When the gate
was opened for him, he said: “O God, I am ready to
serve you in what you love most.” Then he turned
to the mihrab, the mihrab of David, peace be upon
him. It was at night, and he prayed there. It was not
6, and various indications of cross-confessional or
shared spaces such as Resafa-Sergiopolis in Chapter 4.
144 Published in Rosen-Ayalon, Early Islamic Monuments
of al-Haram al-Sharif (as above, n. 79), p. 27 and ill. 16.
In its current form it is of later medieval, probably
Mamluk, date.
145 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, pp. 47–48, Le Strange,
Palestine under the Moslems (as in n. 15), pp. 142–143,
and Elad, Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship,
pp. 30–31.
146 See Grabar, Shape of the Holy, p. 115.
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28
long before dawn broke, and then ʿUmar ordered
the muʾadhdhin to sound the call for prayer. Then
he moved forward, led the prayer, and recited
Surat Sad [Sura 38] with the people. During the
prayer he prostrated himself. Then he stood up
and read with them in the second [rakʾah] the
beginning of Surat Bani Israʾil [Sura 17]. Then he
prayed another rak’ah and went away. He said:
“Bring Kaʿb to me.” Kaʿb was brought to him. ʿUmar
said: “Where do you think we should establish the
place of prayer?” Kaʿb said: “Toward the Rock.”
ʿUmar said: “O Kaʿb, you are imitating the Jewish
religion! I have seen you taking off your shoes.”
Kaʿb said: “I wanted to touch this ground with my
feet.” ʿUmar said: “I have seen you. Nay, we shall
place the qibla in the front of it; the Messenger of
God likewise made the front part of our mosques
the qibla. Take care of your own affairs; we were
not commanded to venerate the Rock, but we were
commanded to venerate the Kaʿba.” ”147
Scholars who have retold the story have uniformly
assumed, insofar as I have seen, that if taken liter-
ally as an accurate transcription of what hap-
pened, the story means that ʿUmar refused to pray
from Kaʿb’s proposed site immediately north of
the rock, the only place from which the two qiblas
of Jerusalem and Mecca would be united, and
walked all the way around the rock and then to the
southern edge of the platform before stopping to
pray there instead. This view is based on the
unsupported assumption that the earliest mosque
on the Haram was on that location, and that it was
located there precisely because that was where
147 The story is told in Friedmann, Tabari 12, pp. 194–195.
This story is the core of the fictionalized treatment by
Makiya, The Rock. Elad says that S.D. Goitein [he gives
no clear reference, but it is probably “The Sanctity of
Jerusalem and Palestine in Early Islam.” Studies in
Islamic History and Institutions (Leiden, 1966)] was the
first to show that this story likely originates only in the
early eighth century, since al- Wasiti’s isnad goes back
no further than Sulayman ibn Habib, who was a qadi in
Damascus in the eighth century.
chapter 2
ʿUmar had prayed. Neither of these points is any-
thing like certain or beyond challenge, and it is a
bit of a vicious circle: we know that the earliest
mosque was on the southern edge of the Haram
because that is where ʿUmar prayed, and we know
that ʿUmar prayed there because that is the loca-
tion of the earliest mosque. There is simply no evi-
dence of any kind for the location of the earliest
mosque on the Haram; even if one accepts the tes-
timony of “Arculf” to be considered in the next
chapter, “Arculf” does not specify where on the
Haram the place of prayer was located.148 As far as
where ʿUmar prayed is concerned, some scholars
are uncertain that he ever came to Jerusalem at
all,149 and no uniformity of tradition about where
he prayed exists; the Kaʿb story is specific only
about where he did not pray, not where he did
pray, and other sources suggest locations not even
on the Haram at all.150
Is it possible that the Kaʿb story transmitted by
al-Tabari might be interpreted differently, that it
encodes an alteration in the location of the
mosque from the center to the southern edge of
the platform? The center of the area as a whole is a
bit to the east of the Dome of the Rock, and thus of
the rock itself, whose central importance at least
by the end of the seventh century is signaled and
assured by the construction of ʿAbd al-Malik’s
great dome over it. There is no evidence from any
period suggesting a different focus of Muslim
devotion, and it seems to me that the obvious
place for prayer would be near the rock, not as far
from it as one could go and still be on the Haram,
with one’s back to the rock, the location of the
148 For example, Grabar, Shape of the Holy, p. 118, put it this
way: “We know, from the testimony of the Gallic bishop
Arculf, that by 670–680 there was a sizeable mosque,
constructed of wood for the most part and of mediocre
quality, somewhere on the Haram, and it is reasonable
to argue that it was located between the platform of
the Dome of the Rock and the southern end of the
enclosure.”
149 For example Grabar, Shape of the Holy, p. 198, note 63,
and Busse, “’Omar’s Image,” p. 164.
150 See especially Busse, “ʻOmar b. al-Khattab in Jerusalem.”
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The Earliest Mosque In Jerusalem
later Aqsa mosque. At the center of the Haram
stands the Dome of the Chain, the qubbat al-Silsila,
as it is called (Fig.  2.6), hitherto little studied,
which will be the focus of extended discussion in a
subsequent chapter, in which I hope to show that
it may precede the Dome of the Rock and may
indeed have been the first monumental construc-
tion on the Haram, serving as the place from which
the Caliph could address the believers and lead
them in prayer. Myriam Rosen-Ayalon, in what
remains the most extended discussion of the
structure, called attention to the central position
of the Dome of the Chain within the Haram
(Fig. 4.5),151 and Andrew Marsham has also recently
underlined the importance of this central axis,
which in his view was determined by the “mihrab
of ʿUmar” in what he took to be a mosque building
constructed by ʿUmar. No one to my knowledge
has called attention to another feature of the
Haram’s plan that seems to me to deserve atten-
tion, the arrangement of the gates leading into the
Haram from the north, or to the location of the
staircases leading from the lower to the raised
upper platform, or to the very the uneven distribu-
tion of monuments there (Figs. 1.2 and 4.5).
Gates and Staircases Leading to the Haram
and to the Rock
The Haram has two major levels, one that covers
the entire complex between the encircling walls
and defines the limits of the sanctuary, of the mas-
jid, the place of prayer, and a smaller, although still
vast, raised section in the central portion. The cur-
rent Aqsa mosque stands on the lower portion, at
its southern edge, while the Dome of the Rock and
the Dome of the Chain occupy the raised central
platform. Access to the lower platform, the Haram
itself, is today through eight gates, four along the
western wall, three along the northern wall, and
one, the so-called Golden Gate (Bab al-Rahma),
on the east. Among these, the Golden Gate has
151 Rosen-Ayalon, Islamic Monuments, p. 27 and Ill. 15.
29
received the most extensive scholarly attention,
for it is the largest and most elaborately decorated,
and the only one endowed with intense religious
significance, strongly associated with eschatologi-
cal thinking in both Christian and Muslim tradi-
tions, and now for many years closed. Its date is
uncertain, according to Mango from the time of
Heraclius.152 According to Grabar it was perhaps
an Umayyad reconstruction of a gate from the
Herodian period, and likely served a primarily cer-
emonial function rather than providing major
access to the site, for there was no population cen-
ter outside it, where the land falls away steeply
into the Kidron Valley.153 This situation is quite dif-
ferent from what would have been the case during
the Herodian or the Umayyad period. In the for-
mer, the main access points were along the south,
the double and triple gates leading up from what
was then a major settlement area of the city, and
there was also access from the west through two or
three gates, the larger access across a bridge now
known as Robinson’s Arch, the second a small
entrance at or about that location but at a lower
level, and possibly an entrance farther to the north
along the wall. In the Umayyad period, probably
only in the eighth century, a group of residences
and/or administrative buildings were constructed
around the southwestern corner, and access from
there could have been through one of the Herodian
gates on the south, more likely the double gate,
which eventually became known as the Bab al-
Nabi, the gate of the Prophet,154 and possibly
directly through an upper passage in the south-
west corner leading from the “palace” complex
directly into the mosque constructed by al-Walid i
after 705.155 However, there is no evidence for use
152 Mango, “Temple Mount” (as above, n. 114).
153 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, pp. 42–43 and 124–126, Fig. 17.
For a discussion and many illustrations see Ben Dov, In
the Shadow of the Temple, pp. 282–291.
154 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, p. 123.
155 For discussion see Grafman and Rosen-Ayalon, “Two
Great Syrian Umayyad Mosques,” at 5, Fig. 4, and Ben
Dov, In the Shadow of the Temple, pp. 294–296.
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30
of these gates during the seventh century, during
which time the settled area of the city was only to
the west of the Haram, where the Christian city
had developed with a focus around the Holy
Sepulchre complex. Two of the gates on the north-
ern wall date from Herodian times, and may have
been usable during the Umayyad period, but were
not then further developed.156
The primary access to the Haram al-Sharif from
the Roman/Byzantine city was evidently, during
the seventh century, from the west, through what
is now known as the Gate of the Chain (Bab al-Sil­
sila), which was located at the termination of the
decumanus leading from the Gate of David on the
city’s western wall.157 The mid-eleventh century
Persian visitor Nasir-i Khosraw described a mag-
nificently decorated “David’s Gate” here, now lost.
In the view of Jonathan Bloom, the evidence indi-
cates that this magnificent gate was constructed
earlier in the eleventh century, and is therefore not
from the Umayyad period, but there is no reason
to doubt that its location had remained the
same.158 The distribution of the entrances to the
Haram is reflected in the arrangement of the stair-
cases leading to the upper platform within it, with
three, and the two largest, on the western side,
leading from the main access to the Haram up to
the Rock. However, there is an axis leading from
the central gate on the north side of the Haram
156 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, p. 128.
157 See Oren Gutfield, “The Urban Layout of Byzantine-
Period Jerusalem,” in Katharina Galor and Gideon
Avni, Unearthing Jerusalem. 150 Years of Archaeological
Research in the Holy City (Winona Lake, in, 2011),
pp. 327–350 and Fig. 1.
158 Jonathan M. Bloom, “Nasir Khusraw’s Description of
Jerusalem,” in Alireza Korangy and Daniel J. Sheffield,
eds., No Tapping around Philology. A Festschrift in Honor
of Wheeler McIntosh Thackston Jr.’s 70th Birthday
(Wiesbaden, 2014), pp. 395–406 at 398–399. For the text
see Wheeler M. Thackston, trans., Nasir-i Khusraw,
Persian heritage series, 36 (Albany ny, 1986), pp. 21–35
on the mosque at Jerusalem (here clearly signifying the
entire Haram, and not only the al-Aqsa structure) and
p. 24 on the main entrance gate on the west.
chapter 2
(Fig. 1.2). One of these is in the north eastern cor-
ner, the Gate of the Tribes (Asbat), and two are
near the center of the northern wall, the Gate of
Darkness (ʿAtm) farther west, more on less on axis
with the Dome of the Rock and the Aqsa mosque
beyond, and another, the Gate of Remission (Hitta)
on axis with the empty space east of the Dome of
the Rock, just beside the Dome of the Chain. Both
of these central northern gates lead directly to the
raised central platform, ending in staircases
topped by free-standing arcaded gates. The west-
ern gate (of Darkness) leads directly to the
Dome of the Rock area, but the eastern gate
(of Remission) leads to the vast nearly empty
space on the eastern side of the upper platform.
Three broad stairways lead from the lower to
the upper platform on the west, two on north and
south, and one on the east. The larger number on
the west corresponds to the settled area of the late
antique and early medieval city, visualized graphi-
cally in the digital reconstructions published by
Oleg Grabar for Umayyad Jerusalem.159 That only a
single staircase is on the eastern side corresponds
to the lack of population there, and the limited
need for what may be primarily symbolic access.
Rosen-Ayalon’s sketch plan shows the alignment
of the north–south and east–west central axes of
the Haram with four of these staircases, one in
each of the cardinal directions, those on east and
west not aligned, as one would expect, with the
Dome of the Rock but placed somewhat to the
south of it on both sides. Why? Moreover, why
have two staircases and gates on both the north
and south? The two more centrally located stair-
cases leading from the lower to the upper platform
of the Haram, toward the western side, align with
the major functional axis of the site today and
indeed with the major functional axis since the
construction of al-Walid’s Aqsa mosque after 705,
linking that structure with the Dome of the Rock.
But why are there two staircases further east,
which seem to lead from nowhere to nowhere?
They indicate a second north–south axis, passing
159 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, Figs. 63–65.
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The Earliest Mosque In Jerusalem
just to the east of the Dome of the Chain, and con-
tinuing to the south to end at the secondary
mihrab in the Aqsa mosque known as the Mihrab
of ʿUmar (Figs. 1.2 and 2.4).
The staircases and arcades of the central plat-
form of the Haram have not been investigated
archaeologically, and it is of course possible that
either their form or their location or both are dif-
ferent today from earlier periods. Grabar thought
them all, at least in their present form, construc-
tions of the Fatimid period, but says nothing that
rules out Fatimid reconstructions of earlier stair-
cases at the same locations.160 That staircases and
free-standing arcades were already a feature of this
area by the eleventh century is clear from the
extended description of them by Nasir-i Khosraw.161
He tells of two stairs on the west, two on the south,
qibla, side, and one each on the north and east for
a total of six, rather than the eight there today. It
may be that two have been added since his time, or
it may be that his description is simply inaccurate,
as it is concerning details such as the number of
columns of the Dome of the Chain. Nasir-i Khosraw
is clear, however, that there were two staircases on
the southern side by the eleventh century, and he
describes each at length. That at the right is men-
tioned first and called Maqam al-Nabi, the
Prophet’s Station “because the Prophet mounted
the platform by these stairs and thence into the
Dome of the Rock.” At its top were four huge green
marble columns carrying three arches, all, accord-
ing to the author, “covered with gold and enamel
designs and…too beautiful to describe.” The stair-
case to the left on this side was almost as elaborate,
and called Maqam-e Ghori (the Ghorid Station)
[after the Fatimid donor of it whose name was
then visible]. Certainly Nasir-i Khosraw’s descrip-
tion supports the view that at least by the eleventh
century there were two staircases leading to the
upper platform from the south, and that both were
very elaborately decorated and obviously regarded
as important. Grabar termed the location of the
160 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, p. 158.
161 Thackston, Nasir-i Khosraw (as above, n. 33), pp. 33–34.
31
eastern stairway leading up to the platform from
the south and of the southern staircase from the
west “eccentric,” and suggested that the location
“probably met the practical needs of a Muslim
population that lived, for the most part, to the
south and to the west of the sanctuary.”162 This
explanation makes sense for the western staircase,
indeed close to the major entrance to the Haram,
but I cannot see how it explains the eastern stair-
case leading to the upper platform from the south.
The Muslim population would have needed to
pass at least two convenient stairways in order to
reach this one, which would have entailed a longer
walk and led to nothing, especially as evidence to
be considered in Chapter 5 below suggests that the
main entrance into the Dome of the Rock was
from the beginning, as it is today, from the west.
Why go to the eastern side of the upper platform,
and why is it so large, and so empty?
In contrast to the western side of the upper
platform, studded with smaller monuments and
structures, including the Dome of the Miʿraj, the
Dome of the Prophet, the Dome of the Spirits, the
Dome of the Hebronite, and the Dome of al-
Khidr, the eastern side is a vast clean sweep of
space interrupted only by the Dome of the Chain
(Figs.  2.7 and 2.8). Today having a pavement
marked with green lines indicating the qibla, for
the occasions when it is still used by Muslims
gathering here for prayer close to the sacred Rock,
it is my hypothesis that it was here that was
located the place for prayer by Muslims in the
seventh century. Later tradition links the visit of
the Prophet Muhammad to Jerusalem, and the
place at which he prayed, not with the later site of
the Aqsa Mosque, but at or near the Dome of the
Rock, as in the account by Nasir-i Khosraw just
discussed, or in other versions at a site just to the
northwest of and adjacent to the Rock, where the
small Dome of the Prophet was built in the six-
teenth century.163 If there is a kernel of usable
162 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, pp. 158–159.
163 Elad, Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship, pp. 73–74
no. 119.
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32
historical information within the Kaʿb story about
ʿUmar refusing to pray where directed, so as not
to unite the two qiblas, it may indicate that the
present arrangement of the Haram involved a sig-
nificant re-arrangement of the entire complex, a
re-arrangement dating only from the early eighth
century, associated with the construction of the
Aqsa mosque building by al-Walid. The near
albeit not exactly axial arrangement of al-Walid’s
Aqsa with the Dome of the Rock164 created a
sequence of a huge domed central plan building
and a huge rectangular hall that is undeniably
similar to and seems likely to have rivaled the
Christian Holy Sepulchre complex on the other
side of the city, clearly visible from the Haram.165
164 On the imperfect alignment see Grabar, Shape of the
Holy, p. 117.
165 See Grabar, Shape of the Holy, pp. 122 and 210 note 17 for
bibliographical citations on this point. Grabar himself
chapter 2
This architectural emulation and rivalry pro-
duced in the early eighth century might reflect a
different historical moment at which strong
rivalry for world domination with Christianity, or
at least the Christian Roman Empire, came to
overpower a seventh-century situation wherein
confessional boundaries and rivalries were less
clear. Such is, indeed, one implication of some
recent scholarship on early Islam,166 but the best
way to evaluate the seventh-century context in
Jerusalem is not through discussion of what is not
there, but through discussion of what does
remain, the subject of the subsequent chapters.
First, however, it is important to address the
problem of “Arculf,” in the next one.
makes the point that the Marwanid Aqsa Mosque faced
the large sixth-century Nea church across the valley.
166 See Donner, Muhammad and the Believers (as above,
n. 2).
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 chapter 3
The Problem of “Arculf” and the Earliest Mosque in Jerusalem
Communal prayer was a fundamental feature of
Islam from the beginning, but the location, or the
form or building material, of the earliest mosque
in Jerusalem, in use prior to the construction of
the structure commonly known as the Aqsa
Mosque, built along the southern edge of the
Haram by Caliph al–Walid after 705, is unknown.
Virtually all the literary sources of whatever date
and origin may plausibly be interpreted as refer-
ring to the Haram al-Sharif as a whole, which was
and is still often referred to as the Aqsa Mosque,
rather than to a building that was the predecessor
to the structure associated with al-Walid. As dis-
cussed in the previous chapter, no archaeological
evidence has been adduced, and only one textual
source unambiguously refers to a large structure
on the Haram al-Sharif used by Muslims for prayer
prior to the construction of the Dome of the Rock.
That textual source is most surprisingly transmit-
ted not in Arabic, or Greek, or Syriac or Georgian,
but in Latin. It stems from the other end of the late
Roman world, not from the Mediterranean but
instead from the Insular world, the British Isles,
namely from a book De locis sanctis [On the Holy
Places] written by Adomnán, Abbot of Iona until
his death in 704. Another version of the material,
largely but not wholly dependent upon Adomnán,
and similarly titled De locis sanctis, was written a
few years later by Bede, famous as a historian and
commentator on scripture, a monk at Jarrow until
his death in 735. It is an odd situation, and the dis-
tance between the two clusters of material is great
not only in terms of geography but also of modern
scholarly disciplines, that is, early medieval Insular
Latin philology on the one hand, and early Islamic
art history on the other. Concise scholarly cross-
references in both directions have tended to mask
the complexity of the sources on both sides, creat-
ing something of a vicious circle. The figure and
authority of “Arculf” are so fundamental to the
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi 10.1163/9789004302075_004
modern historiography concerning early Islamic
architecture in Jerusalem that a detailed investiga-
tion of the text, and a review of its alleged infor-
mation, is long overdue.
The critical passage concerning the earliest
Muslim place of prayer in Jerusalem, often either
cited or, more commonly, referred to, by scholars
of Islamic architecture, is at the end of the first
chapter of Adomnán’s De locis sanctis:1
“Ceterum in illo famoso loco ubi quondam tem-
plum magnifice constructum fuerat in uicinia
muri ab oriente locatum nunc Saracini quadran-
gulam orationis domum, quam subrectis tabulis et
magnis trabibus super quasdam ruinarum rel-
iquias construentes uili fabricati sunt opere, ipsi
frequentant; quae utique domus tria hominum
milia, ut fertur, capere potest.
[However, in the celebrated place where once
stood the temple (situated towards the east near
the wall) arose in its magnificence, the Saracens
now have a quadrangular prayer house. They built
1 Denis Meehan, ed., Adamnan’s De Locis Sanctis, Scriptores
Latini Hiberniae 3 (Dublin, 1983), pp. 42–43. Here as in
most cases the text principally follows that in Vienna
Nationalbibliothek cod. 458 (olim Salisburgensis 174), a
ninth-century book written for one Baldo, who was a
teacher in the cathedral school at Salzburg (cf. Meehan,
Adamnan’s De Locis Sanctis, p. 30). For the Latin text see
not only the Meehan edition but also Ludwig Bieler, ed.,
“Adamnanus De locis sanctis”, in Itineraria et alia geograph-
ica , ed. Paul Geyer et al. (Turnhout, 1965), pp. 175–234.
See on the manuscripts Michael Gorman, “Adomnán’s
De locis sanctis: the diagrams and the sources”, Revue béné-
dictine 116 (2006), 5–41. A version of one section of this
chapter has been published as Lawrence Nees, “Insular
Latin sources, ‘Arculf,’ and early Islamic Jerusalem,” in
Michael Frassetto, Matthew Gabriele, and John Hosler,
eds., Where Heaven and Earth Meet: Essays on Medieval
Europe in Honor of Daniel F. Callahan (Leiden, 2014),
pp. 81–100.
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34
it roughly by erecting upright boards and great
beams on some ruined remains. The building, it is
said, can accommodate three thousand people at
once.]”
Denis Meehan’s translation presented above,
along with his edition of the Latin text, signals
through punctuation, the parentheses inserted in
the English version, its anxiety about the interpre-
tation of the passage. The Latin is potentially
ambiguous, the prepositional phrase in vicinia
muri ab oriente locatum could possibly refer either
to templum or domum, the work performed by the
parentheses being to declare that the former is
surely meant, as is indeed likely given that domus
is a feminine noun. Here Meehan follows a schol-
arly tradition in interpreting the passage, and fol-
lows the historiography of Islamic art. Of the many
translations that have been offered of the passage,2
I will provide first the full version by K.A.C. Creswell,
as it has been the most influential for scholars
concerned with Islamic architecture:3
“Butin that renowned place where once the
Temple had been magnificently constructed,
2 To give one more translation from a commonly consulted
work of considerable influence, John Wilkinson, Jerusalem
Pilgrims before the Crusades (rev. 2nd ed. Warminster,
2002), p. 170: “Moreover near the wall on the east, in that
famous place where once there stood the magnificent Temple,
the Saracens have now built an oblong house of prayer,
which they pieced together with upright planks and large
beams over some ruined remains. This they attend, and it is
said that this building can hold three thousand people”.
Wilkinson notes the similarity of the italicized phrases to a
passage in Eucherius’s Letter to the Island Presbyter (ca. 430),
which he translated in the same volume, pp. 94–98: “The
site of the Temple is in the lower city near the eastern wall,
and it was magnificently built” (verse 7, p. 94 of Wilkinson).
One could well argue from this possible, even likely, source
text, that the “eastern wall” portion of Adomnán’s text is
only derived from the text of Eucherius, not from “Arculf’s”
observation at all, and has no independent value.
3 K.A.C. Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture (2nd ed.,
Oxford, 1969), vol. i, Part 1, pp. 33–34.
chapter 3
placed in the neighborhood of the wall from the
east, the Saracens now frequent a quadrangular
house of prayer, which they have built rudely, con-
structing it by setting planks and great beams on
some remains of ruins: this house can, it is said,
hold three thousand men at once.”
Creswell used commas to do the work of Meehan’s
parentheses, stating that it was the ancient Temple
that had been located near the eastern wall of the
city, rather than the house of prayers of the Saracens
having been built near the eastern wall of the place
where the temple had stood. Oleg Grabar made the
same point with different punctuation, in his cases
brackets: “near the wall [of the city] on the east.”4
Creswell confidently understood the passage in this
way because he believed that the building here
termed the “house of prayer,” was identical with that
he termed the “first Aqsa mosque,” and that the
structure described by Adomnán’s text was beneath
the current Aqsa mosque, which was built on the
southern side of the Haram al-Sharif, in the time of
Caliph al-Walid I after 705. Creswell went on to say
that the “first Aqsa mosque” stood on ruins that
“must have been those of the royal Stoa of Herod”
destroyed in 70 ce, for Flavius Josephus says that
this stoa “extended the whole length of the south
side of the Temple area.”5 The problem here is,
again, starting from the premise that the first
mosque was at the same location as the later and
present mosque. Such an hypothesis is sensible,
some might even say likely, for re-buildings are
often on older foundations for both economic and
ideological considerations, but there are many
exceptions. In any event, it is a hypothesis receiv-
ing  no support from the text by Adomnán, for
4 Oleg Grabar, The Shape of the Holy. Early Islamic Jerusalem
(Princeton, 1996), p. 49.
5 See Josephus, Jewish Antiquities Books xiv–xv, trans. Ralph
Marcus (Cambridge, MA and London, 1963), pp. 454–455
(here identified as Book iv, 5, section  410): “The fourth
front of this (court [of Herod’s Temple]), facing south, also
had gates in the middle, and had over it the Royal portico,
which had three aisles, extending in length from the east-
ern to the western ravine.”
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The Problem of “Arculf” and the Earliest Mosque in Jerusalem
Adomnán does not say that the Muslim prayer hall
to which he refers, in existence at some point in the
seventh century, was on the southern edge of
the Haram al-Sharif, nor does any source known
to me. Even if Adomnán meant to indicate that the
structure on the “east” to which he referred was
the Temple, and not the “Saracen house of prayer,”
this has no bearing on the location of the latter
within the Temple precinct, the Haram al-Sharif.
Based upon Adomnán’s text, the earliest prayer
hall on the Haram has generally been thought to
have been a wooden building with “upright boards”
(subrectis tabulis) and “great beams” (magnis
trabibus).6 Latin trabs is literally a tree, and related
words usually refer to wood, as in the poetic use for
a boat.7 Other usages referring to something other
than wood, mostly but not universally more recent,
are possible, and certainly when we speak today in
scholarly jargon of trabeated, as opposed to arcu-
ated, colonnades, we extend the term’s usage from
wood to stone. Similarly, although there are some
possible usages that tabula could refer to some-
thing in stone, even those seem likely skevomorphs,
renderings of wooden forms or prototypes in stone,
and the overwhelming sense of the meanings of
Latin tabula and its derivative is also something
wooden.8 Therefore the hypothesis that the earli-
est level of remains under the Aqsa mosque, Aqsa I,
might date from the pre-Marwanid period, and
might be the structure described by Adomnán, a
view advanced by Jeremy Johns following Julian
Raby,9 appears to be not supported by, but in con-
flict with Adomnán’s description. An arcuated
stone building of the sort that Raby (reported by
6 Meehan, Adamnan’s De locis sanctis, pp. 42–43.
7 P.G.W. Glare, ed., Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1982),
p. 1954.
8 Oxford Latin Dictionary, pp. 1898–1899.
9 See Jeremy Johns, “The ‘House of the Prophet’ and the Con­
cept of the Mosque,” in Jeremy Johns, ed., Bayt al-Maqdis.
Jerusalem and Early Islam, Oxford Studies in Islamic
Art, ix, Part 2 (Oxford, 1999), pp. 59–112, at p. 62, with fig. 9
representing Raby’s plans of the “first” Aqsa mosque, from
the seventh century, discussed in the previous chapter at
greater length.
35
Johns) envisaged for Aqsa I would have been much
different, and much closer to familiar Christian
religious architecture, so it is difficult to make this
re-dating of Aqsa I to the 660s accord with
Adomnán’s textual evidence, if that evidence be
accepted. Of course one could argue that Adomnán
might have been entirely wrong about the material
used, or might have invented the story, or might
have specified wooden materials as a way of deni-
grating the Islamic structures by making them
seem crude, a point to which I shall return. The
issue here is that Adomnán’s text does not support
but instead contradicts the hypothesis that
Hamilton’s Aqsa I remains, discussed below, should
be dated to the second half of the seventh century
rather than to the eighth.
Adomnán, Not “Arculf,” as the Author
Creswell attributed the statement from Adomnán’s
De locis sanctis not to Adomnán, but to “Arculf,”
(I will always present his name within quotation
marks, for reasons to be made clear eventually)
introducing the quotation with the statement that
“the early pilgrim, Arculf, who visited Jerusalem
c. a.d. 670, gives a description of it [the earliest
Jerusalem mosque]…” Creswell implied that
“Arculf” “wrote” the passage on the basis of what he
had personally observed, that the source is as reli-
able as eyewitness testimony. Fortunately or unfor-
tunately, Creswell wrote at a time when, at least in
forensic contexts, eyewitness testimony was com-
monly regarded as reliable,10 and, more to the
point, Creswell removes Adomnán from consider-
ation, as if he were merely transmitting Arculf’s
exact words, as if the “author” was not Adomnán at
all but “Arculf.”11 Following Creswell, the scholarly
10 For discussion see inter alia Laura Engelhardt, “The
Problem of Eyewitness Testimony. Commentary on a
Talk by George Fisher and Barbara Tversky,” Stanford
Journal of Legal Studies 1(1999), 25–29, with references.
11 Indeed, Creswell gave as his own source for the passage
not an edition of Adomnán’s text, but instead “Tobler’s
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36
literature on early Jerusalem or on early Islamic art
generally, indeed almost always, refers to “Arculf”
as the textual source.12 Few go so far as Henri
Lammens, in 1930, who expanded upon Arculf as
“infatigable voyageur” who kept his eyes open and
diligently recorded architectural details, crediting
him (following Anton Baumstark13) with “eine
archäologische Nuance.”14 Later scholars have been
less enthusiastic, but have nonetheless followed
this scholarly tradition. In his fundamental 1996
book Oleg Grabar does mention Adomnán, writing
Itinera Hierosolymitana i, p. 145.” He did not list that
work in his bibliography; it is presumably Titus Tobler
and Augustus Molinier, eds., Itinera Hierosolymitana
et descriptiones Terrae Sanctae bellis sacris anteriora et
latina lingua exarata sumptibus Societatis illustrandis
Orientis latini monumentis (Geneva, 1879), vol. 1,
pp. 139–210. The Adomnán text was given there under
the title Arculfi relatio de locis sanctis scripta ab
Adamnano, which no doubt promoted the view that
Arculf was in some sense the “author” of the text, and
under the title and in the preface (p. xxx) the date of
the text is given as “ca. 670.” Thomas O’Loughlin,
Adomnán and the Holy Places. The Perceptions of an
Insular Monk on the locations of the Biblical Drama
(London, 2007), pp. 53–55, showed in detail that the
early editions gave Arculf equal or greater claim to be
the author of the work, following some medieval man-
uscript sources.
12 To take three examples among many, Francis Edward
Peters, Mecca and Jerusalem: The Typology of the Holy
City in the Near East, New York University Studies in
Near Eastern Civilization 11 (New York, 1986), p. 91; Max
Küchler, “Moschee und Kalifenpaläste Jerusalems nach
den Aphrodito-Papyri,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen
Palästinavereins 107(1991), 120–43 at 120 began discus-
sion of the sources on Jerusalem with “Arkulf” named
as such, quoting from Bieler’s edition of Adomnán,
while Michael Burgoyne, Mamluk Jerusalem. An
Architectural Study (Jerusalem, 1987), p. 45, takes from
and credits Creswell for the alleged description of
Jerusalem “shortly before 66/685 by the Christian pil-
grim Arculf,” with no mention of Adomnán.
13 Anton Baumstark, Abendländische Palästinapilger des
ersten Jahrtausends und ihre Berichte. Eine Kulturge­
schichtliche Skizze (Cologne, 1906).
14 Henri Lammens, Étude sur le siècle des Omayyades
(Beirut, 1930), pp. 270–271.
chapter 3
that the evidence “derives from the eyewitness
testimony of the Gallic Bishop Arculf as reported by
the Irish abbot Adomnanus [my emphasis],” but
subsequently Grabar consistently refers to Arculf
alone, and Adomnán has disappeared.15 Many
other scholars never mention Adomnán at all, but
cite Arculf alone, as the direct source. Amikam
Elad’s monograph on sources for early Jerusalem
says that “the testimony of Arculfus [my emphasis],
the Christian pilgrim who visited Palestine right at
the end of Muʿawiya’s caliphate [680] states that a
large, primitive mosque already stood on the
Haram.”16 Rani Grafman and Myriam Rosen-Ayalon
set at the beginning of their 1999 article on the
Umayyad mosques of Jerusalem and Damascus the
quotation identified as by “the Christian Pilgrim
Arculf, ca. 680” without referring to Adomnán or
even providing a bibliographical citation of his
work.17
There are too many other examples of such
usage to list them here, and to do so would make a
dispiriting parade. Rodney Aist recently noted that
“works on Jerusalem studies commonly refer to
‘Arculf’ when citing material from [Adomnán’s!]
15 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, p. 49 for the quotation; com-
pare p. 37: “according to Arculf,” and p. 45: “brief
description by Arculf.” In his important reference work
“al-Kuds, Monuments,” in Encyclopedia of Islam, vol. 2
(2nd ed.; Leiden, 1980), pp. 339–344, reprinted in his
Jerusalem, Constructing the Study of Islamic Art 4
(Aldershot, 2005), no. vi, pp. 117–129 at 119 Grabar
quotes the “’rudely built…quadrangular place of prayer’
(as described by the western pilgrim Arculfus c. 680).”
16 Elad, Medieval Jerusalem, p. 23. Elad cited Creswell,
Wilkinson, and other secondary sources. Richard
Yeomans, The Story of Islamic Architecture (New York,
2000), p. 33, not only ignored Adomnán but attributed
his entire text to Arculf, and presented a hypothetical
dating and patronage for the earliest mosque as if it
were established fact: “The first mosque on this site
[the Haram] was a wooden construction built by Omar,
accommodating up to 3000 people according to Arculf,
a French pilgrim…who wrote…De locis sanctis.”
17 Rafi Grafman and Myriam Rosen-Ayalon, “The Two Great
Syrian Umayyad Mosques: Jerusalem and Damascus,”
Muqarnas 16(1999), 1–15 at 1.
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The Problem of “Arculf” and the Earliest Mosque in Jerusalem
De locis sanctis,” and he specifically authorizes this
practice as “appropriate” even if not strictly accu-
rate.18 Making the actual author thus transparent,
a mere transmitter of someone else’s observations,
is in principle, it seems to me, a dangerous course,
and as this chapter will show, one that does not
withstand critical scrutiny. It was only in 2014, dur-
ing the final stages of revision of this book, that an
article appeared by a scholar of eastern history
and texts recognizing that this historiographical
tradition is untenable, and that “Arculf” and
Adomnán’s references to him should not be taken
at face value. I hope that this important work, by
Robert Hoyland and Sarah Waidler, is taken to
heart by Islamicists and other specialists in the
late Antique world of the eastern Mediterranean.19
Even the relatively few studies that began from
the perspective of studies on early medieval north-
western Europe, and sought to discuss and evalu-
ate the sources for early Insular knowledge of and
attitudes toward Islam have taken the text of
Adomnán in a manner that seems, at least to me,
lacking in critical judgment. Ekkehart Rotter’s 1983
volume on the West and the “Saracens” states that
“Arculf” observed early Islam in a completely
objective (völlig objectiv) manner, and Adomnán
served “Arculf” as an objective notary (Notar objec-
tiv). Rotter further claims that his “Arkulf/
Adamnan” made no contemptuous remarks (ger-
ingshätzigen Bemerkung) about the Saracens,
apparently taking what he acknowledges as the
text’s description of the contemptible work (ger-
inge Arbeit, his rendering of opus vile) of the
Jerusalem mosque as also simply objective obser-
vation. It is noteworthy that like other scholars,
Rotter ignored the pejorative context in which the
18 Rodney Aist, “Adomnán, Arculf and the Source Material
of De locis sanctis,” in Jonathan M. Wooding with
Rodney Aist, Thomas Owen Clancy, and Thomas
O’Loughlin, Adomnán of Iona: Theologian, Law­
maker,  Peacemaker (Dublin and Portland, or, 2010),
pp. 162–180 at 163 note 9.
19 Robert G. Hoyland and Sarah Waidler, “Adomnán’s
De  Locis Sanctis and the Seventh-Century Near East,”
English Historical Review 129, no.539 (2014), 787–807.
37
passage appears, discussed later in this chapter.20
More recently Katharine Scarfe Beckett discussed
Adomnán’s, and also Bede’s, accounts of the jour-
ney by “Arculf” very briefly, and seems to accept
the historicity of the entire episode, including the
shipwreck, and explicitly identified the source as
“eyewitness testimony.”21 The only thing she says
about the Muslim (Adomnán’s “Saracen”) house of
prayer in Adomnán is that it was “a crude but large
rectangular building constructed on some ruins,”
and in a footnote attributed to Rotter the extraor-
dinary opinion that the passage is so close to
Arabic phrasing that it might have been translated
directly from Arabic by a Muslim guide!22 How
one is expected to understand that a statement
can be at once both a translation of someone else’s
words and an eyewitness account is to me an
insoluble riddle.
Adomnán certainly gives “Arculf” a prominent
place in his work. Immediately after the dedica-
tion and title IN NOMINE PATRIS ET FILII ET
SPRITUS SANCTI CRAXARE LIBRUM DE LOCIS
INCIPIO SANCTIS [In the name of the Father, Son,
20 Ekkehart Rotter, Abendland und Sarazenen: Das okzi-
dentale Araberbild und seine Entstehung im
Frühmittelalter (Berlin and New York, 1983), pp. 31–42,
the quotations and specific reference being from 31, 38
and 39 respectively. Hoyland and Waidler, “Adomnán’s
De Locis Sanctis,” 798–799, noted that some of the fea-
tures of this passage are “slightly odd,” for example its
apparent implication that the structure was made of
wood, which conflicts with other sources suggesting
that it was made of stone, and they also noted that the
placement of the passage in “such a prime position” is
“surprising.”
21 This “eyewitness” term has become a topos, as has the
notion that we have the words of Arculf; Peters, Mecca
and Jerusalem, p. 91 termed ”Arculf” a “disinterested
eyewitness,” and identified Arculf, not Adomnán, as
the author of the text, which he had consulted from
Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims, who never stated this,
and rightly presented the text as that of Adomnán.
22 Katharine Scarfe Beckett, Anglo-Saxon Perceptions of the
Islamic World, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon
England 33 (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 44–45. I am grateful
to Andy Orchard for bringing this work to my attention.
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38
and Holy Ghost, I begin to write a book concerning
the Holy Places], immediately follows:23
“Arculfus sanctus episcopus gente Gallus diuerso-
rum longe remotorum peritus locorum uerax
index et satis idoneus in Hierusolimitana ciuitate
per menses nouem hospitatus et loca sancta cotid-
ianis uisitationibus peragrans mihi Adomnano
haec universa…dictauit
(The holy bishop Arculf, a Gaul by race, versed
in divers far-away regions, and a truthful and quite
reliable witness, sojourned for nine months in the
city of Jerusalem, traversing the holy places in
daily visitations. In response to my careful inqui-
ries he dictated to me, Adamnan, this…)”
Bede, Not Adomnán, on “Arculf’s” Journey
Oddly, given the prominence that Adomnán
accords to Arculf, and the unusual situation of a
Frankish bishop turning up on Iona after a pilgrim-
age to Jerusalem, he tells us nothing about him
beyond that he was episcopus gente Galllus (“a Gallic
bishop”). The source for the commonly repeated
scholarly understanding of how “Arculf” came to be
in Iona to serve as Adomnán’s source comes not
from Adomnán, who never addressed this obvious
question at all, but from Bede. In his Ecclesiastical
History completed in 731 (Book v ch. xv) Bede
wrote as part of his praise of Adomnán:24
“Scripsit idem uir de locis sanctis librum legentibus
multis utillimum, cuius auctor erat docendo ac dic-
tando Galliarum episcopus Arcuulfus, qui locorum
gratia sanctorum venerat Hierosolymam, et lustrata
omni terra repromissionis Damascum quoque,
Constantinopolim, Alexandrium, multas maris
insulas adierat, patriamque nauigio reuertens ui
23 Text and translation after Meehan, Adamnan’s De Locis
Sanctis, pp. 36–37.
24 Bertram Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors, eds., Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford,
1969), pp. 506–509.
chapter 3
tempestatis in occidentalia Brittaniae litora dila-
tus est; ac post multa ad memoratum Christi fam-
ulum Adamnanum perueniens, ubi doctus in
Scripturis sanctorumque locorum gnarus esse
conpertus est, libentissime est ab illo susceptus,
libentius auditus, adeo ut, quaeque ille se in locis
sanctis memoratu digna uidisse testabatur, cuncta
mox iste litteris mandare curauerit. Fecitque opus,
ut dixi,…
(This man wrote a book on the holy places
which has proved useful to many readers; his work
was based upon information dictated to him by
Arculf, a bishop of Gaul who had visited Jerusalem
to see the holy places. He had wandered all over
the promised land and had been to Damascus,
Constantinople, Alexandria, and many islands of
the sea. But as he was returning to his native land
by sea, he was cast by the violence of the tempest
on to the west coasts of Britain. After many adven-
tures he came to the servant of Christ Adamnan
who found him to be learned in the Scriptures and
well acquainted with the holy places. Adamnan
received him very gladly and eagerly listened to his
words; he quickly committed to writing everything
which Arculf had seen in the holy places which
seemed to be worthy of remembrance. From this
he made a book, as I said…)”
The context of Bede’s discussion of “Arculf” is odd,
indeed peculiar, as has not previously been noted.25
The previous chapters of his Ecclesiastical His­
tory  dealt with visions of hell, the immediately
preceding one (ch. xiv) presents the vision of an
unnamed monk (frater) in an unnamed but noble
monastery (in monasterio nobili), a man known to
Bede himself as an exceptionally skilled craftsman
(erat enim fabrili arte singularis), but addicted to
drunkenness and other dissolute practices. Just
before dying unshriven (and buried in the farthest
corner of the monastery), this unnamed monk
related to his brethren his vision that a place in
hell was prepared for and awaiting him. Bede ends
25 O’Loughlin, Adomnán, pp. 51–52, does address the
­context of the passage.
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The Problem of “Arculf” and the Earliest Mosque in Jerusalem
the chapter with the hope that the story made
many people seek to do penance for their sins, and
that as here written it might, he hoped, bring many
more to penitence. Then he opens the next chap-
ter with the “greater part of the Irish in Ireland”
who (finally! in Bede’s view, presumably just in
time to avoid everlasting damnation, as related in
the immediately preceding passage) accepted the
canonical date for Easter. Islamicists would prob-
ably not know that Bede was obsessed with the
celebration of Easter on the correct date, in his
view that accepted by the church in Rome, and not
the different reckoning that had prevailed in
Ireland up to his own time. Adomnán is given
chief credit for having effected the change to the
“right,” Roman, Easter, having previously been per-
suaded while on a mission to Aldfrith’s court in
Northumbria that he ought to abandon the tradi-
tional Irish usage, distinct from the “universal cus-
tom of the church.” According to Bede, Adomnán
then persuaded, indeed converted, all except those
in his own monastery, Iona, to accept the change,
but died (happily, in Bede’s view!) before he had to
face the controversy with his own monks about
when they should celebrate the next Easter.26
Bede is an artful writer, and seems to have delib-
erately juxtaposed these chapters, whose common
denominator is not immediately clear: the
unhappy sinner dying unshriven, and going to
hell, and the happy Adomnán, who died after
finally having celebrated Easter on the “catholic”
date, and presumably went to heaven rather than
hell. Then Bede proceeds directly, having intro-
duced the author, to Adomnán’s book on the holy
places, including the long passage quoted above.
Bede next quotes in the subsequent two chapters
(xvi and xvii) long passages from his own work
based on Adomnán rather than from Adomnán’s
work, which was clearly available to him. Bede’s
passages on the holy places are devoted to
Bethlehem, to the Holy Sepulchre, to the Ascension
26 See Clare Stancliffe, “’Charity with peace’: Adomnán
and the Easter question,” in Wooding et al., Adomnán
of Iona (as above, n.18), pp. 51–68.
39
church on the Mount of Olives, and to the tombs
of Abraham and the patriarchs at Hebron.27 He
says nothing here about the Temple or its former
site, and nothing about the Muslim house of
prayer, although Adomnán had begun his text
with that brief but critical discussion. Why did
Bede delete this portion of his source? Whatever
the reason, we cannot believe that it was because
he was not particularly interested in the subject,
for he had himself written extensively about the
Temple and everything about it in De Tabernaculo,
and in De Templo, and in his commentaries on
Ezra and Nehemiah.28 The dates of these other
Bedan writings are controversial, but definitely
precede the Ecclesiastical History, since that work
closes with a list of Bede’s previous writings, which
includes all three of these works.29
Bede’s discussion of “Arculf” seems to reflect
Adomnán’s text, which it evokes in several places
with specific wording, rather than Bede’s own
knowledge or another source. Bede clearly had a
copy of Adomnán’s text, which was widely dissemi-
nated and of which roughly two dozen manuscripts
survive.30 Adomnán had visited Northumbria
probably in the period 685–687, and if a recent sur-
mise by David Woods is correct, he might have vis-
ited again ca. 702, and written the text during a
longish stay in Northumbria at that time.31 King
27 Colgrave and Mynors, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History,
pp. 508–513.
28 For these texts see the recent English translations with
commentaries and references: Arthur G. Holder, Bede:
On the Tabernacle (Liverpool, 1994), Seán Connolly and
Jennifer O’Reilly, Bede: On the Temple (Liverpool, 1995),
and Scott DeGregorio, Bede On Ezra and Nehemiah
(Liverpool, 2006).
29 Colgrave and Mynors, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History,
pp. 566–571. Indeed these works dealing with Jerusalem
are given prominent places by the author, the treatise
on the tabernacle occupying second place and that on
the temple fourth.
30 On the manuscripts see Meehan, Adamnan’s De Locis
Sanctis, pp. 30–34.
31 David Woods, “On the circumstances of Adomnán’s
composition of De locis sanctis,” in Wooding et al.,
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40
Aldfrith of Northumbria might have been
Adomnán’s student at one point, and Bede himself
reports that Adomnán’s book De locis sanctis had
been given to King Aldfrith. Bede’s description of
“Arculf’s” voyage is odd on the face of it. It is more
than a little difficult to understand how anyone
could have been blown to northwestern Britain or
indeed anywhere in Britain while returning from
the eastern Mediterranean to Francia.32 Presumably
Adomnán of Iona, pp. 193–204, challenged the tradi-
tional dating of De locis sanctis to the mid-680s, more or
less, suggesting that there is no real basis for that dating,
and a dating ca. 702 ameliorates some problems. This
may be true, but it also entails new problems that he did
not consider. Dating the in the 680s makes possible the
traditional view that Adomnán’s text reflects the
accounts of an “Arculf” whose visit would be dated a
few years earlier, probably during the caliphate of
Muʿawiya, and hence the “accurate eyewitness” reports
about the first Aqsa mosque, pre-dating the new cam-
paign of ʿAbd al-Malik but at the very latest beginning in
692, with the building of the Dome of the Rock. Dating
Adomnán’s text ca. 702 makes it a full decade after the
transformation of the Islamic sanctuary in Jerusalem
under ʿAbd al-Malik, and leaves a hermeneutic choice
between Scylla and Charybdis. One unpalatable option
would be to accept a strange and unaccountably long
gap between the visit of “Arculf” to Iona and Adomnán’s
composition of De locis sanctis, which runs hard against
the implication of the text that it is a faithful and fresh
transcription of “Arculf’s” account. The other option
would be to place “Arculf’s” visit well into the 690s, with
his account completely ignoring the magnificent new
construction and instead describing the crude old com-
plex. Woods did not believe in “Arculf,” although he still
thought that there is some credible kernel somewhere,
perhaps a Frankish bishop Arnulf [my emphasis] who
brought back reports from the eastern Mediterranean
that Adomnán misrepresents. If the text is datable
ca. 702 it requires that its author and its readers, includ-
ing Bede, accepted a description of Islamic Jerusalem
that was wildly inaccurate. Out of the frying pan but
into the fire. The only evidence for an earlier date is the
assumption that Adomnán’s description is accurate,
and we are back to the vicious circle.
32 Woods, “On the circumstances of Adomnán’s composi-
tion of De locis sanctis,” at 202, addressed this problem
by making his Frankish source someone who had on a
chapter 3
one is supposed to imagine a direct sea voyage
through the strait of Gibraltar to a presumed desti-
nation in western or northern France, but this was
clearly not the preferred route for early medieval
travel or trade,33 indeed there seems no evidence at
all for anyone else having used such a route in the
early medieval period. It should be at least consid-
ered that Bede’s story is not entirely his own inven-
tion but based upon some other written source.
After all, Bede supplemented his condensed ver-
sion of Adomnán on the holy places with passages
from Eucherius and Josephus in his own work
different trip been to the eastern Mediterranean,
although probably not to Jerusalem, and was later
blown just across the English Channel, Bede’s state-
ment that “Arculf” had been blown ashore on the west-
ern shores of Britain being a mistake for an “Arculf”
blown ashore on the lands of the West Saxons. The
theory seems a bit of a stretch, but takes off from the
recognition that Bede’s story is very strange and diffi-
cult to accept at face value, and some explanation
should be sought. With that sentiment I fully agree, but
have tried here to suggest an alternative understanding
that has our wise monk Bede making a learned and
possibly amusing point, rather than committing a
clumsy and credulous error.
33 O’Loughlin, Adomnán, p. 52 addressed the implausibil-
ity of the supposed route. The immense compendium
by Michael McCormick, Origins of the European
Economy. Communications and Commerce, a.d. 300–900
(Cambridge, 2001), traced many trade routes through
literary and archaeological sources, but a direct sea
route linking the Mediterranean and Britain is not
among them. Nevertheless, McCormick was loathe
to dismiss the possibility that Bede’s version is accu-
rate: ‘It is just possible that Arculf sailed from the
Mediterranean to his home in Gaul through the straits
of Gibraltar, since his ship was blown off course and
wound up on the west coast of England or Scotland’
(McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, p. 539
n. 56, giving no reference in support of this possibility
but relying on Bede alone here). McCormick then went
on to suggest that Arculf might have crossed overland
from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and then taken
ship. That route is of course possible, but one has to
choose to accept one’s only source or not; why accept
the shipwreck story from Bede but not Bede’s explana-
tion that the shipwreck was on the homeward voyage?
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The Problem of “Arculf” and the Earliest Mosque in Jerusalem
De locis sanctis,34 which is, again oddly, not included
among his own many written works, a kind of life-
time bibliography, which he listed a few chapters
later at the end of the Ecclesiastical History.
Some of the oddities in Bede’s presentation
have been analyzed by Michael Wallace-Hadrill’s
commentary, including the distortion at least by
condensation of Adomnán and his role in the
Easter controversy, and even the different form in
which Bede gives the name of the supposed
Frankish bishop, not Arculfus but instead
Arcuulfus. Behind that name, Wallace-Hadrill sug-
gested, could be lurking a name not Germanic at
all but something like Lupus (Anglo-Saxon uulfus
= Latin lupus, wolf), making him a Frankish were-
wolf on Iona.35 Bede is probably not joking here,
or at least not so lamely, but he may be inserting a
recondite and even amusing hint toward the
source of his Arcwulfian odyssey, in Latin litera-
ture. In my view it should be considered, as it
seems not previously to have been, that Bede’s
story is in part inspired by the opening of Vergil’s
Aeneid, which also has a storm driving a traveler
from west to east and casting him on a foreign
shore that will be a kind of promised land – litora
is not exactly a rare word, but both Vergil and Bede
use it, and Bede’s nonnulla pericula recalls Vergil’s
multum iactatus…tot uolvere casus in sentiment if
not in specific diction.36 If nothing else the coinci-
dence of this constellation of motifs in a very short
passage is striking. Bede evidently knew Vergil’s
34 J. Fraipont, ed., Beda De locis sanctis, ed., in Tobler and
Molinier, Itineraria et Alia Geographica, (as above, n. 1),
pp. 245–280.
35 J[ohn] M[ichael]. Wallace-Hadrill, Bede’s Ecclesiastical
History of the English People. A Historical Commentary
(Oxford, 1988), pp. 187–189. Spelling of proper names is
a difficult problem. For an important and enlightening
recent contribution see David Howlett, “Wilbrord’s
Autobiographical Note and the ‘Versus Sybillae De
Iudicio Dei’,” Peritia 20 (2008), 154–164; I am grateful to
the author for shaving shared a pre-publication version
of this paper.
36 R[oger] A[ubrey] B[askerville] Mynors, ed., P. Vergili
Maronis opera (Oxford, 1969), p. 103.
41
poem,37 and indeed seems to evoke it specifically
in the context of calming a storm in the opening
chapter of Book V in his Ecclesiastical History.
There Bede relates a story told by the priest
Guthfrith about a storm encountered while return-
ing to the British mainland from the Farne Islands
– not exactly a long sea-journey, but Bede gave it a
bit of epic caste. After Oethelwald, whom Guthfrith
had been visiting at the hermitage, completed a
prayer, he “calmed the swelling main” (tumida
aequora placauit), which Colgrave and Mynors list
as an “echo” of Aeneid i.142, the famous scene of
angry Neptune calming the storm raised at the
behest of Juno (tumida aequora placat).38
Recently other scholars have also suggested
that Bede knew, directly or indirectly,39 and
37 Although denied by some earlier scholars, a persuasive
case for Bede’s direct (rather than exclusively through
florilegia) knowledge at least of the Aeneid was argued
by N. Wright, “Bede and Vergil,” Romanobarbarica 6
(1981–1982), 361–79, with earlier literature, and has
been accepted most recently by Jan Ziolkowski and
Michael C.J. Putnam, The Virgilian Tradition. The First
Fifteen Hundred Years (New Haven and London, 2008),
p. 92. On Adomnán’s knowledge of and use of Vergil, in
this case in his Vita Columbae, see also Jacqueline
Borsje, From Chaos to Enemy: encounters with monsters
in early Irish texts, Instrumenta Patristica (Turnhout,
1996), pp. 141–151, cited by George and Isabel
Henderson, “The Implications of the Staffordshire
hoard for the understanding of the origin and develop-
ment of the Insular art style as it appears in manu-
scripts and sculpture,” in Papers from the Staffordshire
Hoard Symposium, edited by Helen Geake (http://finds
.org.uk/staffshoardsymposium), based on lectures pre-
sented at the British Museum in March 2010 (accessed
April 1, 2011).
38 Colgrave and Mynors, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History,
pp. 455–456, note 4. The scholarly apparatus also indi-
cates that Bede quoted the first line of Aeneid ii in
Ecclesiastical History iii. 2 (pp. 248–249). I owe to
Angela Gleason the intriguing information that the
Middle Irish word “murchuirthe,” which literally means
“that which is thrown or cast up from the sea,” is com-
monly used in contexts where “foreigner” is meant.
39 In De Temporum Ratione, ch. vii, Bede quotes as from
the “poeta” most of two lines from Aeneid ii, 250–1, but
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42
­deliberately alluded to the opening of the Aeneid
and its famous storm. For example, in his twenty-
two line poetic preface to his Commentary on
Revelation, dating probably ca. 702–703, just after
Adomnán’s De locis sanctis and his own redaction
of it, Bede says that John “saw wave-wandering
wheels everywhere adrift” (Lat. currere fluctiuagas
cernit ubique rotas), which the recent editor of the
text and its recent translator have both seen as at
least a reminiscence of, or possibly an allusion to,
Neptune’s chariot as described by Vergil.40
Alluding through an alteration in the name of
Adomnán’s alleged informant, “Arcuulfus,” to the
wolf at the center of the other Roman foundation
myth, the fostering of Romulus and Remus, might
even include a play on the preceding chapter, in
which Bede praises Adomnán for abandoning the
(in Bede’s view deviant, disruptive, schismatic)
Irish view on dating Easter for the view of the uni-
versal church, the Roman view.
If Bede is alluding to Vergil in his story about the
wanderings of “Arculf,” and hoped or expected
that his readers would recognize the illusion, he
the editor of the text believed that he quotes from
Isidore’s Etymologiae rather than directly, as is also the
case for a number of other Vergilian quotations by
Bede; see Charles W. Jones, ed., Bedae Opera de
Temporibus, Mediaeval Academy of American Publi­
cations 41 (Cambridge, MA, 1943), pp. 193 and 367. In
the early fifteenth-century biography of Vergil by
Domenico di Bandino, Bede’s De Temporibus is said
to relate biographical details about Vergil, but the
text edited by Jones, Bedae Opera de Termporibus,
pp. 295–303, has no such passage; see Ziolkowski and
Putnam, Virgilian Tradition, pp 304–305 and 312–313.
40 See Roger Gryson, ed., Bede, Expositio Apocalypseos,
Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 121A (Turnhout,
2001), p. 168, and Faith Wallis, trans. and introduction,
Bede, Commentary on Revelation, Translated Texts for
Historians 58 (Liverpool, 2013), p.58 (a brief comment)
and p. 101 (the English translation). Wallis suggested
(p. 58) a date for this Bedan text, his first scriptural
commentary, close to the time at which he wrote De
locis sanctis, which she sets in 702–703, following George
Hardin Brown, A Companion to Bede (Woodbridge,
2009), p. 13.
chapter 3
would not be the only author of his period to do so.
Aldhelm of Malmesbury, an older contemporary
of Bede, knew Vergil’s poems well and even some
of the commentaries about them.41 Recently
Andreas Fischer pointed out that in two different
places, the seventh-century so-called Fredegar
Chronicle from Francia either cites or refers to the
Aeneid, and the strange claim just then being
introduced that the Franks were descended from
Aeneas and the Trojans.42 Moreover, Fischer
believed that Fredegar’s readership would be
familiar with the author’s name and would pick up
a reference to his work, and that there is other evi-
dence that knowledge of Vergil’s work might have
been widespread in northern Gaul/Francia in the
later seventh century. If Bede knew that Frankish
authors were beginning to make such claims, his
linkage of the journey of Adomnán’s alleged wan-
dering Gaulish bishop-without-diocese “Arculf”
with the storm-driven Aeneas might be another
bit of playfulness or humor, or at least called for a
raised eyebrow. Was it perhaps Adomnán’s identi-
fication of his errant episcopal source as a Frank
that led Bede to play on recent Frankish claims to
be descended from Trojans?43
I by no means intend to imply that Bede had no
independent sources for contemporary events in
Jerusalem and the eastern Mediterranean world
more broadly. Indeed, in my view his powerful
41 Ziolkowski and Putnam, Virgilian Tradition, p. 92.
42 Andreas Fischer, “Reflecting Romanness in the
Fredegar Chronicle,” Early Medieval Europe 22(2014),
433–445 esp. at 434–5. On the Trojan legend see the
remarks by J[ohn] M[ichael] Wallace-Hadrill, The
Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar and its
continuations(Oxford, 1960), pp. xi–xii, x and xxvi, and
on this important text see Roger Collins, Fredegar,
Authors of the Middle Ages iv (Aldershot Hants., 1996).
43 In the opening of his Ecclesiastical History Bede has the
Picts coming from Scythia and “carried by the wind
beyond the furthest bounds of Britain, reaching Ireland
and landing on its northern shore”: see Colgrave and
Mynors, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, pp. 18–19. The edi-
tors noted (p. 17 n. 3) the perplexity of scholars dealing
with this unlikely itinerary.
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The Problem of “Arculf” and the Earliest Mosque in Jerusalem
interest in the Tabernacle and the Temple, and his
unique commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah, and
for that matter the Tabernacle and Ezra minia-
tures in the Codex Amiatinus produced in his
monastery and most likely with his own intense
involvement,44 are plausibly seen as in part at
least a reaction to news of the Islamic building
activities on the site of the Jerusalem temple. If
we are to believe the evidence of the Epistola de
obitu Bedae, Bede is said on his deathbed to have
directed that the pepper and incense that he kept
in a little private box (capsella) should be distrib-
uted to the brethren.45 Such items can only have
come from the east, and whether or not Bede
actually had such things, it was clearly credible to
the readers of the text that he might have had
such things, and we have no knowledge of how
these exclusively eastern materials might have
reached him. In their recent study, Hoyland and
Waidler argue that Adomnán cannot have relied
exclusively upon written sources, and must have
had some more current information about
Jerusalem probably transmitted orally.46 I fully
concur. I only mean to suggest here that we should
not hang any hat concerning Adomnán’s knowl-
edge of early Islamic Jerusalem, and a Muslim
place of prayer there, upon the very shaky peg of
“Arculf.”
44 See Paul Meyvaert, “Dissension in Bede’s Community
shown by a quire of Codex Amiatinus,” Revue bénédic-
tine 116(2006), 295–309, and for the great miniature
Celia Chazelle, “Pintando la Voz de Dios: Wearmouth-
Jarrow, Roma y la miniatura del Tabernáculo en el
Códice Amiatinus,” Quintana 8(2009), 13–57.
45 Colgrave and Mynors, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History,
pp. 584–5, cited by Scarfe Bennett, Anglo-Saxon Per­
ceptions, pp. 60–61. See also on this material, which
also included a textile, Lawrence Nees, “What’s In the
Box? Remarks on some early medieval and early
Islamic precious containers,” Source. Notes in the
History of Art [Carla Lord and Carol Lewine, eds.,
Special Issue on Secular Art in the Middle Ages]
33(2014), 67–77.
46 Hoyland and Waidler, “Adomnán’s De Locis Sanctis” (as
above, n. 19).
43
The Historicity of “Arculf”
The “Arculf” source evoked by Bede and Adomnán
is not only odd, its historicity has long been chal-
lenged by scholars, although Hoyland and Waidler’s
2014 article is among the first by scholars dealing
with eastern material to recognize the problematic
nature of this source. Yet already nearly half a cen-
tury ago, François Chatillon, in an extended review
of Meehan’s edition of Adomnán’s De locis sanctis,
was troubled that Meehan accepted without proper
critical investigation the existence of a real “Arculf,”
and thus the value of his supposed testimony.47 One
of Chatillon’s major objections was negative, namely
that despite the repeated invocations of “Arculf” by
name in Adomnán’s book, one is never told any-
thing at all about him. His see is not specified, which
is odd, the idea of a wandering bishop without dio-
cese perhaps still characteristic of Adomnán’s
Insular world, but not of seventh-century Francia,
and apparently no such bishop is attested in any
source.48 Most interesting perhaps is Chatillon’s
emphasis on the peculiarity that Adomnán so often
refers to “Arculf” as “sanctus” (holy), and more gen-
erally Adomnán’s hyperbolic and insistent refer-
ences to Arculf’s unimpeachable reliability, which
struck Chatillon as highly suspicious.49 Adomnán
47 F. Chatillon, “Arculfe a-t-il réellement existé?” Revue du
moyen age latin 23 (1967), 134–138.
48 See John Rupert Martindale, ed., Prosopography of the
Later Roman Empire, vol. 3A: a.d. 527–641 (Cambridge,
1992), which does not list any “Arculf” or closely related
name such as Arkulf. Indeed, there are no Arc- names
other than Arcadius, Arcesilas, Archelaus and Arcruni
(pp. 105–106); the closest in form to Arculf is an Ariulfus
attested as the Lombard Duke or Spoleto from 591–601
(pp. 119–120). Of course, the stated cut-off date for the
prosopography is 641 ce, and there might have been
such a person later, but the fact remains that there is no
prosopographical support for his existence or that of
the name by which Adomnán refers to him. Arnulf,
Bishop of Metz (d. 638) is listed (p. 122).
49 Chatillon, “Arculfe,” p. 137: “Enfin et surtout, il est
impossible de ne pas remarquer cette insistence exces-
sive à affirmer la sincérité d’Arculfe et de son récit
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44
doth protest too much, and Chatillon is not alone in
wondering whether “Arculf” ever existed at all.50
The historicity of “Arculf” has had its defenders,
and these include scholars who have studied the
text in detail and recognized some of its problems.
Among them is Ora Limor, who defended the his-
toricity of Arculf as a pilgrim and Adomnán’s pri-
mary, and generally reliable, source. Limor pointed
out that, contra some earlier scholars as noted pre-
viously, that Adomnán is the author, that the
words of De locis Sanctis are his, not “Arculf’s,” and
that Adomnán “presumably filtered what he had
heard and chose what he believed worthy of put-
ting into writing.”51 She drew more attention to the
context of the description of the Muslim house of
prayer than others had previously done, and in her
view the opening description of the “baptism” of
Jerusalem in the first chapter of De locis Sanctis
“despite Adomnán’s mediation…manage[s] to
convey the excited impression of an eye-witness.”52
She also noted, I think again rightly, that the
famous description of the “Saracen’s’” prayer house
in the same chapter is deliberately pejorative:
“Here he [Adomnán, not Arculf!] is taking aim at
both Jews and Muslims: the former, with the state-
ment that their once magnificent temple has been
supplanted by a ‘prayer house’ for a different faith;
and the latter, with the intimation that their prayer
(verax index et satis idoneus, fideli et indubitabili
narratione).”
50 See also more recently Nathalie Delierneux, “Arculfe,
sanctus episcopus gente Gallus: une existence histo-
rique discutable,” Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire
75(1997), 911–941.
51 Ora Limor, “Pilgrims and Authors: Adomnán’s De locis
Sanctis and Hugeburc’s Hodoeporicon Sancti Willibaldi,”
Revue bénédictine 114(2004), 253–75 at 258. Also accept-
ing the historicity of “Arculf” are Yitzhak Hen, “Holy
Land Pilgrims from Frankish Gaul,” Revue belge de phi-
lologie et d’histoire 76(1998), 291–306, and Michael
McCormick, “Les pélerins occidentaux à Jérusalem,
viiie–ixe siècles,” in Alain Dierkens and Jean-Marie
Sansterre, eds., Voyages et voyageurs à Byzance et en occi-
dent du vie au xie siècle (Geneva, 2000), pp. 289–306.
52 Limor, “Pilgrims and Authors,” p. 272.
chapter 3
house looked quite shabby.”53 Most recently, Maria
Guagnano, in an Italian translation of Adomnán
that reprints Meehan’s Latin text, attempted to
defend the historical reality of “Arculf” against the
objections of Chatillon (she did not know
O’Loughlin’s work that appeared only the previous
year).54 For example, she accounts for the text
being full of Insularisms, not Gallicisms, as
Chatillon had noted, by maintaining that Arculf is
the source for the substance, but not the language,
of the text, which Adomnán recast in his own
words.55 This defense seems to me a bit like throw-
ing out the baby with the bathwater: if the words
are Adomnán’s, the claim of eyewitness testimony
evaporates, and the lamentably widespread habit
of referring to the text as by “Arculf” rather than by
Adomnán, as if we had Arculf’s ipsissima verba,
that Adomnán functioned as the amanuensis,
Rotter’s Notar objectiv, of “Arculf,” is untenable.56
Through the filter of the abbot of Iona, we may
have a genuine report of the mosque in Jerusalem,
and some of its details may be accurate, but one
cannot go much further.
I have no strong view concerning whether
“Arculf” was an actual person who told Adomnán
about his recollections of a trip to Palestine, or
completely a literary fiction. As previously noted, a
middle view is also possible and indeed plausible,
namely that Adomnán’s Arculf might possibly be a
literary fiction, but that Adomnán could have had,
indeed likely did have, some reports from rela-
tively recent travelers to Jerusalem. There were
many travelers in this period, and Arculf could be
a composite. Nathalie Delierneux suggested as
much, that there could be multiple oral reports
and/or reporters drawn on by Adomnán.57
Hoyland and Waidler rejected this notion because
53 Limor, “Pilgrims and Authors,” p. 273.
54 Maria Guagnano, Adomnano di Iona, I luoghi santi
(Bari, 2008), at pp. 37–40.
55 Guagnano, Adomnano, pp. 27–28.
56 O’Loughlin, Adomnán, pp. 53–55, with fuller
bibliography.
57 Delierneux, “Arculfe, sanctus episcopus gente Gallus.”
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The Problem of “Arculf” and the Earliest Mosque in Jerusalem
in their view multiple oral sources “overly compli-
cate the matter” and do not resolve the “difficulties
in the text.”58 Here I must disagree, first on the
grounds that long-distance travel seems unlikely
to have been as rare or difficult as often imagined.
Recently Mark Handley listed hundreds of travel-
ers during the period, including up to and into the
eighth century, based exclusively on epitaphs.59
Handley was persuasive that this extensive evi-
dence can only be a tiny portion of the travel dur-
ing the period, noting for example that in a letter
by Cassiodorus for Theoderic, unnamed passen-
gers accounted for roughly three-quarters of the
revenue from a grain ship coming from Spain,
which must have had many passengers otherwise
untattested.60 Handley does not include “Arculf”
as an actual or putative traveler, and there may be
other bits of data that are misleading or dubious in
his huge collection of references, but there can be
little doubt of the reality of long-distance travel
during the period.61
There can be no question about the existence of
actual travelers during this period, whose existence
might be inferred from Adomnán’s text in any
event, which makes such strong claims to be taken
literally. On the other hand, it is also the case that
the period, and the cultural and literary tradition
58 Hoyland and Waidler, “Adomnán’s De Locis Sanctis” (as
above, n. 19), p. 789 n.
59 Mark Handley, Dying on Foreign Shores. Travel and
Mobility in the Late-Antique West, Journal of Roman
Archaeology, Supplementary series 86 (Portsmouth,
ri, 2011).
60 Handley, Dying on Foreign Shores, p. 11, citing Variae
5.35.
61 Handley, Dying on Foreign Shores, pp. 65–6. For an
accessible English translation of the travel account of an
Anglo-Saxon traveler to the Holy Land who later settled
in Germany, and told his story to a relative who put it
into writing, see the convenient translation by C. H. Talbot
recently published as “Huneberc of Heidenheim, The
Hodoeporicon of Saint Willibald,” in Thomas F.X. Noble
and Thomas Head, eds., Soldiers of Christ. Saints and
Saints’ Lives from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle
Ages (University Park, pa, 1995), pp. 141–164.
45
in which Adomnán participated, knows other fig-
ures who are indeed literary fictions, or at the very
least not to be taken literally. A notable and directly
relevant example is provided by the “Aethicus
Ister,” who appears in a work written during
the eighth century by an author claiming to be
St. Jerome! The text, preserved in a significant num-
ber of manuscripts, including one from the eighth
century, has recently been studied in detail by
Michael Herren, who suggested a date for its com-
position in the eighth century, likely not very long
after 727, and saw its origin in a monastic context
with strong Irish characteristics or tradition, possi-
bly Bobbio, founded in the early seventh-century
by Columbanus, a monk of Irish origin.62 The con-
text is not very distant from that of Adomnán, in
other words, and like his De locis sanctis, the author,
pseudo-Jerome, relates the accounts of an alleged
traveler, Aethicus, from Istria, who had traveled
widely in the east and north. Someone around the
same time and in the same monastic context as
Adomnán was quite capable not only of producing
another work in the genre of narrated traveler
reports, but in this case was capable of making up
both the alleged traveler and his alleged amanuen-
sis and interrogator. The situation is obviously dif-
ferent from that of Adomnán and “Arculf,” in that
the former writes under his own name, and might
be thought (is indeed thought by some) to be
unlikely to have been “dishonest” in creating a sin-
gle informant out of bits of reading and an amal-
gam of other sources, some likely oral. If De locis
sanctis is considered as belonging to the genre of
travel reports, that genre manifestly allowed for
pseudonymity and a loose conception of literal
truth in reporting. It is also of interest in relation-
ship to De locis sanctis that the pseudonymous
author of the Cosmography appears to have had a
number of bits of information relating to the east-
ern Mediterranean in the seventh century that
62 Michael W. Herren, The Cosmography of Aethicus Ister.
Edition, Translation, and Commentary, Publication of
the Journal of Medieval Latin 8 (Turnhout, 2011), for
discussion see pp. lxi–lxxiii.
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46
cannot be traced to known literary sources and
likely reflect either sources lost to us and/or oral
reports acquired we know not how.63
The recent and exhaustive study of Adomnán’s
text by Thomas O’Loughlin argued that some kind
of “Arculf” might have existed, but that his exis-
tence is indemonstrable and largely unnecessary,
and O’Loughlin considered that “Arculf” might very
well be only “a literary device” created by Adom­
nán  to endow his text with greater authority.64
In O’Loughlin’s view, Adomnán’s work should
not be understood primarily as a travelogue but
as an aid to scriptural interpretation, as indeed
it appears to have been used by Bede and early
medieval authors.65 Not all scholars have accepted
O’Loughlin’s fundamental challenge to a literal
reading of Adomnán’s De locis sanctis, as Hoyland
and Waidler have now done. Rodney Aist vocifer-
ously defended against O’Loughlin’s critique the
older view that in Adomnán’s text we have “a trea-
sure chest for the Holy Land scholar…the ‘truthful
and reliable witness’ of Arculf.”66 The defensive
argument sometimes requires leaps of faith. For
example, the close similarity between the Greek
author Epiphanius and Adomnán are taken as
“curious parallels” supporting the existence of an
actual cloth sudarium in Jerusalem by the seventh
century, even though Aist himself cited a passage
in the Acts of the Apostles (10:1899–1916) that
could have inspired each independently. After cit-
ing several examples of “Arculf” stories told by
Adomnán that may be supported by other evi-
dence, Aist argued that “there is reason to place
confidence in him when his is the only voice.”67
63 Herren, Cosmography, notes that his author refers to
the Arab sack of Cyprus in 649 and a treaty concerning
Cyprus in 688.
64 O’Loughlin, Adomnán, pp. 61–63; Chatillon, “Arculfe,”
p. 136: “pour donner plus de poids et comme une
authenticité supplémentaire à l’ouvrage.”
65 O’Loughlin, Adomnán, pp. 16–41.
66 Aist, “Adomnán, Arculf and the Source Material of De
locis sanctis,” (as above, n. 15), pp. 162–180 at 164.
67 Aist, “Adomnán, Arculf and the Source Material of De
locis sanctis,” p. 170.
chapter 3
Oddly, at one point Aist has “Arculf” disagreeing
with the text by Adomnán in which his account is
allegedly transmitted, since Adomnán “curiously”
follows Jerome concerning the alleged burial site
of Adam even though “Arculf” would have known
and presumably told him the quite different story
current among later Jerusalem sources.68
Aist’s real concern is limited to Christian
Jerusalem, and he makes only passing reference to
the matter at hand here, the discussion of the
Islamic presence there. First he says that “regard-
less of what Adomnán thought about the ‘Saracens’
and their place of worship, his mention of their
orationis domus in the former place of the temple
is a rather significant historical reference.”69 Again
such a conclusion in effect jettisons the entire
project of reading sources critically – of course it
matters what Adomnán thought about the state-
ments he makes! More interesting is the long dis-
cussion of what Aist terms the “baptism of
Jerusalem,” the event told in Adomnán’s first chap-
ter, the one concluded by the description of the
“Saracen” place of prayer. Aist related this narra-
tive to the “Encaenia Ecclesiae,” a Jerusalem festi-
val related to the dedication of the Holy Sepulchre
complex. Since “Arculf” in Adomnán does not
relate the events in the manner attested in other
sources, Aist concludes that for this festival
“Arculf” was not an eyewitness, and related the
events “second-hand.” Part of Aist’s problem with
this story is what he himself describes and clearly
sees in the text, which as told by Adomnán, “ironi-
cally debases Jerusalem” and is “most peculiar”
and “distorts the character of the festival.” As we
68 Aist, “Adomnán, Arculf and the Source Material of De
locis sanctis,” pp. 172–174. The odd conclusion of the
passage is that “Adomnán departed from the Arculf
material despite the fact that the bishop’s testimony
was a more accurate description of contemporary
Jerusalem.” Yet our only knowledge of “Arculf” is
Adomnán, so how can “Arculf’s” testimony be “fact”
when Adomnán disagrees with what Aist thinks
“Arculf” would have known.
69 Aist, “Adomnán, Arculf and the Source Material of De
locis sanctis,” p. 164 note 14.
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The Problem of “Arculf” and the Earliest Mosque in Jerusalem
will see, Aist here grasps clearly what most previ-
ous scholars have missed, Limor being an excep-
tion, that this story is odd and highly pejorative,
but he cannot grasp its significance because he
does not consider that the target of the invective is
not Jerusalem’s Christian festival, but its new
Muslim rulers, as will be shown at a later point in
this chapter.
Adomnán on the “Saracen House
of Prayer”
Adomnán’s active role in the authorship of his De
locis sanctis should not be overlooked; as David
Woods recently observed, beyond Adomnán hav-
ing been its author, everything else about the text
is uncertain.70 It is Adomnán’s text that we actu-
ally have, and that must be our point of depar­
ture, whether or not “Arculf” existed, or was a more
or less reliable witness being, in the final analysis,
a bit of a sideshow, which has distracted scholars
from looking closely at the text. Adomnán does
seem to have included plans of some of the build-
ings to which he refers, and the early manuscripts
have such drawings, although not including the
“Saracen house of prayer.” Perhaps its absence is
because Adomnán had no actual information or
had little interest in it, or both of the above. Sites
where Christian pilgrims might want to go are a
different matter. For example, the earliest manu-
script, a mid-ninth-century copy now in Vienna,
has drawings with color and inscriptions of the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre complex (Fig.  3.1),
and of such less renowned structures as the equal-
arm-cross-shaped building at Sichem that con-
tained Jacob’s well, and had doors at the end of
each of the four arms (Fig. 3.2).71 Although in the
70 Woods, “On the circumstances of Adomnán’s composi-
tion of De locis sanctis,” in Wooding et al., Adomnán of
Iona (as above, n. 15), at 193.
71 Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. 458
(olim Salisburgensis 174), fols. 4v and 17v, briefly
described in Meehan, Adamnan’s De Locis Sanctis,
47
case of the Holy Sepulchre Adomnán explicitly
refers in his text to the drawing, which he claims to
have been based on “Arculf’s” sketch in wax,72
according to Tomás Ó Carragáin, the architectural
information must be understood as an Insular
document, not a transcription of a Jerusalem real-
ity, which “may be partly based on the eyewitness
account of a Gaulish bishop called Arculf.”73 One
passage from Ó Carragáin’s discussion deserves
quotation here:
“The discrepancies between Adomnán’s plan of
the Holy Sepulchre and the complex itself
(Fig. 3.3), are of particular interest. They remind us
that the plan has been filtered through an Insular
mind. It therefore represents the visual conver-
gence of the Holy Sepulchre complex as it stood in
the seventh century with an Irish cleric’s concept
of what a sacred site should look like. For example,
especially in the copy in the Österreichische
Nationalbibliothek, Vienna [cod. 458, fol. 4v], the
various chapels are shown, not as integrated com-
ponents of a single building complex, but as free-
standing, unicameral, east-west-oriented structures,
usually (i.e. the church of Calvary and that of the
Chalice) with approximate proportions of 1: 1.5
and just one doorway in the west walls. Even the
Constantinian basilica at the east end of the com-
plex is depicted as a simple structure: its actual
apse and aisles have been eliminated.”
Even before O’Louhglin’s systematic demonstra-
tion, David Woods provided an extended review of
Adomnán’s text and his supposed Arculfian eye-
witness source, arguing that much of Adomnán’s
information derived, not as he claimed from an
eyewitness account, but from previous written
p. 30, shown respectively as his plate opposite p. 47 and
frontispiece.
72 In Book i, Chapter 2, at the end, in Meehan, Adamnan’s
De Locis Sanctis, p. 47.
73 Tomás Ó Carragáin, Churches in Early Medieval Ireland.
Architecture, Ritual and Memory (New Haven and
London, 2010), p. 35 and fig. 36.
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48
sources, some of which have apparently been
lost.74 In this context Woods specifically discussed
Adomnán’s passage describing the mosque on the
Temple Mount, suggesting that a building accom-
modating 3000 is simply not credible, especially if
built from wood.75 He further suggested that the
Latin word tabulae for the “upright boards” sup-
porting the cross-beams is probably a “mistransla-
tion of the Greek term στήλη” [stele], which his
[lost hypothetical Greek textual] source would
have “used to describe columns.”76 Thus in Woods’
view, Adomnán’s text describes (poorly) a mosque
74 David Woods, “Arculf’s luggage: the sources for
Adomnán’s De locis sanctis,” Ériu 52 (2002), 25–52, a ref-
erence brought to my attention by Teresa Nevins.
Woods follows Thomas O’Loughlin, “The exegetical
purpose of Adomnán’s De locis sanctis,” Cambridge
Medieval Celtic Studies 24 (1992), 37–54, in recognizing
that Adomnán’s text had a purpose that explains some
of its oddities such as description of Constantinople
but not Rome, while recognizing that some portions of
the text, especially Book iii are not based on any eye-
witness account but sometimes garbled versions of
earlier texts known to be or plausibly argued to have
been available to Adomnán. Woods also makes an
ingenious but at least to me unpersuasive argument
(pp. 43–47) that Adomnán misread a Frankish source
(the Gesta abbatum Fontenellensium 10.2–3. See (Fernand
Lohier and R.P.J. Laporte, Gesta sanctorum patrum
Fontanellensis Coenobii [Rouen, 1931]) referring to an
Arnulf, not an Arculf (an otherwise unattested name),
and that this Arnulf is presumably the person who had
traveled to the East perhaps in the 640s and brought
back the lost anonymous life of Constantine and per-
haps other texts and described the newly constructed
mosque on the Temple mount.
75 Woods, “Arculf’s luggage,” pp. 40–43, citing Meehan’s
edition and translation, as given above. Woods’ point is
well taken, if one were to imagine a structure accom-
modating 3000 worshippers inside, but does not allow
for the possibility that only a portion, conceivably a
small portion, of it was covered, and most of the wor-
shippers would have been under the open sky, the kind
of “primitive” mosque structure with enclosing wall
and perhaps a portico along one side that is envisaged
to the scholarship on early Islamic architecture.
76 Woods, “Arculf’s luggage,” pp. 41–42.
chapter 3
that “looked exactly like that which certainly
existed there by the end of the seventh century: a
hypostyle hall on columns.” At this point the circu-
larity becomes vicious, for the “certainly” in
Woods’ text refers explicitly to Oleg Grabar’s dis-
cussion of the first mosque,77 which makes clear
that the only evidence for such a building is
Adomnán’s text and the reports of “Arculf.” The
Insular textual source’s reliability is apparently
guaranteed by the fact that its reliability has been
accepted in the scholarly literature about
Jerusalem; in the most recent study, Aist also cited
Oleg Grabar at the beginning of his article as “fit-
tingly describing Arculf as the ‘most studied’ of the
Christian pilgrims of the Early Islamic period.”78
As discussed at length in the preceding chapter,
knowledge about the location and form of that
structure, and of mosques of the seventh century
anywhere in the Islamic world, must be indirect,
for we have no surviving buildings and no estab-
lished archaeological remains until we reach the
eighth century.79
Grabar, Woods’ only source, was stating the
common view that the mosque was located where
the Aqsa mosque is today, and that view is to a
considerable degree based on the reading of
Adomnán by Creswell and successors. The earliest
references to mosques recoverable from Islamic
textual sources and from archaeology are consis-
tent with the use of wooden supports for a
seventh-century mosque in Jerusalem, especially
if we are talking about a mosque erected in the
time of ʿUmar or ʿUthman rather than the time of
77 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, pp. 117–122.
78 Aist, “Adomnán, Arculf and the Source Material of De
locis sanctis,” pp. 162–180.
79 Jeremy Johns reported in 1999 that Julian Raby would
shortly publish evidence that the earliest level of the
current building, identified by Robert as the early
eighth-century mosque of ʿAbd al-Malik and his son al-
Walid I was instead the seventh-century building dat-
able before 684 (“pre-Marwanid”), and even published
a plan of the remains; see Johns, “House of the Prophet”
(as above, n. 9)esp. 62–64 and fig. 9. Raby’s study seems
never to have been published.
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The Problem of “Arculf” and the Earliest Mosque in Jerusalem
Muʿawiya.80 Thus the structure described by
Adomnán is possible, even plausible, but far from
reliable evidence for the Jerusalem mosque, and
some scholars have detected hints of troubles
about accepting the accuracy of this text. In 1997
Hoyland quoted the description of the Jerusalem
mosque by “Arculf”, which he accepted without
question, and whose context in the text he did not
discuss further.81 Yet at another place, in the con-
text of the credibility of sources for the period in
general, and clearly troubled by the obviously con-
demnatory content of “Arculf’s” description,
Hoyland argued that the
“unimpeachable character[of] the report of Arculf
about the Arabs’ house of prayer in Jerusalem of
the 670s…does not mean that we should accept
Arculf’s report at face value, as have done a num-
ber of scholars who have consequently dismissed
ʿUmar’s mosque as, in Creswell’s words, “a mean
structure.” That it was constructed “in a crude
manner” is a value judgment, but that it was rect-
angular and built with planks and large beams
over ruins are descriptive facts. It is of course a
common ploy to claim to be an eyewitness, thus
adding weight to one’s testimony, but in the case
of Jacob [of Edessa, who reported the Muslims
praying east in the 660s] their claim is supported
by the intimate detail and unstereotypical nature
of their reports.”82
80 See for important recent discussions Johns, “House of
the Prophet,” pp. 59–112, Robert Hillenbrand, Islamic
Architecture. Form, function and meaning (Edinburgh,
1994), esp. pp. 33–44 and 66–73, and Richard
Ettinghausen, Oleg Grabar and Marilyn Jenkins-
Madina, Islamic Art and Architecture 650-1250 (New
Haven and London, 2001), esp. pp. 20–21.
81 Robert G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others saw it. A sur-
vey and evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian
writings on early Islam, Studies in Late Antiquity and
early Islam 13 (Princeton nj, 1997), p. 221. For the “facts”
he refers to the unpublished work by Julian Raby on
the earliest structures on the Haram discussed in a pre-
ceding note and in chapter 2 of this work.
82 Hoyland, Seeing Islam, p. 593 and footnote 6.
49
I find Hoyland’s analysis unsatisfactory on two
counts. First, the “convincing detail” argument is
in my view specious in principle; forgers and writ-
ers know this principle and provide plenty of
detail, the classic examples being the Shield of
Achilles or Aeneas ekphraseis in Homer and Vergil.
The whole point of learning to write a fine descrip-
tion, fundamental in late antique educational
practices transmitted to the Christian and also the
Insular worlds, was that it should be filled with
“convincing detail” whether fictional or not.83
Secondly, that one can separate value judgments
from “facts” is a claim difficult to substantiate at
this level. In any event, Hoyland did not read the
“Arculf” text as something written by and trans-
mitted through Adomnán (for example, his index
lists all the citations under the name Arculf, and
Adomnán is listed only once, introducing “Arculf’s”
evidence), and he did not put the description into
its context within the text, and evidently failed to
recognize that the supposedly “unstereotypical”
nature of the report in effect assumed that the text
should be seen within the genre of panegyric
rather than of diatribe. It is in my view indeed ste-
reotypical, when seen in context, for it is a diatribe,
literally linking the first mosque in Jerusalem with
dung and opposition to the Christian God, a criti-
cal point to which I shall return.
More recently, Hoyland’s joint study with
Waidler acknowledged the force of O’Loughlin’s
critique of a literal acceptance of the text, but reaf-
firmed belief in the usefulness, indeed reliability, of
Adomnán’s description of the “Saracen house of
prayer” in Jerusalem. They noted the apparent dis-
crepancy between Adomnán and other sources,
and suggested that the clear description of a
wooden structure, earlier accepted as a “descriptive
fact” seemed more likely to be inaccurate, perhaps
83 For a nice example of the increasing detail and speci-
ficity of the narrative accounts of a mythical “event,”
Galileo’s alleged dropping of weights from the “leaning
tower” of Pisa, see the nice overview in Nicholas
Shrady, Tilt: A Skewed History of the Tower of Pisa (New
York, 2003), pp. 95–114.
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50
derived from a false assumption by Adomnán
based on the sacred structures with which he was
familiar in Ireland, while leaving unchallenged the
assertion that the structure would have accommo-
dated 3000 worshippers.84 Hoyland certainly
deserves credit for revising his views in response to
O’Loughlin’s critique. However, his new position
has him picking and choosing among the state-
ments attributed to “Arculf,” and leaving one to
wonder at the grounds upon which some otherwise
unsupported statements are to be accepted, and
other unsupported statements rejected. Surely the
“eyewitness” testimony of a visitor to the alleged
structure would more reliably report whether it
was made of wood or stone than the number of
worshippers it could contain. How would any
observer come up with such a figure?
No one has identified a textual source for
Adomnán’s description of the early Muslim place
of prayer in Jerusalem, perhaps because having
assumed that it was an “eyewitness account” no
one has looked for a textual source. The location
on the Temple mount, and the statement about
the wall in the east, likely derive from Eucherius,
which really only leaves as “new” information in
the passage only that Muslims worshipped there,
and that the structure in which they worshipped
was a poorly built (uili fabricati) quadrangular,
probably or implicitly wooden, building that could
accommodate three thousand worshippers. The
first point is true; Muslims did worship on the
Haram al-Sharif in the seventh century. Adomnán
had some source for that much information,
whether “Arculf” or not. As far as the more detailed
information is concerned, the adjective uilis is
highly pejorative, whatever Adomnán meant by it.
Elsewhere in De locis sanctis he uses it in a way
consistent with Meehan’s rendering as “roughly.”
The Oxford Latin Dictionary gives among its defini-
tions cheap, worthless, contemptible, of little
importance, associated with low life.85 Should we
84 Hoyland and Waidler, “Adomnán’s De Locis Sanctis” (as
above, n. 19), p. 798.
85 Oxford Latin Dictionary, pp. 2062–2063.
chapter 3
take Adomnán’s pejorative term literally? Its con-
text within the work strongly argues against so
doing.
The Context of the Description of the
“Saracen House of Prayer” in De locis
sanctis
The many scholars who have wanted to accept
Adomnán’s description as reliable historical evi-
dence for the earliest mosque in Jerusalem have
consistently ignored its context within the work as
a whole. They have almost always taken it from
secondary sources or florilegia that have not
included the larger context, so the mistake is
understandable, indeed traditional, but no less
mistaken for being so. Taking a passage out of con-
text is always dangerous, and in this case particu-
larly so. The passage follows immediately upon
a much longer description of the annual event
that, immediately after crowds of people gather on
12 September in Jerusalem for buying and selling,
and the city is filled with the filth and stench of
the discharges from the merchants’ camels, horses,
asses and oxen, an immense downpour washes the
city clean, pouring out through the eastern gates
and entering the valley to the east. Adomnán
terms this cleansing flood “wonderful to relate
(mirum dictu).”86 He also refers to it as the “bap-
tism of Jerusalem” (Hierusolimitanam bati­ za­
tionem),87 and thus referring to a fundamental
sacrament that differentiates Christians from all
others. The relatively few scholars that have
addressed this passage have found it strange. Aist
thought it ironic and peculiar and negative.88
O’Loughlin called attention to precisely this pas-
sage as a “signum in the Johannine sense, included
for exegetical purposes.”89 Hoyland and Waidler
86 Meehan, Adamnan’s De locis sanctis, pp. 40–41.
87 Meehan, Adamnan’s De locis sanctis, pp. 42–43.
88 Aist, “Adomnán, Arculf and the Source Material of De
locis sanctis,” pp. 176–179.
89 O’Loughlin, “Exegetical purpose”, pp. 43–44.
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The Problem of “Arculf” and the Earliest Mosque in Jerusalem
noted that the placement of the description of the
Saracen house of prayer immediately after this
passage is “odd” and “surprising.”90 According to
Adomnán’s text, the filth is taken away from the
major Christian sanctuaries in the western part of
the city to flow by the ancient site of the temple of
the Jews now used by the “Saracens.” Is it unrea-
sonable to suggest that the description of the latter
is primarily designed by Adomnán not to be accu-
rate but to be negative? Should we not consider
that the “some manner of ruined remains” (quas-
dam ruinarum reliquias) over which the new
prayer hall was built might, at least in Adomnán’s
mind, more plausibly be related to the ruins of the
Temple, whose destruction he would have known
from Christ’s prediction in the Gospels (Matthew
24, 2), than from Flavius Josephus’s or some other
author’s description of ruins along the southern
edge of the temple platform?91
Indeed, the “dung” theme associated with non-
Christians with which Adomnán, strangely, opens
his text on the “holy places” recurs at the end of his
book as well, as no one has previously observed.
The very last, and very short, chapter at the end of
Book iii is devoted to the terrible ground-shaking
thundering and blazing of Uulganus mons
(“Mt. Vulcan”), Mt. Etna in Sicily, on “Arculf’s”
homeward voyage, but the penultimate chapter
transmits a strange story allegedly stemming from
Constantinople.92 Adomnán has “Arculf” tell us
that a “Jewish unbeliever” (Iudeus incredulus) “at
the instigation of the devil” (diabulo instigante)
removed a “picture of the blessed Mary” from the
90 Hoyland and Waidler, “Adomnán’s De Locis Sanctis” (as
above, n. 19), pp. 798–799.
91 For a discussion of the structures in this area during the
Late Antique period, and what might have been present
at the time of the Muslim conquest, see Cyril Mango,
“The Temple Mount ad 614–638,” in Julian Raby and
Jeremy Johns, ed., Bayt al-Maqdis. ʿAbd al-Malik’s
Jerusalem, Oxford Studies in Islamic Art, ix, Part 1
(Oxford, 1992), pp. 1–16. Grafman and Rosen-Ayalon,
“Two Great Syrian Umayyad Mosques” (as above, n. 17)
fundamentally depend upon this interpretation.
92 Meehan, Adamnan’s De locis sanctis, pp. 118–119.
51
wall of a house, and ran to the public privy nearby,
“where it is customary to dispose of the soil from
human bodies” (ubi humana stercora…degeri
solent), and placed the image therein, and himself
“evacuated” upon it (purgans proprii stercus).
Subsequently the image was found by a “fortunate
man, zealous for the things of the Lord” (felix homo
zelotipus Dominicarum rerum), who cleaned it and
gave it a place of honor in his house, and it thereaf-
ter gave “an issue of genuine oil from the tablet
with the picture” (imaginis tabula uerum ebulliens
distillat simper oleum), which “Arculf” when in the
city “saw with his own eyes” (propriis conspexit
oculis). In the manner of Roman and a fortiori late
antique art prose, Adomnán has book-ended his
text on the “holy places” with two variants on the
theme of unbelievers and dung, associated with
Muslims and Jews respectively, dung miraculously
washed away. This is hagiography, and diatribe,
not history.
Should we take literally Adomnán’s assertion
that the prayer hall of the Saracens would accom-
modate 3000 people? Wood apparently thought
the number not credible in a crude wooden build-
ing.93 Although several scholars have used this
number to calculate the size of the supposed
building,94 no one, to the best of my knowledge,
has considered the possible source of the specific
number of “Saracens” allegedly accommodated in
the prayer hall, apparently assuming that the
number is a “fact.” Even if one accepts everything
about “Arculf” as an eyewitness source, how would
he have come up with this figure? Tabulating the
size of a crowd is notoriously difficult, and modern
93 Woods, “Arculf’s luggage”, pp. 40–43.
94 Grafman and Rosen-Ayalon, “Two Great Syrian
Umayyad Mosques,” at 1 and note 2; Andrew Marsham.
“The Architecture of Allegiance in Early Islamic Late
Antiquity: The Accession of Muʿawiya in Jerusalem,
Ca. 661 ce,” in Alexander Beihammer, Stavroula Con­
stantinou, and Maria Parani, eds., Court Ceremonies
and Rituals of Power in Byzantium and the Medieval
Mediterranean, The Medieval Mediterranean. Peoples,
Economies and Cultures 400–1500, 98 (Leiden, 2013),
pp. 87–112 at 99.
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52
estimates reliably betray their ideological biases.
Why specifically “three thousand men,” tria homi-
num milia? The number seems plausible for a large
mosque, although how many Muslims would ever
be at prayer in Jerusalem is very much an open
question, as discussed in the previous chapter,
which marshals the evidence against any large
Muslim population in the city during the seventh
century. If one asks, however, where Adomnán
could have found this particular number, if not
from an “eyewitness” estimate by “Arculf” the pos-
sible answers are not only interesting but also
strongly argue that the number is not a reliable
report but a symbolic number (O’Loughlin’s sig-
num) with pejorative significance. I have found
the three words tria hominum milia in that exact
order in no earlier Latin text, that exact order
being to the best of my knowledge found only in
Adomnán and, obviously following Adomnán, in
Bede’s De locis sanctis, which uses exactly the same
words in that order. For the more “normal” word
order tria milia hominum there are a very few cita-
tions in Caesar, and one in Orosius,95 neither of
which are particularly likely sources, especially as
there is no evidence that Adomnán knew, or would
have had access to, either of those authors’ works,
much less would have had any reason to draw
upon them in this connection.
The text of the Bible is a more likely source,
especially given Meehan’s observation that the
text of De locis sanctis as a whole, not surprisingly,
shows Adomnán’s intimate knowledge and fre-
quent use of the Bible,96 and O’Loughlin’s strong
argument that Adomnán’s text was primarily
designed for Biblical exegesis. I have been able to
find only one place where the exact wording tria
milia hominum occurs, and it is a most interesting
95 Orosius, Historiae adversum paganos 5, 12, 10, where
Consul Opimius caused three thousand supporters of
C. Gracchus to be put to death, tria milia hominum sup-
pliciis necauit. Carolus [Karl Friedrich Wilhelm]
Zangemeister, ed., Pauli Orosii Historiae adversum
paganos libri vii, , Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum
latinorum 5 (Vienna, 1882), p. 305.
96 Meehan, Adamnan’s De locis sanctis, p. 14.
chapter 3
place.97 In Exodus 32:28, after Moses comes down
from the mountain with the tablets of the Law
and finds that Aaron and the Israelites have been
worshipping the golden calf, he orders the sons of
Levi to attack their brothers and neighbors, and
three thousand men, tria milia hominum, among
the sinful Israelites are killed.98 In a few other
places the Bible specifies three thousand people,
but they are either three thousand souls, animae
(Acts 2:41), or chosen soldiers of Saul, electorum
virorum (1 Samuel 24:2, also a variant in 1 Samuel
26:2), or soldiers of Joshua, again virorum (Joshua
7:4) sent against the men of Ai and defeated by
them. Most interesting, however, because it speci-
fies three thousand assorted people, in this case
both men and women rather than men only, tria
milia utriusque sexus, is the scene of Samson
destroying the pillared “house” in Gaza, bringing it
down upon himself and his enemies (Judges 16:27)
(Fig. 3.4).99 The Vulgate text refers to the building
97 Vulgate citations from Bonifatius Fischer, Jean
Gribomont, H.F.D. Sparks and W. Thiele, eds., Biblia
Sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem (Stuttgart, 1983).
98 Note that Exodus 32, the only Biblical place that has the
precise formula tria milia hominum employed by
Adomnán, is also apparently the text that Walafrid
Strabo had in mind when he wrote his diatribe against
the golden statue of Theoderic in his De imagine Tetrici,
written in 829. (See Michael Herren, “The ‘De imagine
Tetrici’ of Walafrid Strabo: Edition and Translation,”
Journal of Medieval Latin 1(1991), 118–139, and com-
ments in Michael Herren, “Walafrid Strabo’s ‘De imag-
ine Tetrici’: an interpretation,” in Richard North and
Tette Hofstra, eds., Latin culture and Medieval Germanic
Europe (Groeningen, 1992), pp. 25–41.
99 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, cod. 638, fol. 15v;
reproduced in Sidney C. Cockerell and John Plummer,
Old Testament Miniatures: A Medieval Picture Book with
283 Paintings from the creation too the Life of David
(New York 1969), p. 84. For a more recent study of the
manuscript, including its time in the collection of Shah
ʻAbbas, see William Noel and Daniel Weiss, eds., The
Book of Kings: Art, War, and the Morgan Library’s
Medieval Picture Bible (London and Baltimore, 2002).
For the illustration of this episode from the book
of Judges in Greek, see Kurt Weitzmann, Massimo
Bernabó, and Rita Tarasconi, The Byzantine Octateuchs,
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The Problem of “Arculf” and the Earliest Mosque in Jerusalem
with unfortunate vagueness as a domus, often
translated “house,” but immediately before this
passage, in which the Gazans made sport with
their enemy Samson, they thank their god Dagon,
and offer a great sacrifice to him. The “house” then
is at least closely associated with a presumed tem-
ple of Dagon. It clearly has large columns, colum-
nas quibus innitebatur domus, and of course it is
near to Jerusalem and fated to be destroyed. The
context closely fits Adomnán’s manifestly negative
The Illustrations in the Manuscripts of the Septuagint 2
(Princeton, 1999), p. 245, figs.1530–1532.
These manuscripts are all eleventh-century and
later, and although Weitzmann thought them all
descended from a much earlier model, this view was
rebutted by John Lowden, The Octateuchs. A Study in
Byzantine Manuscript Illustration (University Park pa,
1992). That there were Samson illustrations available in
Cilicia, in southeastern Anatolia is clear from the frag-
mentary remains at Misis/Mopsuestia of a remarkable
probably fifth-century mosaic, for which see Ernst
Kitzinger, “Observations on the Samson Floor in
Mopsuestia,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 27(1973), 133–44,
at 140–141 and figs. 5 and B xi. Kitzinger thought that
the mosaic, laid out in a continuous strip in an aisle,
supported the suggestion that there might have been
illustrated rolls in the late antique period, and indeed
Henri Grégoire, Meyer Schapiro and Cyril Mango have
all proposed that such an illustrated roll, inspired by
Roman triumphal columns, might have been made in
relation to Heraclius’ reconquest of Jerusalem and the
“Promised Land” in 630; see Lowden, p. 106 and n. 15 for
bibliography. Recently Samson scenes have been found
in two syagogues in Galilee, at Wadi Hamam and at
Huqoq. At Wadi Hamam among other images of tri-
umph, Samson is shown killing Philistines with the
jawbone of an ass; see Uzi Leibner and Shulamit Miller,
“A Figural Mosaic in the synagogue at Khirbet Wadi
Mamam,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 23(2010),
238–264. At Huqoq at least two Samson scenes have
now been found, datable probably to the fifth century,
Samson tying torches to the tails of foxes, and Samson
carrying the gates of Gaza; see Matthew J. Grey and Jodi
Magness, “Finding Samson in Byzantine Galilee: the
2011–2012 Archaeo­logical Excavations at Huqoq,” Studies
in the Bible and Antiquity 5(2013), 1–30 at 18–21, and
http://huqoqexcavationproject.org/reports/(accessed
1/20/15) with additional literature.
53
picture of the mosque in Jerusalem, and is, it
seems to me, at least a very likely source for the
specific number of worshippers reported there, a
number that would almost certainly carry nega-
tive connotations to an author steeped in the
Biblical text.100
Adomnán’s Description as a Diatribe
The thematic associations swirling around
Adomnán’s picture of the early Muslim occupa-
tion in Jerusalem constitute a trope, and a diatribe,
and should not be taken as credible descriptive
evidence. This ought not to surprise anyone.
Eastern Christian sources commonly cast contem-
porary events in terms of Biblical typology. Yuri
Stoyanov noted the importance of Christian
Biblical typology for the writings by Strategios and
Sophronius on contemporary events in Jerusalem,
for example linking the 614 Persian capture of
Jerusalem with the Babylonian sack in 586 bce.101
100 According to O’Loughlin, Adomnán and the Holy Places,
pp. 246–9, his appendix on books available to Adomnán
on Iona, no commentaries on Exodus or Judges
were available to Adomnán. Hoyland and Waidler,
“Adomnán’s De Locis Sanctis,” after noting the odd
placement of the passage describing the Muslim house
of prayer observe that Adomnán is perhaps “hinting”
that God will not be “permitting it to sully for much
longer this otherwise largely Christian city”.
101 Yuri Stoyanov, Defenders and Enemies of the True
Cross. The Sasanian Conquest of Jerusalem in 614
and Byzantine Ideology of Anti-Persian Warfare,
Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften,
Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte
819, Veröffentlichungen zur Iranistik 61 (Vienna, 2011),
p. 23. See also David Martin Olster, “Ideological
Transformation and the Evolution of Imperial
Presentation in the Wake of Islam’s Victory,” in
Emmanuouela Grypeou, Mark N. Swanson, and David
Thomas, eds., The Encounter of Eastern Christianity
with Early Islam, The History of Christian-Muslim
Relations  5 (Leiden, 2006), pp. 45–71 at 53–58, and
Günter Stemberger, “Jerusalem in Early Seventh
Century Aspirations of Christians and Jews,” in Lee
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54
Perhaps one ought not to be surprised when find-
ing the same in Adomnán’s reference to “tria milia
hominum.” Other sources can be clearly seen to
put forth a deliberately pejorative view of the new
Islam rulers that we surely ought not to take liter-
ally. For example, the “reconstituted” chronicle of
Dionysius of Tel Mahre (Jacobite [i.e. Syrian
Orthodox] Patriarch 818–845  ce), likely drawing
on the earlier work of Theophilus of Edessa, has a
long passage telling how Caliph ʿUmar arrived in
the city with filthy clothes, and refused all of the
Patriarch Sophronius’s attempts to give him some-
thing better. Then, according to this account,
“ʿUmar set about establishing an Arab house of
prayer on the site of the temple of Solomon,” and
finally left the city to return to Medina, and imme-
diately after that “the pestilence was unleashed
throughout the land of Palestine.”102 Theophanes’
chronicle in Greek also insists upon the filthy gar-
ments of the Caliph when he entered the city,
which the chronicler takes as evidence of his hyp-
ocritical claims to piety.103 Adomnán’s account of
the crude “Saracen” prayer house, linked with the
divine miracle washing filth out of Jerusalem,
plays with the same elements. Adomnán’s text is
the earliest of the Christian versions, and surely
few historians would wish to adopt the position
that these hostile accounts are independent wit-
nesses that must reflect an underlying reality. If
they are truly independent, then they share a
crude approach to denigrating the “other,” but it
Levine, ed., Jerusalem: Its Sanctity and Centrality to
Judaism, Christianity and Islam (New York, 1999),
pp. 260–273 at 262–264.
102 In Andrew Palmer, The Seventh Century in West-Syrian
Chronicles, Translated Texts for Historians 15 (Liver­
pool, 1993), pp. 161–163, and Robert G. Hoyland,
Theophilus of Edessa’s Chronicle and the Circulation of
Historical Knowledge in Late Antiquity and Early Islam
(Liverpool, 2011), p. 117.
103 Cyril Mango and Roger Scott, trans., The Chronicle of
Theophanes. Byzantine and Near Eastern History ad
284–813 (Oxford, 1997), p. 471. For a briefer and more
accessible version see the older translation by Harry
Turtledove, trans., The Chronicle of Theophanes
(Philadelphia, 1982), p. 39.
chapter 3
seems to me more likely that they stem from an
early but all-too-quickly established anti-Muslim
polemic. Adomnán would presumably have picked
up this polemical attitude from the oral source or
sources upon which he depended for reports of
Jerusalem in recent years.
There is no getting around the paucity of our
sources for early Islamic Jerusalem, and failing to
recognize their complexity is not helpful, and can
easily lead to supporting our preconceptions or
prejudices. Meehan’s remark, on the basis of the
Adomnán text that he edited, that “the Saracen
building, though very large, was clearly undistin-
guished [and] probably run up hastily” supports,
ironically, one view, and not intentionally a pejora-
tive one, of early Islamic culture, namely that
under the first “rightly guided caliphs” the tradi-
tion was radically focused on spiritual rather than
material things, and that corruption of the values
associated with the Prophet Muhammad came in
with the Umayyad dynasty and their magnificent
buildings, and their taste for wine and other
aspects of fine living.104 For complex and manifold
reasons, scholars medieval and modern, both
within and outside the Islamic tradition, have
tended to support a view that the Prophet
Muhammad and his early Companions, and his
successors as leaders of the Muslim community,
were generally abstemious, opposed on moral and
religious grounds to ostentatious display. Thus the
report of Adomnán allegedly based on “Arculf”
about the rude earliest house of prayer in Jerusalem
is easily accepted within that controlling para-
digm, in spite of its many oddities, if the structure
is associated, as has most often been the case, with
104 For the historiographical problem in general see
R. Stephen Humphreys, Islamic History. A Framework
for Inquiry (rev. ed. Princeton, 1991), passim, for exam-
ple p. 115: “Our sources for the Abbasid Revolution [and
the supplanting of the Umayyads] are plainly as parti-
san and tendentious as any body of texts could be.” For
a vivid example of a literal reading of Umayyad corrup-
tion derived substantially from such sources see Robert
W. Hamilton, Walid and his Friends: an Umayyad
Tragedy, Oxford Studies in Islamic Art 6 (London and
New York, 1988).
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The Problem of “Arculf” and the Earliest Mosque in Jerusalem
Caliph ʿUmar. It is the story one expects to hear:
take away the obvious, albeit seldom noted, hostil-
ity of the author, make “rude” stand for “simple,”
and the text can be swallowed and assimilated as a
fair, indeed an indispensable bit of evidence, not
only for the specific question of the earliest
mosque in Jerusalem, but more broadly for the
paradigm of early simplicity and subsequent
Umayyad luxury. To give just one example illus-
trating the theme of an early and virtuous caliphal
simplicity, al-Tabari related that when he set out
for Syria from Medina for the first time, Caliph
ʿUmar sent to the amirs of the various provinces,
asking that they should meet him at al-Jabiyah.
Three amirs came (Yazid, Abu ʿUbayda, and
Khalid), all riding on horses, as was ʿUmar himself,
according to an immediately preceding passage,
but the amirs are described as “clad in brocade and
silk.” ʿUmar dismounts and pelts them with stones,
saying “How quickly were you turned away from
your senses! Is it me that you are coming to meet
in this attire? You have been eating well for two
years. How quickly has gluttony led you astray! By
God, if you did this at the head of two hundred
men, I should have replaced you with others.”105
Such stories may or may not be historically true,
whatever “truth” might be taken to mean in such
circumstances, but the simplicity theme is also a
trope, a topos, a commonplace, call it what one
will. Surely, like most tropes, it likely has some ele-
ment of validity, and must have had at least enough
plausibility to be have been worth recording and
transmitting. It certainly tells us that later tradi-
tion contrasted an early virtuous simplicity with a
later sinful corruption deeply displeasing to the
105 Yohanan Friedmann, trans., The Battle of al-Qadisiyyah
and the Conquest of Syria and Palestine, a.d. 635–637/
a.h. 14–15, The History of al-Tabari (Taʾrikh al-rusul
waʾl-muluk) 12 (Albany ny, 1992), pp. 188–189 (2402).
Heribert Busse cites other versions of the story that
have the caliphal pronouncement against finery taking
place in the camp outside Jerusalem, or even on the
Haram, in connection with the establishment of the
first mosque there; see Heribert Busse, “’Omar’s Image
as the Conqueror of Jerusalem,” Jerusalem Studies in
Arabic and Islam 8(1986), 149–168 at 163.
55
upholders of pious tradition, and associated the
latter with the Umayyad caliphs. That Muslims
worshipped on the Haram for two generations, in
what was evidently a great religious if not also nec-
essarily political center, in a structure so primitive
and ramshackle that it could disappear from the
ground and also from memory without leaving a
trace, makes a nice contrasting pole for the notion
that later Umayyads enjoyed la dolce vita of wine,
women and song.106 The latter picture presumably
also must have had enough plausibility to have
been recorded and transmitted, but it seems to me
dangerous when taken literally.
The Umayyads have long suffered from a nega-
tive press, nearly all of which stems from the
period after their overthrow by the Abbasids.107
Stephen Judd has recently argued that the tradi-
tional picture of the Umayyads as at best secular
and at worst impious is overdrawn, in part through
over- and uncritical reliance on Tabari as a
source.108 Working back from the likely date of
106 Robert Hillenbrand, “La dolce vita in early Islamic Syria:
the evidence of later Umayyad Palaces,” Art History
5(1982), 1–35. This is not the place to review the widely
prevalent acceptance of the “corruption” theme, but it is
important in this context to recognize its historiograph-
ical impact. See also Hamilton, Walid and his Friends.
107 On the “openly anti-Umayyad” bias of the earliest sur-
viving Islamic sources, dating from the early Abbasid
period, see Nasser Rabbat, “The Meaning of the
Umayyad Dome of the Rock,” Muqarnas 6(1989), 12–21
at 13, and the long footnote 12, with sources, noting also
that one of the few sources datable to the Umayyad
period, the poetry of al-Farazdaq, apparently stems
from “a partisan of the Descendants of ʿAli” who was ill
disposed to the dynasty for that reason. The value of
the later Arabic sources for understanding Umayyad
history was treated by Garth Fowden, Qusayr ʻAmra.
Art and the Umayyad Elite in Late Antique Syria
(Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 2004), pp. 327–334.
Most recently see the studies collected in Antoine
Borrut and Paul Cobb, eds., Umayyad Legacies.
Medieval Memories from Syria to Spain, Islamic History
and Civilization, Studies and Texts 80 (Leiden, 2010).
108 Stephen C. Judd, Religious Scholars and the Umayyads.
Piety-minded supporters of the Marwanid caliphate
(London and New York, 2014). The studies presented
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56
Adomnán’s text, 704 at the latest and probably
some years earlier, to the date of “Arculf’s” visit to
Jeru­salem, and thus establishing a date for the
earliest mosque in the caliphate of Muʿawiya (661–
680),109 or at an earlier date, is building upon if not
sand, then upon ruins.110 Scholars of early Islam
should at the very least cease presenting “Arculf’ as
here are not intended to take sides on this issue, but
seem to me to support Judd’s argument, based on a
fresh reading of many sources, that this pejorative atti-
tude toward the Umayyads ill accords with the works in
Jerusalem of the seventh century.
109 See the recent monograph by R. Stephen Humphreys,
Muʿawiya ibn Abi Sufyan. From Arabia to Empire
(Oxford, 2006), which follows the historiographical tra-
dition of early Islamic studies by referring to “Arculf” as
a source, and ignoring Adomnán: “The mosque elicited
only a brief and condescending comment from the
Frankish pilgrim Arculf…during his visit to the Holy
Land in 682” (p. 11).
110 Attempts to use the testimony of “Arculf” to ascertain
the date at which the hypothetical first mosque was
constructed are hopeless, in my view; for discussion
see  Meehan, Adamnan’s De locis sanctis, pp. 2–11.
Adomnán’s De locis sanctis was certainly composed
before his death in 704, but how much earlier in
unknowable; Bede states that a copy was given to King
Aldfrith when Adomnán was visiting Northumbria,
and describes an important such visit in 686, but we
know of another in 692, and there may well have been
more; it was not a long trip, like “Arculf’s”! Meehan’s
claim (p. 10) that “Arculf’s” visit to Alexandria would
have mentioned damage to the church of St. Mark
there, if occurring after damage perhaps datable to
ca. 680, is one of many stacks of hypotheses. A reader
of that long chapter at the end of Book ii (ii. 30) cannot
but be struck that it is almost entirely about the geogra-
phy of the site, and mentions the church of St. Mark
only in passing, because it lay beside one of the
approaches to the city. There is no discussion at all of
the important churches in the city, which would have
been the primary interest of both “Arculf” and of
Adomnán, powerfully suggesting that the latter in fact
has no information to convey, has nothing but geo-
graphic descriptions. Meehan indeed supposes that
Adomnán “had at his disposal previous pilgrim litera-
ture and a geographical manual or manuals of a type
then not uncommon in the Romanized world” (p. 12).
chapter 3
the source for their statements, and cease to take
the statements in Adomnán’s book as unambigu-
ous confirmation of an otherwise very uncertain
situation on the ground. It is impossible to prove a
negative, to prove that “Arculf” never existed, or
that if he did, and somehow managed to be washed
up on the shore at Iona, to prove that his account
of what he had seen in Jerusalem was not recorded
accurately by Adomnán, or that that account did
not correspond to the reality on the ground in
Jerusalem. My own view is that “Arculf’s” existence
as anything more than an invention of Adomnán
is unproven, and very much subject to doubt, and
that, more importantly, it strains credulity beyond
the breaking point to think that the few sentences
recorded in Adomnán’s De locis sanctis about early
Islamic worship in Jerusalem, attributed to “Arculf,”
can be taken as an accurately transmitted eye­
witness account and a reliable basis for under-
standing what was happening in seventh-century
Jerusalem. Adomnán’s report should not be taken
out of the context in which it occurs, and its larger
context should also be recognized. Taken in isola-
tion, it seems so extraordinary, a text from north-
western Britain reporting on near-contemporary
Jerusalem, that the weird notion of a wandering
Frankish bishop conveniently accounts for the
oddity, and seems credible. Adomnán was cer-
tainly a clever author. However, it is simply not
accurate to understand the detailed interest in the
buildings of Jerusalem in Adomnán’ De locis sanc-
tis as extraordinary or odd within the context of
Insular culture in the late seventh and early eighth
century. Jerusalem is a recurrent trope and theme
of central importance to Adomnán, and not only
in De locis sanctcis. In other works, notably his
Vita Columbae, the life of his monastery’s founder,
Adomnán also makes extensive reference to
Jerusalem and its buildings, his writing clearly
based on scriptural sources rather than on reports
from “Arculf.”111 Jerusalem needed no unexpected
111 For the importance of Jerusalem in the imagination of
early medieval Ireland, see the argument by David
Jenkins, ‘Holy, Holier, Holiest’. The Sacred Topography of
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The Problem of “Arculf” and the Earliest Mosque in Jerusalem
visitor to set off a detailed examination and dis-
cussion. Moreover, more broadly, the layout of
ecclesiastical sites across Ireland in this period
appear to have been designed to reflect the layout
of Jerusalem.112 Focus on Jerusalem is not a pecu-
liar feature of Adomnán’s writing at all, but a wide
general interest in the British context, not only in
Ireland but also in the Anglo-Saxon context of
Bede, in whose writings the “translation” of
Adomnán’s text on the “holy places” is part of a
much broader concern evinced in Bede’s works on
the Tabernacle and on the Temple, and in his
unique commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah.113
the Early Medieval Irish Church, Studia Traditionis
Theologiae (Turnhout, 2010), esp. pp. 37–38 on the Life
of Columba, referring especially to the earlier study by
Jennifer O’Reilly, “Reading the Scriptures in the Life of
Columba,” in Cormac Bourke, ed., Studies in the Cult of
Saint Columba (Dublin, 1997), pp. 80–106.
112 Tomás Ó Carragáin, Churches in Early Medieval Ireland.
Architecture, Ritual and Memory (New Haven and
London, 2010), pp. 35–39.
113 DeGregorio, Bede On Ezra and Nehemiah (above, n. 28)
with discussion.
57
Other scholars may, and presumably will, see
the matter differently, and be reluctant to give up
what appears a precious, albeit remarkably strange,
source of information. I would hope, however, that
at the very least any reliance about “Arculf’s” testi-
mony will be tempered by recognition of the many
problems it entails, and will only be given after a
serious consideration of the text in its original con-
text in the work of Adomnán of Iona, and in the
broader context of Insular culture of the seventh
and eighth centuries. Even if “Arculf” existed, and
Adomnán reports his words with exceptional accu-
racy, the source is Adomnán, not “Arculf.” There is a
workable analogy ready at hand: normally scholars
of Islamic culture cite al-Tabari as a source, for he is
the author of what we have, and although they may
consider at length his reported chain of reporters,
his isnad, they seldom if ever baldly write that
“Kaʿb [or Rajaʾ b. Haywah, or whosoever] reports
that” Similarly, “Arculf reports that…” is a phrase
that must be discarded. Discarding it permits a
serious attempt to address the development of the
Haram al-Sharif, and in particular of the Dome of
the Chain, undertaken in the next chapter.
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 chapter 4
The Dome of the Chain: An Essay in Interpretation
Not very many years ago Oleg Grabar, who over
many years has made the most numerous, pro-
found and sustained attempts to comprehend the
early Islamic monuments of Jerusalem, observed
that, sitting beside the “dominant masterpiece
next to it,” the Dome of the Rock, the Dome of the
Chain (qubbat al-silsila) (Fig. 2.6) “looks a bit of an
orphan.” He noted that although it was placed at
the center of the platform of the Haram al-Sharif
in Jerusalem, “its early function has not been
ascertained,” that it was the “most problematic”
monument on the Haram al-Sharif, and that its
eleven-sided form was “strange.” He accepted that
the Dome of the Chain was probably of Umayyad
date, without attempting to define its date, or its
origin or function, more narrowly.1 This chapter is
an attempt to do precisely that; to address the
issues of its date, origin and function,2 and also
1 Oleg Grabar, “The Haram al-Sharif: An Essay in
Interpretation” Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith
Studies 2(2000), 1–13, reprinted in his Jerusalem (Aldershot,
2005), no. xiv, pp. 203–215 at.208. His many other studies
will be cited as appropriate in the following remarks, and
I certainly do not mean to imply that his studies of the
Dome of the Chain never went beyond this brief charac-
terization in a general article.
2 I should like to address here an idea very strongly suggested
to me after I presented a preliminary version of this mate-
rial, in a 2008 lecture at the University of Pennsylvania
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, in honor of its
then newly-appointed Director, Richard Hodges, namely
that the Dome of the Chain was originally intended as, and
probably used as, a fountain for ablution. No specific paral-
lel was suggested, but presumably something was envis-
aged like the large ablution fountain in the center of the
courtyard in the Umayyad Great Mosque in Damascus,
which has two stories, the lower being octagonal, with large
and small columns arranged alternately. For this fountain
see K[eppel] A[rchibald] C[ameron] Creswell, Early
Muslim Architecture, i, part 1 Umayyads a.d. 622–750 (2nd
ed.; Oxford, 1969; reprint New York, 1979), p. 180 and plan p.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi 10.1163/9789004302075_005
something of its problematic reception in later
times.
If there is even a single scholarly article devoted
to the Dome of the Chain, I have yet to find it. No
modern scholar has even framed a specific hypoth-
esis as to when the monument was created, who
187, Fig. 90; Creswell stated that “the present ablution place
in the center of the sahn is of no great age. I therefore
ignore it,” although he noted one textual source suggesting
the presence of a fountain in that location by the tenth cen-
tury. When the suggestion that the Dome of the Chain was
created to serve as such a fountain was first made, I rejected
the idea, probably too hastily, because there seemed not to
be accessible water in this area of the Haram. Such is the
case now, for there is no water available in this area now
and apparently that was also the case in the early Islamic
period. However, there were many cisterns to the east of the
Dome of the Rock used during the period of the Solomonic
and Herodian temples. Indeed, one particular cistern,
clearly shaped specifically for use, termed “Cistern Five” by
Charles Wilson in the nineteenth century, is the fundamen-
tal reason for reconstructions of the Herodian Temple out
of alignment with the walls of the Haram as a whole, mak-
ing it face more toward the south of east than due east, so
that the altar would have been fitted between the two
northern arms of this cistern. On this issue see Joseph
Patrich, “538 bce–70 ce: the Temple (Beyt Ha-Miqdash)
and its Mount,” in Oleg Grabar and Benjamin Z. Kedar, eds.,
Where Heaven and Earth Meet: Jerusalem’s Sacred Esplanade
(Jerusalem and Austin tx, 2009), pp. 36–71 at 55. Clearly,
cisterns in this area could, then, have been used to feed a
fountain in the general area. On the other hand, the cis-
terns are all downhill from the location of the Dome of the
Chain (for which see Patrich, “538 bce–70 ce”, p. 46 Fig. 17),
so a more practical location for an ablution fountain of
some sort would have been farther east than the Dome of
the Chain, and either to the north or to the south of it.
There are no reports connecting the structure with water at
any time, and no traces of any places where water would
have been collected. In my view, this hypothesis that the
Dome of the Chain served as an ablution fountain, although
intriguing, is untenable.
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The Dome of the Chain
might have created it, and the function, whether in
practical or ideological terms, that it was built to
play. It is seldom mentioned in early accounts,
although some sources provide evidence of its
form.3 K.A.C. Creswell termed it an “exquisite little
Monument,” and thought “its architecture is in per-
fect harmony with that of the Qubbat as Sakhra”
[the Dome of the Rock] beside it, but never dis-
cussed it at length.4 The most sustained and impor-
tant studies remain the three pages by Myriam
Rosen-Ayalon in her 1989 book on the early Islamic
monuments of the Haram, in which she surveyed
the earlier scholarly literature and also the various
Islamic sources,5 and the more recent four pages by
Denys Pringle, in his 2007 volume on the churches of
the Crusader Kingdom.6 In the scholarly literature,
3 Marguerite Gautier-van Berchem and Solange Ory, La
Jérusalem musulmane dans l’oeuvre de Max van Berchem
(Lausanne, 1978), “Les édicules du Haram al-Sharif,”
pp. 63–73 publishes some important early photographs of
the Dome of the Chain on pp. 64–65, including a view
from the northeast with the Dome of the Rock in the back-
ground, a general view from the north, a detail of the tile
work and capitals, and a detail of the mihrab and its
inscription. There is a handsome watercolor by Stanley
Inchbold painted in 1906, published in A. Cunnick
Inchbold, Under the Syrian Sun: the Lebanon, Baalbek,
Galilee and Judaea (London, 1906), vol. ii, facing page 398.
I am grateful to the Leicester Galleries, London, who
posted the watercolor on the web and also sent me a copy.
4 Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, Fig. 360 and caption.
5 Myriam Rosen-Ayalon, The Early Islamic Monuments
of al-Haram al-Sharif. An Iconographic Study, qedem
Monographs of the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem 28 (Jerusalem, 1989), pp. 25–29.
6 Denys Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of
Jerusalem. A Corpus, vol. iii: The City of Jerusalem
(Cambridge, 2007), pp. 182–185, no. 319, Fig.  32 and pl.
xcviii. The Archives of the Israel Antiquities Authority
contain T.A.L. Concannon (Chartered Architect),
“Observations. Report on the Structure of the Qubbat es
Silsila (Dome of the Chain),” dated 12.10.1947; see http://
iaa-archives.org.il/zoom/zoom.aspx?folder_id=40&type_
id=5,20,6,7,8&id=5031 (accessed 2/23/15), where it is stated
that the pavement inside the Dome of the Chain is at the
same level as the Dome of the Rock, and “it is assumed
that the building is founded upon the solid rock of the
59
I think it is a fair statement that there is a consensus
dating at least the origin of the structure to the
period between the Islamic conquest of Jerusalem
in 636 and the end of the Umayyad dynasty in 749,7
with little detailed study of any kind in support of
such a date, or consideration of where within that
range of slightly more than one century the building
might have been created. The only attempt to do
so  that I have found is by Heribert Busse and
Georg Kretschmar, who suggested on purely textual
grounds that it should be dated ca. 675–685, earlier
than the Dome of the Rock.8 The modern consensus
that the building dates from the Umayyad period,
and likely during the seventh century, more or less
accords with that of the scattered Islamic sources,
which commonly ascribe the building to the time of
Caliph ʿAbd al-Malik.9 As will be discussed shortly,
the available evidence supports the view that the
current plan (Fig. 4.1), an open structure with eleven
columns in an outer and six columns in an inner
row, is original, except for the later addition of a
mihrab niche on the qibla side, most likely during
the Mamluk period, if not before. The superstruc-
ture, above the column capitals, has manifestly been
reworked at a later date; the reports we have suggest
that the drum above the inner colonnade at some
Haram and that there are no deep caverns or cisterns
under.”
7 For a suggestion that “some think” it might pre-date
Islamic rule, without, alas being more specific, see http://
archnet.org/library/sites/one-site.jsp?site_id=5552
(accessed 3/3/2011), first paragraph.
8 Heribert Busse and Georg Kretschmar, Jerusalemische
Heiligtumstraditionen in altkirchlicher and frühislamischer
Zeit, Abhandlungen des deutschen Palästinavereins
(Wiesbaden 1987), p. 24. In the authors’ view it should be
dated after 675 because “Arculf” does not mention it!.
9 Klaus Bieberstein and Hanswulf Bloedhorn, Jerusalem:
Grundzüge der Baugeschichte vom Chalkolithikum bis
zur Frühzeit der osmanischen Herrschaft, Beihefte
zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients. Reihe B,
Geisteswissenschaften 100 (3 vols.; Wiesbaden, 1994), vol.
3:154–156, at 154: “wurde von allen mittelalterlichen
Autoren übereinstimmend ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwan zug-
eschrieben.” I am grateful to Robert Schick for initially
bringing this collection to my attention.
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60
point had openings, which are now blocked, and
that the drum most likely originally, as now, sup-
ported a small dome. Central plan structures with
double colonnades are rare indeed, but the only
examples I can cite, at S. Stefano Rotondo in Rome,10
and at Butrint in Albania (Fig. 4.2),11 certainly carried
domes, and from the earliest written sources the
sobriquet “dome” (qubbat al-Silsila) has always been
applied to the Dome of the Chain.12 That the Dome
of the Chain was always a domed structure will be
my working assumption in the discussion that fol-
lows. The prominent tie-beams in the arches of the
Dome of the Chain link its construction closely with
the Dome of the Rock beside it, as do the spoliated
capitals and column shafts, taken from a variety of
earlier Roman structures (Fig. 4.3) and throughout
both Islamic buildings, which will be discussed in
the next chapter. The arches in the Dome of the
Chain are only very slightly pointed at the center
(Fig. 2.6), nearly semi-circular in form, and notice-
ably albeit not hugely less pointed than those in the
Dome of the Rock. Whether the arches of the Dome
10 On S. Stefano Rotondo in Rome see Richard
Krautheimer, Rome, Profile of a City 312–1308 (Princeton,
1980), pp. 52–54 and 338 for further references, and
Figs. 48–50.
11 See John Mitchell, The Butrint Baptistery and its
Mosaics (London and Tirana, 2008), and http://www
.butrint.org/explore_9_0.php (accessed 4/6/2011). I am
very grateful to John Mitchell for bringing this wonder-
fully interesting and newly re-discovered structure
to my attention, and for giving me a copy of the
publication.
12 The Kathisma church, on the road from Jerusalem to
Bethlehem, has a double row of spaces around a cen-
tral dome, but the outer one seems always to have com-
prised a sequence of rooms, not an open ambulatory,
and it will not be considered here for that reason,
although it will be discussed in Chapter 6. For
the recent excavations there see Rina Avner, “The
Kathisma: A Christian and Muslim Pilgrimage Site,”
aram Periodical 18–19(2006–2007), 541–557, and Rina
Avner, “The Dome of the rock in Light of the
Development of Concentric Martyria in Jerusalem:
Architecture and Architectural Iconography,” Muqar­
nas 27(2010), 31–49.
chapter 4
of the Rock are still in their original form, or have
been altered at some point, is controversial.
According to Oleg Grabar, the pointed form of the
arches “is the result of their being reset in marble in
the sixteenth century,” and their original form was
“probably semicircular.”13 H.R. Allen argued to the
contrary, that they are preserved in their original
form, slightly pointed,14 and Terry Allen has recently
expressed the same opinion.15 The differences are
slight, and of little or no value for creating a chrono-
logical sequence.
Most troubling is the absence of any attempt to
address the obvious problems of why such a
unique building was created, and what function it
might have served either when originally created
or at a later time.16 Perhaps its uniqueness has
inhibited scholars, for the building seems highly
13 Oleg Grabar, The Dome of the Rock (Cambridge ma and
London, 2006), pp. 70–71.
14 H.R. Allen, “Observations on the Original Appearance
of the Dome of the Rock,” in Jeremy Johns, ed., Bayt al-
Maqdis. Jerusalem and Early Islam, Oxford Studies in
Islamic Art, ix, part 2 (Oxford, 1999), pp. 197–214 at
199–206.
15 Terry Allen, Pisa and the Dome of the Rock (Occiden­
tal  ca: Solipsist Press, 2008) published electronically
as  isbn 0-944940-08-0, http://www.sonic.net/~tallen/
palmtree/pisa.dor.htm (accessed Oct. 20, 2014), with
review of the earlier scholarship.
16 The only study known to me that does so sees it as
entirely iconographic, its “function” being purely repre-
sentational. Shemuel Tamari, Iconotextual Studies in the
Muslim Vision of Paradise (Wiesbaden and Ramat-Gan,
1999), pp. 64–72, proposes, if I understand him cor-
rectly, in spite of the extreme convolution of his lan-
guage, that the Dome of the Chain was constructed as
part of a single program along with the Dome of the
Rock. In his view both were executed by ʿAbd al-Malik,
comprising a program which entailed inter alia the
establishment of a strong east- west axis of solar signifi-
cance, designed to favor the single god of Islam and
Judaism against the Christians and pagans with their
multiple gods or godhead. Among possible objections
to this theory is the specific point that it requires the
original plan of the Dome of the Chain to have had
twelve, not eleven columns, as is does now. Such a
reconstruction is against the best evidence, as discussed
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The Dome of the Chain
resistant to typological approaches, which have
been so important in the study of medieval archi-
tecture. The apparent dearth of sources is also, no
doubt, inhibiting. Rosen-Ayalon divided the
Islamic sources about the building into three
groups: those that associated it with judgment, the
judgment of David and Solomon specifically, and
perhaps also eschatological judgment at the end
of time; those that thought it was a caliphal trea-
sury (bayt al-mal) like those preserved in the
Umayyad mosques in Damascus and Hama; and
those that claimed that it was built as a model for
the Dome of the Rock.17 For various reasons, quite
good reasons, she rejects all three of these expla-
nations, all of which are late in date. The only one
that has any obvious visual support is the second,
that the Dome of the Chain might have been a
treasury, by analogy with the preserved early
Islamic examples in Damascus (Fig.  4.4) and
Homs, which also stand within the enclosing wall
of a large mosque and have a group of columns
arranged in central plan supporting something
above. The interpretation as a treasury is also, alas,
the only one that can readily be dismissed, illus-
trating the adage that “if you want to prove a point,
do not illustrate it,” for although the Dome of the
Chain shares with the early treasuries an open
ground-floor, those structures have a closed and
secure upper space, wherein a treasure might be
placed, which the Dome of the Chain altogether
lacks in its present form, and apparently always
did lack.18 Furthermore, al-Wasiti in the early elev-
enth century refers to both the treasury and to
the Dome of the Chain, separately, as distinct
below. I am grateful to Robert Schick for providing a ref-
erence to this unusual volume.
17 Rosen-Ayalon, Early Islamic Monuments, pp. 26–27.
18 Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, p. 202, accepted
the notion that it had once been a treasury, on the evi-
dence of texts citing such usage, but he recognized that
such a view required us to believe that the present
form, which he attributed to the Mamluk period, and
specifically to Baybars I, altogether replaced the earlier
structure. Subsequent archaeological evidence seems
to make this view untenable.
61
­buildings.19 The last and strangest traditional
Islamic explanation, that the Dome of the Chain
was a “model” for the Dome of the Rock may have
an element of truth, for it may indeed be earlier
than, if not therefore necessarily a “model” for, the
Dome of the Rock. As for the first, and earliest-
attested Islamic tradition related to the Dome of
the Chain, in my view it has more than an element
of truth, and is fundamentally at least part of a
defensible understanding of the structure. As I
hope to show in the following pages, the Dome of
the Chain had strong associations with both secu-
lar and with eschatological judgment, associations
that deserve greater attention than they have
received, along with other meanings and func-
tions that were rapidly lost within the Islamic
tradition.
Specifically, I will ruin any suspense, but per-
haps may help the reader through what may at
times seem a diffuse discussion, by stating my
hypothesis here. I suggest that the Dome of the
Chain was constructed before the Dome of the
Rock, which is dated 72 AH/691–692 CE by its
inscription, constructed most likely during the
caliphate of Muʿawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, the first
caliph of the Umayyad dynasty, whose rule is usu-
ally dated 661–680. I propose that it was con-
structed within the earliest congregational
mosque in Jerusalem, the enclosure of the Haram
al-Sharif itself, which functioned as the mosque,
without having any large roofed building, until
Caliph al-Walid constructed what scholars today
commonly term the al-Aqsa mosque, where it still
stands, along the southern edge of the Haram. As
discussed in Chapters 2 and 3, once the unreliable
“Arculf” source is dismissed, no textual or archaeo-
logical evidence supports the existence of an early
large roofed Aqsa mosque on the Haram in the
19 Pringle, Jerusalem, p. 182. For the text that at least
seems to refer to the construction of a treasury (bayt
al-mal) by ʿAbd al-Malik “to the east of the Rock”; see
Nasser Rabbat, “The Dome of the Rock Revisited: Some
Remarks on al-Wasiti’s Accounts,” Muqarnas 10 [Essays
in Honor of Oleg Grabar] (1993), 66–75.
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62
seventh century; the Haram simply was the
mosque, as it continued to be regarded in many
later sources. The eleventh-century visitor Nasir-i
Khosraw is very clear on this point.20 Nasser
Rabbat’s analysis of al-Wasiti’s accounts of the
construction of the Dome of the Rock by ʿAbd al-
Malik lends support to this conclusion. The
sources represent the caliph himself and his depu-
ties referring to his construction of the Dome of
the Rock and the mosque [masjid], the latter in
one case specifically described as the Aqsa
mosque, in Jerusalem, but Rabbat concludes that
“in all these references the word masjid does not
seem to refer to a building, but rather to a space,
and more precisely a space for prostration (sujud),
which in this context, should have been the entire
platform surrounding the Dome.”21
As noted by Heribert Busse, Rosen-Ayalon and
Grabar, the Dome of the Chain was constructed at
the center of the Haram, of the first mosque, where
diagonals drawn from the corners of the Haram
meet, more or less at the same place where lines
bisecting the platform on east–west and north–
south axes meet as well (Fig. 4.5).22 The location is
obviously prominent, not only on account of its
20 For the text see Wheeler M. Thackston, trans., Nasir-i
Khusraw, Persian Heritage Series, 36 (Albany ny, 1986),
pp. 21–35.
21 Rabbat, “Dome of the Rock Revisited,” 68–69; Rabbat
concluded this passage with the statement that the
masjid on the Haram included but was not limited to
the “covered Aqsa mosque” associated with ʿUmar and/
or Muʿawiya, a building whose existence he assumed
based on the modern historiographical traditions, rely-
ing heavily on the “Arculf” source.
22 Heribert Busse, “Vom Felsendom zum Templum
Domini,” in Wolfdietrich Fischer and Jürgen Schneider,
eds., Das Heilige Land im Mittelalter: Begegnungsraum
zwischen Orient und Okzident: Referate des 5. inter-
disziplinären Colloquiums des Zentralinstituts, Schriften
des Zentralinstituts für Fränkische Landeskunde und
Allgemeine Regionalforschung an der Universität
Erlangen-Nürnberg 22 (Neustadt an der Aisch, 1982),
pp. 19–32 at 29; Rosen-Ayalon, Early Islamic Monuments,
pp. 27–28 and ill. 15; Oleg Grabar, The Shape of the Holy.
Early Islamic Jerusalem (Princeton, 1996), p. 131.
chapter 4
centrality, but also on account of its height, being
nearly on the highest point of the Haram. Moreover,
it sits immediately beside the Rock itself, whose
precise meaning to Muslims in the seventh cen-
tury is not clear, but which was evidently regarded
as the holiest place on the Haram, or for that mat-
ter in the city, or in Palestine as a whole, by the end
of the seventh century at the very latest, when the
Dome of the Rock was constructed above it. The
primary function of the Dome of the Chain, in
the view that I will present, was manifold. It served
to indicate the qibla, the direction of prayer toward
Mecca. It also served to house, to protect, and to
represent the caliph, who was both the secular
ruler and the leader of the communal prayers.
From the Dome of the Chain he could have read or
recited verses from the holy Qurʾan to his fellow
believers, and from it he could have addressed
them in his own voice, when he was in Jerusalem.
Its association with judgment, both in this world in
the next, the judgment of the caliph, deputy of god
(khalifat Allah) and leader of the faithful (amir
al-muʾminin),23 is probably part of the original sig-
nificance of the structure, evident from the first
appearance of the name “Dome of the Chain”
(qubbat al-Silsila), in the earliest text referring to
the structure, dating from the ninth century.
An important recent study of the Haram
al-Sharif by Gülru Necipoğlu argued that ʿAbd
al-Malik constructed a “grand narrative” on the
Haram al-Sharif whose major themes were cosmo-
logical and eschatological, and focused on the
caliph as deputy of god, creating a “parallelism
between the eternal heavenly kingdom and its
earthly counterpart entrusted to the caliph.”24 In
23 See for the former title Patricia Crone and Martin
Hinds, God’s Caliph. Religious authority in the first cen-
turies of Islam (Cambridge, 1986), esp. pp. 4–19, and 25
for the contrast between the earliest conception of the
caliph’s authority through the Sufyanid caliphs, and
the difference that emerges with ʿAbd al-Malik and the
Marwanids, especially from the early 690s.
24 Gülru Necipoğlu, “The Dome of the Rock as Palimpsest:
ʿAbd al-Malik’s Grand Narrative and Sultan Suleyman’s
Glosses,” Muqarnas 25(2008), 17–105, the quotation at 56.
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The Dome of the Chain
my view, the Dome of the Chain is a first stage, and
likely a pre-Marwanid stage, before 684, in the
construction of just such a narrative. While bring-
ing the caliph together with the congregation of
the believers, it also set him above and removed
from them, visibly underscoring his special role,
and providing protection for him from the threat
of violence, which had come to his predecessors.
These different functions continued in the later
Islamic tradition, but came to be codified in differ-
ent and separate structures in mosques each of
which eventually and indeed quickly developed
characteristic forms,, the mihrab and minbar and
maqsura. The Dome of the Chain was a unique
combination of the functions, and perhaps an
important ancestor of both later types. Thus, the
hypothesis.
Following Rosen-Ayalon’s lead, Grabar noted
the centrality of the Dome of the Chain on the
Haram, and suggested that it might be the earliest
building on the platform (Fig. 4.5).25 Other schol-
ars have not challenged this suggestion, nor have
they generally accepted it, although it seems that
the idea was anticipated by local sources, since a
booklet published in Jerusalem in 1959, drawing
on the Islamic written sources, states that “Before
work was begun on the big structure, the Dome of
the Chain was built to house the treasury and it
also became the model for the mosque. In design
and decoration it is exactly like the Dome of the
Rock and structurally almost a small-scale
model.”26 Sources show that it must have existed
25 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, p. 51, with schematic recon-
struction Fig. 68. Grabar’s statement that the Dome of
the Chain is on “the exact geographical center of the
platform” does not appear to be strictly true; it is more
or less where the diagonals linking the opposite cor-
ners of the Haram as a whole intersect. In suggesting
that it might be dated before the Dome of the Rock he
follows and cites Busse and Kretschmar, Jerusalemische
Heiligtumstraditionen, p. 24.
26 A Brief Guide to the Dome of the Rock and al-Haram al-
Sharif published by the Supreme Awqaf Council
(Jerusalem, 1959), p. 12, published by the Supreme
Awqaf Council. On the title page is written that “This is
63
by the ninth century, as it is mentioned by ʿAbd al-
Malik ibn Habib (d. 852/53),27 and in the eleventh
century both al-Wasiti and Ibn al-Murajja mention
it by the name still used for it, the Dome of the
Chain (qubbat al-silsila),28 and Nasir-i Khosraw
also uses that name for it.29 The current name
refers to a chain associated with royal judgment,
and perhaps at least implicitly, the eschatological
judgment, since according to Nasir-i Khosraw it is
“where David hung the chain that could not be
reached by anyone other than the innocent, for
the guilty and unjust could never pull it.”30 Already
in the early tenth century, Ibn ʿAbd al-Rabbihi
identified the Dome of the Chain with the place
“where, during the times of the Children of Israel
there did hang down the Chain that gave judg-
ment (of truth or lying) between them.”31 The
association in these later texts evidently draws
a summary of the book of Aref el Aref, ex-Mayor of
Jerusalem entitled ‘The Dome of the Rock’.”
27 Myriam Rosen-Ayalon, “Art and Architecture in
Jerusalem in the Early Islamic Period,” in Joshua Prawer
and Haggai Ben-Shammai, eds., The History of
Jerusalem. The Early Muslim Period 638–1099 (Jerusalem
and New York, 1996), pp. 386–412, referring to her own
article “An Early Source on the Construction of the
Dome of the Chain on the Temple Mount,” Cathedra 11
(April 1979), 184–185 (Hebrew). See also Pringle,
Jerusalem, p. 182, and Bieberstein and Bloedhorn,
Jerusalem, p. 154. Amikam Elad, Medieval Jerusalem
and Islamic Worship. Holy Places, Ceremonies,
Pilgrimage, Islamic History and Civilization, Studies
and Texts 8 (Leiden, 1995), p. 49 says that this author
mentions several domes on the Haram but does not
specify which ones; he gives as a reference for the text
Abu Marwan, ʿAbd al-Malik b. Habib, al-Sulami al
Qurtubi, Kitab al-Taʾrikh, ed. J. Aguadé (Madrid, 1991).
28 See Elad, Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship, p. 98,
and Andreas Kaplony, The Haram of Jerusalem 324–
1099. Temple, Friday Mosque, Area of Spiritual Power,
Freiburger Islamstudien 22 (Stuttgart, 2002), p. 300, no.
B033.2.d.
29 Thackston, trans., Nasir-i Khusraw, p. 32.
30 Thackston, trans., Nasir-i Khusraw, p. 32. See also dis-
cussion by Grabar, Shape of the Holy, pp. 150–151.
31 Pringle, Jerusalem, p. 182, quoting from Guy Le Strange,
Palestine under the Moslems. A Description of Syria and
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64
upon the extended discussion of David in Surah 38
(Sad) of the Qurʾan, especially verses 25–28:32
“David, behold, We have appointed thee
A viceroy [khaleefatan, caliph33] in the earth;
therefore judge
Between men justly, and follow not caprice,
Lest it lead thee astray from the way of God.
Surely those who go astray from the way
Of God – there awaits them a terrible
Chastisement, for that they have forgotten
The Day of Reckoning.
We have not created the heavens and earth,
And what between them is, for vanity;
Such is the thought of the unbelievers,
Wherefore woe unto the unbelievers
Because of the Fire.”
Note that the term used here for David as “viceroy”
is the Arabic word used for the representative of
god on earth, the caliph, a point of some impor-
tance to be treated later in greater detail. All the
texts linking the Dome of the Chain with judgment
are significantly later than the structure seems to
be, and Grabar suggested that an eschatological
interpretation might have been a later and not an
original one, because “at some point in the history
of the Haram, the interest in eschatology became
pervasive and the Dome of the Chain became the
place of Judgment,”34 assuming that this was a later
point. Some textual evidence supports the view
that strong eschatological, apocalyptic, expecta-
tions, were present in the earliest period, in the sev-
enth century. A tradition transmitted specifically in
the Holy Land from a.d. 650 to 1500 (Cambridge, Boston
and New York, 1890), p. 151.
32 I have used here and throughout the translation by
A.J. Arberry, from The Koran Interpreted (New York,
1996, after the 1955 edition), p. 160.
33 According to the website quran.com, http://quran
.com/38 (accessed 14/i/2015), which translates the
terms as “successor” rather than Arberry’s “viceroy.”
34 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, pp. 130–131.
chapter 4
Syria, and having an isnad associating it with two
of the Companions of the Prophet emphasizes that
the surviving Arabs will gather, after the arrival of
the Antichrist (al-dajjal), specifically in Jerusalem.35
As I hope to show, much indirect evidence sug-
gested that the judgment theme was critical in a
group of related monuments either created or used
during the seventh and eighth centuries. Grabar
referred to a discussion by Rosen-Ayalon terming
the building’s location the omphalos, the center of
the universe that had sometimes been claimed for
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,36 although it is
not clear that she claimed more than it was delib-
erately set at the center of the Haram. Rosen-
Ayalon also noted that the current mihrab, the
niche denoting the direction of prayer, which is a
late addition to the structure, is axially aligned
with a lateral secondary mihrab in the Aqsa
mosque, in fact with a mihrab traditionally associ-
ated with Caliph ʿUmar,37 an observation repeated
by Busse.38 Grabar seems to imply that the original
35 See Suliman Bashear, Arabs and Others in Early Islam,
Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam 8 (Princeton,
1997), pp. 94–109 on “apocalyptic insecurities” in early
Islam, and p. 95 on the specific tradition concerning
Jerusalem, with references. For an attempt to identify
an early Jewish source putting the Umayyad period and
rulers into an apocalyptic context see Bernard Lewis,
“An Apocalyptic Vision of Islamic History,” Bulletin of
the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of
London 13(1950), 303–338.
36 Rosen-Ayalon, Early Islamic Monuments, p. 71, quoted
(without specific reference – there is another and
rather different citation of the omphalos on p. 29) by
Grabar, Shape of the Holy, p. 131.
37 Rosen-Ayalon, Early Islamic Monuments, pp. 27–29 and
Fig. 16, showing the mihrab of ʿUmar in a ruinous state.
38 Heribert Busse, “The Temple of Jerusalem and its resti-
tution by Abd al-Malik b. Marwan,” in Bianca Kühnel,
ed., The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian
and Islamic Art. Studies in Honor of Bezalel Narkiss on
the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, Jewish Art 23/24
(Jerusalem, 1998), pp. 23–33 at 24, quoting his earlier
article “Die ‘ʿUmar’ Moschee im östlichen Atrium der
Grabeskirche,” Zeitschrift der deutschen Palästina-
Vereins 109(1993), 73–82.
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The Dome of the Chain
significance of the Dome of the Chain may have
been more cosmological than political or eschato-
logical, but he never addressed the issue in detail,
and in any event eschatological and cosmological
themes are anything but contradictory.
Here I would like to point out a strange feature
of the Dome of the Chain, its geometry, or rather
its lack thereof, in a sense. In its present form
(Figs.  2.6 and 4.1) it is an eleven-sided structure
having a wooden-covered ambulatory linking it
with a smaller central core, a hexagon supporting
a drum with a dome atop. Its present form is the
result of some obvious major repairs, including
the removal of the mosaics that formerly deco-
rated it, replacing them with the tiles on all the
surfaces (at least until recently), those on the
lower story having been removed in recent
decades.39 The tiles on the upper level, around the
drum, covered openings in the upper story, sug-
gesting a significant change of function at some
point in that area.40 That information is one por-
tion of the archaeological “evidence” reported by
Rosen-Ayalon, which also included the observa-
tions that the bases of the columns are original,
that they are of early Islamic date, and that they
stand on the same level as the Dome of the Rock.
She reported that this evidence stems from
“recent” (in 1989) restoration work at the Dome of
the Chain undertaken by the Awqaf authorities in
whose charge the structure remains.41 Recently,
39 For a photograph showing the exterior before the removal
of these tiles see Gautier – van Berchem, Jérusaleme
Musulmane (as above n.3), p. 65. For discussion of the
condition of the building at the time of the survey in 1947
see Concannon, “Observations” (as above, n. 6).
40 On the later medieval work on the building see Michael
Burgoyne and D[onald] S. Richards, Mamluk Jerusalem:
an Architectural Study (London, 1987).
41 Rosen-Ayalon, Early Islamic Monuments, p. 27. See also
more recently her “Art and Architecture in Jerusalem in
the Early Islamic Period,” in Prawer and Ben-Shammai,
History of Jerusalem, pp. 386–412 at p. 392, Fig.  3,
maintaining that despite “changes and renovations…
its original plan has been preserved.” Concannon,
“Observations” discussed the fact that some of the
65
Denys Pringle gave another and slightly more
detailed report of the work carried out by the
Awqaf Administration in 1975–1976, work which
was never published. Pringle reports the following
points, generally in accordance with the state-
ments by Rosen-Ayalon: “the columns (Figs.  2.6
and 4.3) and capitals (Fig. 4.6) are all of pre-Islamic
date, though the close match found between the
capitals and those of the Dome of the Rock, al-
Aqsa mosque and two of the arcades of the upper
platform supports the view that it was constructed
around ad 691, when ʿAbd al-Malik was building
the Dome of the Rock”; “Restoration work in 1976
uncovered six blocked rounded-arched windows
in the hexagonal drum, with traces of glass mosaic
remaining in their embrasures”; and “Examination
below the later pavement in 1976 also suggested
that, despite the contradictory descriptions given
by some early visitors, the plan has remained
essentially unaltered.”42
For now, Pringle’s and Rosen-Ayalon’s state-
ments are all we have, and we must make the best
of it, recognizing that any statements about the
structure are highly speculative and provisional,
pending detailed archaeological study and publi-
cation, neither of which appear likely to be immi-
nent. We do not even have a measured plan of the
building in its current form, as far as I have been
outer columns were no longer plumb, and appear to
have been pushed out of the perpendicular, and some
had suffered damage requiring reinforcing bands, but
made no suggestions that any had been moved from
their original positions.
42 Pringle, Jerusalem, p. 184, and for the last statement see
Fig. 32, where the cross-section shows the bases of all
the columns (except those of the later mihrab) extend-
ing below the current pavement, and in the same posi-
tions, and no trace of any bases in different positions
that would accord with a change in plan. The contrary
view expressed by Tamari, Iconotextual Studies, p. 167,
that the Dome of the Chain’s “original plan…[was]
composed of 12 columns,” must be rejected, especially
as this figure was selected from the sources by Tamari
with the assumption that, and in order to support the
view that, the meanings of the Dome of the Rock and
the Dome of the Chain are closely related.
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66
able to learn; the best now available is that by
Pringle, published only in 2007, and published as a
plan of the Chapel of St. James the Less, as the
structure was denominated during the Crusader
period in the twelfth century, which was Pringle’s
subject (Fig. 4.1).43 There is a scale associated with
this plan, showing that the diameter of the struc-
ture is approximately on the order of ten meters,
but there are no other exact measurements
reported. I have no idea what the two square fea-
tures shown on Pringle’s plan in the southwest
quadrant, one in the middle of the first two arches
reading clockwise from the mihrab, represent. I
have never seen a photograph that has anything in
that position. That plan, and those reports, are the
only basis for considering the possible function
and significance of the structure.44 It is worth
­noting that neither Rosen-Ayalon nor Pringle can
43 Pringle, Jerusalem, p. 184 and Fig. 32 for the plan and
elevation drawing, which according to the caption is
from the Office of the Resident Architect of the
Restoration Committee, and dated 1975. I am grateful
to Robert Schick for this reference, and for generously
sharing his notes and bibliography on the structure.
For an earlier published plan of the structure see
Lucien Golvin, Essai sur l’architecture religeuse musul-
mane, ii: L’art religieux des Umayyades de Syrie,
Archéologie Méditerranéenne 5 (Paris, 1971), Fig.  19,
and it is this plant that is reproduced in Christian
Ewert and Jens-Peter Wisshak, Forschungen zur Almo­
hadischen Moscheen 1, Madrider Beiträge 9 (Mainz,
1981), Fig. 30.
44 The statement by Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, The Holy
Land. An Oxford Archaeological Guide (5th ed., Oxford,
2008), p. 97, that “its original form has been radically
modified” because of the report by Nasir-i Khosraw
that in the eleventh century it had twenty columns is
contradicted by the archaeological reports, and is dis-
missed by Pringle, Jerusalem, p. 184, in his more exten-
sive study: “despite the contradictory descriptions
given by some early visitors, the plan has remained
essentially unaltered.” Creswell, Early Muslim Archi­
tecture, Fig.  360 caption, gives his opinion, that the
Dome of the Chain “seems to have preserved in its
main lines, its original Architecture, in spite of the res-
torations it underwent throughout the centuries (in the
main during the xiiith century, under Sultan Baybars).”
chapter 4
be accused of special pleading in support of the
view upon which this investigation depends,
namely that the highly unusual plan is the original
plan, and has not been substantially altered, for
neither scholar commented further upon the plan,
or made it the basis for comparison to other struc-
tures, or interpreted it as an element related to the
function or significance of the structure of the
Dome of the Chain as a whole.
In form the Dome of the Chain seems a very
rough analogue to the larger Dome of the Rock
beside it (Figs. 2.6 and 1.3), and indeed, as already
noted, some late Muslim sources suggested that it
was a small-scale model for that building,45 but the
geometry of the two structures is very different.
The Dome of the Rock has a dome set atop a circu-
lar arrangement of piers and columns, around the
Rock, surrounded by two octagons formed by a
second sequence of piers and columns and by the
exterior wall. In contrast, the Dome of the Chain
has a dome set atop a hexagonal arrangement of
six columns, surrounded by one outer ring of
eleven columns (Fig. 4.1). Unlike the Dome of the
Rock, the Dome of the Chain has no piers, and no
outer wall; the mihrab niche on the qibla side
today (Fig. 4.7) is manifestly a later addition to the
building, a fact which to my knowledge has never
been questioned. The most extended study, by
Michael Burgoyne, sees this added niche mihrab as
likely from the Mamluk period, thirteenth-century
or later.46 The geometry of the Dome of the Rock is
wonderfully regular, following traditional schemes
used in late Antique architecture but, in Grabar’s
phrase, “distinguishable from the plans of most
comparable buildings by its inordinate size and by
the perfection of its symmetries around multiple
axes.”47 Moreover, even such apparent anomalies as
the different widths of the two ambulatories was
45 On the theory that Dome of the Chain was the model
for the Dome of the Rock see Rosen-Ayalon, Early
Islamic Monuments, p. 26. The earliest such source is
Mujir al-Din, writing in 1496.
46 See Burgoyne, Mamluk Jerusalem, p. 48.
47 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, pp. 108–109.
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The Dome of the Chain
long ago explained as the result of careful geomet-
ric construction, while independent recent studies
have shown that “in both plan and elevation, the
composition of the building was based on the irra-
tional proportions of the golden Mean,…[and]
carefully designed by architects well trained in the
elaboration of geometric proportions.”48
In contrast to the Dome of the Rock, the Dome
of the Chain is not geometrically regular, indeed
quite the reverse. One can construct circles, and
hexagons, and octagons with geometrical means,
and given the importance of geometry in many tra-
ditions and especially in Islam this is not surpris-
ing, but the form of the Dome of the Chain, an
eleven-sided figure, a hendecagon (or sometimes,
against protests, “undecagon,” a term that nicely
captures the “negative” quality of the figure in a
nasty Greco-Latin hybrid) is, apparently, non-
Euclidean, un-constructible as a regular figure
using compass and straight edge.49 It was possible
to construct an approximation of a regular hen-
decagon, and Hieron of Alexandria provided a
guide to so doing in antiquity, but whether and
how this construction might have been known in
Jerusalem in the seventh-century is unknown to
me, and a problem beyond my reach.50 Probably it
was laid out in some ad hoc fashion by taking
eleven equal lengths of rope and stretching them
out on the ground, adjusting the angles by “eye-
ball.” The scheme is workable, but extraordinarily
inelegant for such a prominent place, and even
using the elaborate formulas of Hieron would have
resulted in an approximated, imperfect, figure.
Surely it would have been much easier, as well as
more traditional, to add one more columns to
48 Grabar, Dome of the Rock, pp. 74–75, with references.
49 See Morris Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient
to Modern Times (New York, 1972), p. 752–753, stating
that this was the case in “Euclid’s time” and was proved
to be impossible by C.F. Gauss, Disquisitiones Arith­
meticae (1801).
50 Sir Thomas Heath, A History of Greek Mathematics, 2:
From Aristarchus to Diophontus (Oxford, 1921), pp. 328–
329, with the equations, which I shall forebear from
repeating here.
67
make up an even twelve, or for that matter, in the
unlikely event that there was a shortage of suitable
columns, just use only eight of them, to make an
octagon. Although it is the third largest structure
on the Haram,51 the structure is small, and one
need not imagine that additional support was
needed, as in the much larger Dome of the Rock. In
that larger structure, interspersing columns with
large piers likely reflects structural concerns, and
has many analogues, but the Dome of the Chain is
emphatically and unmistakably columns only.52
Mihrab
Although constructing a regular hendecagon is
not possible using ancient geometrical methods,
there is an anomaly in the plan that, as far as I have
been able to discover, has never been noted, and is
worthy of attention. Presumably one could lay out
a hendecagonal structure by taking a cord of x
length (presumably defining the distance between
the center of one column and the next) and stak-
ing the eleven sides out on the ground until they
more or less made equal sides, and were all more
or less equidistant from a central point, as could
be checked with another cord. The anomaly is that
such “rule of thumb” construction could easily
yield a structure much more regular than the one
51 As noted by Grabar, Shape of the Holy, p. 130, which
puts its diameter at roughly fourteen meters, which
seems at variance with the plan and scale published by
Pringle. Having accurate measurements would be so
desirable! Unfortunately the entire structure is under-
going repairs and currently unavailable for study.
52 The related buildings on relatively large scale in the
later Roman tradition, such as the Church of Sts.
Sergius and Bacchus, or Hagia Sophia also in Con­
stantinople, or for that matter the Anastasis rotunda of
the Holy Sepulchre complex in Jerusalem, all inter-
sperse columns with piers. S. Stefano Rotondo in Rome
shows that it was possible to construct a very large
central-plan structure with only columnar supports,
but its wooden superstructure was presumably much
lighter than the other buildings of this type.
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68
we have. Even a quick look at Pringle’s plan shows
that ten of the eleven sides are roughly equal, but
one is distinctly smaller. I have made a second
plan of the Dome of the Chain that includes num-
bers for all of its columns, which may help the
reader to follow my argument (Fig.  4.8). I have
numbered the columns starting from the one in the
outer colonnade that makes the east side of the
mihrab, calling it DC 1, for “Dome of the Chain 1”;
these numbers will later be used when the column
shafts and capitals are discussed. It is clear to the
eye even on this rough plan that the distance
between DC 1 and DC 2, the columns on the south
side, the qibla side, are closer together than on any
of the other sides, for example closer together than
DC 2 and DC 3, DC 3 and DC 4, and so forth. One
might reasonably suspect that this irregularity is a
result of the interposition of the later mihrab, but
such appears not to be the case. Indeed the inter-
position of the later mihrab makes the difference
less obvious than it would otherwise be, not only
because the presence of the mihrab distracts the
eye and makes this area so obviously different
from all the others that its other differences are
less noticeable, but also because the interposition
of the mihrab evidently led to DC 1 and DC 2 being
pushed laterally toward their neighbors DC 11 and
DC 3 respectively, making their positions today less
close to each other than they were in their original
positions. Examination of the exterior elevation
on the southern side of the Dome of the Chain
makes this point clear (Fig. 4.7).
The columns on ten of the eleven sides of the
Dome of the Chain are where one would expect to
find them, directly beneath the angle where two of
the sides of the polygon meet (Fig.  2.6). As is
clearly visible when seen from the south (Fig. 4.7),
columns DC 1 and DC 2 have been displaced from
their proper position to the side, surely when the
mihrab was constructed between them. Imagine
taking away the mihrab, and the shifting of these
columns would be obvious, and ugly, and perhaps
structurally problematic. These columns were
clearly shifted at some point. Was the whole build-
ing reworked in this area, when the mihrab was
chapter 4
added? Older photographs of the Dome of the
Chain show it with the outer surfaces of all eleven
sides covered with tiles in the area of the span-
drels, but these were removed, probably in the res-
toration campaigns of ca. 1976 reported by Pringle,
and later photographs show the bare masonry
above the outer columns (Fig. 4.7). It is consistent
on all sides, large blocks of ashlar in regular courses,
of differing widths, but all carefully shaped, for
example when they abut against the curve of the
arch voussoirs, and showing no signs of alteration.
It seems all work of one campaign; we cannot be
certain of the date of that campaign, and it could
presumably all be Mamluk masonry, but no one
has previously suggested anything of the sort.
What is visible in this area is obviously different
from the masonry of the added mihrab, which is
generally thought to be Mamluk, and appears to be
of a different color, and with blocks nearly all of
uniform size, not varying in width. Looking at the
area above and between DC 1 and DC 2, one can see
at the left (above DC 2) in the second course from
the bottom one very large stone that fills almost
the entire area between the arches.
The arches! The arch on the south side of the
Dome of the Chain, the qibla side, directly above
the niche mihrab added later, is very obviously
much narrower than any of the others, only
roughly half their width. I would be more surprised
that no one else seems ever to have commented on
this disparity, had it not taken me so long to notice
it myself. Once pointed out, the irregularity is strik-
ing, but it is so unexpected that one unconsciously
regularizes the spacing. The arches appears to be
in fact the same height at their crowns all the way
around the building, where a single course of
masonry runs around the entire structure resting
on the top of each of the eleven arches, including
the narrow arch of the qibla side. That arch, once
one notices it, appears to be taller than the others,
obviously because it is much narrower, strongly
stilted if form, whereas the others are within
shouting distance of being semi-circular, and giv-
ing the effect of added height (Fig.  4.7). Imagine
away the later mihrab below it, and the effect, and
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The Dome of the Chain
the difference, is glaringly obvious. Can it be a
coincidence that it is on the qibla side where we
see this anomaly? I find such a view unsustainable,
indeed unthinkable. So why, then make the qibla
side different? It seems to me that the obvious
answer is precisely because it is the qibla side, and
the “taller” and narrower arch marks it as such.
That is, this arch functioned as a mihrab before the
later familiar type of niche-mihrab was added.
The mihrab’s role in marking the qibla is funda-
mental today, and this feature occurs in nearly
every mosque in the form of the mihrab mujawwaf,
the “semi-circular recessed niche,” but the earliest
example of such a form is commonly thought to
have been in the rebuilding of the mosque of the
Prophet at Medina by Caliph al-Walid after 705.53
Indeed references to the earliest mosques in Fustat
and Damascus suggest that they “had a feature
referred to as a mihrab, but instead of niches, these
appear to have been columned bays that fulfilled
functions later associated with the maqsura, which,
as well as being the place from which the imam led
prayers, was also used for the conduct of official
business and the dispensation of justice.”54 Estelle
Whelan has discussed the complex and uncertain
origin of the word mihrab and its significance in
the early Islamic period. Drawing on poetry both
early- and pre-Islamic, she suggested that “‘mihrab’
could mean the part of a palace in which the ruler
stood or sat, a niche for an image, a raised place for
musk or incense, a colonnaded platform, and the
part of a house reserved for women,” while in the
53 Estelle Whelan. “The Origins of the Mihrab Mujawwaf: A
Reinterpretation,” International Journal of Middle East
Studies 17(1986), 205–223, reprinted in Jonathan M. Bloom,
ed., Early Islamic Art and Architecture, The Formation of
the Classical Islamic World 23 (Aldershot, 2002), no. 13,
pp. 373–391 at 207–208 for discussion of suggestions that
some examples of the mihrab mujawwaf, that is a mihrab
in the form of a niche, might have survived from before
the time of al-Walid, all of which she rejects.
54 Jonathan M. Bloom and Sheila S. Blair, The Grove
Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture, ii: Delhi to
Mosque (Oxford, 2009), s.v. “mihrab,” pp. 515–517 with
extensive bibliography, the quotations from p. 515.
69
Qurʾan “‘mihrab’ signifies an indeterminate part of
a building, a sovereign’s tribunal or audience hall,
and a temple sanctuary.”55 Whelan considered in
detail the texts concerning the mosque of ʿAmr ibn
al-ʿAs in Fustat, and the seventh-century mosque
in Damascus, having had a mihrab in the form of
an open space surrounded by columns, and finds
them credible. Moreover, she notes that “in the sev-
enth century functions similar to those of the
mihrab were also fulfilled by the maqsura,” and
concluded that “in the seventh century the mihrab
and the maqsura both served as places from which
the imam led the prayers and as centers for the
dispensation of justice and the conduct of other
official business. The difference between them
seems to have been only a formal one: The mihrab
was a columned bay; if it was enclosed by a railing
or screen, it was called a maqsura.”56
The Dome of the Chain appears much as one
would have expected such a structure to appear,
an open arch, not a niche, surrounded by an open
screen of columns. I shall return later in this chap-
ter to marshal the extensive evidence linking it
also with the maqsura. Moreover the appearance
of its stilted arch denoting the qibla side is remark-
ably like that on a famous coin issued by ʿAbd
al-Malik in 75 AH/695–696 CE (Fig.  4.9), which
frames what George Miles identified as the proph-
et’s lance (ʿanaza).57 As I hope to demonstrate,
55 Whelan. “Origins of the Mihrab Mujawwaf,” p. 207.
56 Whelan. “Origins of the Mihrab Mujawwaf,” pp. 210–211.
57 G[eorge] C. Miles, “Mihrab and ʿAnazah: A Study in
Islamic Iconography,” Archaeologica Orientalia in Memo­
riam Ernst Herzfeld (Locust Valley, 1952), pp. 156–171,
reprinted in Bloom, Early Islamic Art and Architecture, no. 6,
pp. 149–166. There is a fine example of this coin in the col-
lection of the American Numismatic Society in New York,
in Bloom and Blair, Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art,
vol. ii, p. 515. See also, for a critical response to Miles’ inter-
pretation W. Luke Treadwell, “Mihrab and ʿAnaza or Spear
in Sacrum – A Reconsideration of the Iconography of an
Early Marwanid Silver Drachm,” in Muqarnas 22(2005),
1–28 cited in Jeremy Johns, “Archaeology and the History
of Early Islam: the First Seventy Years,” Journal of
the Economic and Social History of the Orient 46, 4(2003),
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70
such an association of the open mihrab with the
ruler as the leader of prayer and as dispenser of
justice is fully consistent with the function of the
Dome of the Chain suggested by other forms of
evidence. The Dome of the Chain, with its spe-
cially configured qibla side, thus has a claim to be
the oldest surviving mihrab. Such a claim was
anticipated by Saïd Nuseibeh and Oleg Grabar,
who suggested that in early Islam the term mihrab
“could mean simply a private chamber, usually
part of a royal establishment.,” and that “during
the first century of Muslim rule…it was probably
identified with some spot on the Haram, possibly
connected with the mysterious Dome of the Chain
just to the east of the Dome of the Rock, the depos-
itory of the trials and judgments of all people.”58
The niche-less mihrab has several possible early
Islamic parallels. One of these survives not far
away, later but not much later in date. A mosaic
floor in a house at Ramla, dating most likely from
the very early Abbasid period, apparently served as
a mihrab, since it faces the qibla, has two columns
supporting a stilted round arch, and contains an
Arabic inscription whose first two lines are diffi-
cult to read, but whose last two lines are from the
Qurʾan, sura 7:205 “and be thou not of the neglect-
ful,” a call to remember prayer (Fig.  4.10).59 The
411–436, which focuses on the absence of any support-
ing  visual or physical evidence, which the Dome of
the Chain might now provide. Jere L. Bacharach, “Signs
of Sovereignty: The Shahada, Qurʾanic Verses, and the
Coinage of ʿAbd al-Malik,” Muqarnas 27(2010), 1–30 at
13–14 and Fig. 15, follows Treadwell’s interpretation, again
without reference to the Dome of the Chain.
58 Saïd Nuseibeh and Oleg Grabar, The Dome of the Rock
(New York, 1996), p. 51.
59 See Rina Talgam, Mosaics of Faith: Floors of Pagans,
Jews, Samaritans, Christians, and Muslims in the Holy
Land (Jerusalem and University Park pa, 2014), pp. 422–
423 with color illustration Fig.  504. Talgam suggested
that the architectural motif derives from the represen-
tation of architectural facades in synagogue mosaics,
and one could also cite the image of the Jerusalem
Temple in the Christian mosaic of Mount Nebo (her
Fig. 315) but I think that the comparison with the stilted
arch of the qibla side of the Dome of the Chain is more
striking, and the Ramla mosaic could then be a picture
chapter 4
image functioned like a prayer rug made of tes-
serae instead of textile. Another possible parallel is
now even closer to the Dome of the Chain. The
mihrab in the lower area beneath the floor in the
Dome of the Rock also has a stilted (in this case
pointed and lobed) arch above two columns, and
no niche. The decorative forms employed are very
much in the late Roman tradition, with diagonal as
well as vertical fluting on the columns, and an
ornamented bead-and-reel pattern at each side,
and with profile acanthus friezes around the arch
and the rectangle into which it is inscribed. Klaus
Brisch, following Creswell, suggested that this
mihrab is in fact the earliest preserved from the
Islamic world, and dates from the original con-
struction of the Dome of the Rock ca. 692, an early
dating for which he found support in the coin of
Abd al-Malik showing a mihrab just discussed.60
The early dating of this mihrab in the crypt of
the Dome of the Rock was rejected in an extended
study by Eva Baer,61 whose views have been
accepted by other scholars,62 although not by all.63
of an early type of open mihrab. The mosaic had been
dated to the Umayyad period by Rosen-Ayalon, but
more recently excavations suggest the second half of
the eighth century, during the early Abbasid period;
see for the earlier Umayyad dating Myriam Rosen-
Ayalon, “The First Mosque Discovered in Ramla,” Israel
Exploration Journal 26(1976), 106–119, and for the
Abbasid dating see Rina Avner, “Mosaic Pavements
from the Excavations South of the White Mosque,”
Qadmoniot 135/41(2008), 21–25.
60 See his entry in Janine Sourdel-Thomine and Bertold
Spuler, eds., Die Kunst des Islam, Propyläen Kunstge­
schichte 4 (Berlin, 1973), p. 145 and pl. 22.
61 Eva Baer, “The Mihrab in the Cave of the Dome of the
Rock,” Muqarnas 3(1985), 8–19.
62 The early dating proposed by Creswell and Brisch was
rejected by Nuseibeh and Grabar, Dome of the Rock,
p. 43, where the earliest mihrab in the building is
dated to the eleventh century, but without comment,
and more recently by Jonathan M. Bloom and Sheila
S. Blair, The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and
Architecture, 2 (Oxford, 2009), p. 516, who suggested
that “on stylistic and palaeographic grounds it is now
dated to the late 9th century or early 10th.”
63 Baer reports that Géza Fehérvári, who in his 1960 dis-
sertation and in later publications (“Tombstone or
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The Dome of the Chain
Baer’s careful and exhaustive analysis does not
seem to me conclusive. One of the grounds she
advanced for rejecting an early date is the epigra-
phy, but it appears to me that the inscriptions
could have been added at a later date. Another
basis for rejecting an early date was the present
location of the mihrab in the Dome of the Rock,
where it would seem to call for a later dating when
that structure became more commonly used for
prayer although we do not know when it was first
installed in that position.64 We do not know how
the building was used, or what it meant, so I do not
understand how one can be confident that it was
not used for prayer in the earliest period, and at
any event we have no way of knowing whether this
mihrab now in the Dome of the Rock was made for
that location or somewhere else, or how many
times it has been moved. The treatment of the
flanking columns of this mihrab, diagonally fluted
above and vertically fluted below, have a good par-
allel in a Qurʾan manuscript that may date from
the Umayyad period and has indeed in the past
been linked in its decoration with the Dome of the
Rock,65 and Latin manuscripts from the seventh
and early eighth centuries also provide good paral-
lels for this motif,66 which Baer did not discuss.
Mihrab? A Speculation,” in Richard Ettinghausen, ed.,
Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art [New
York, 1973], pp. 241–254) accepted the early dating to
the seventh century, and was not convinced by her
counter-arguments.
64 Grabar, Dome of the Rock, pp. 133–134 and Fig. 40 dis-
cusses this mihrab and its “set of curious problems.”
65 St. Petersburg, Russian National Library, cod. Marcel 13,
fol. 1a. For the manuscript see now François Déroche,
Qurʾans of the Umayyads. A First Overview, Leiden
Studies in Islam and Society 1 (Leiden and Boston,
2014), pp. 92–94 and Fig. 25.
66 I expect to publish a study on this topic elsewhere in
the future. For now suffice it to mention the occurrence
of this motif in the early eighth-century Gospels manu-
script in the Trier, Domschatz, cod. 61, fol. 11r (here the
diagonal fluted section below rather than above the
vertically fluted), for which see Nancy Netzer, Cultural
Interplay in the Eighth Century. The Trier Gospels and the
making of a scriptorium at Echternach (Cambridge,
1994), pl. 5, and in a probably early seventh-century
71
There certainly are good parallels for the orna-
ment of the mihrab published by Brisch as from
691 in Latin manuscripts of that period, not con-
sidered by Baer, whose comparisons are only to
other Islamic and to Coptic materials. Perhaps the
dating of the niche-less mihrab in the Dome of the
Rock should be re-evaluated?
The Dome of the Chain has many odd features,
but perhaps the oddest of all is its plan, with eleven
columns in the outer colonnade. The number eleven
is itself a bit of an orphan, lying between ten and
twelve, both of which have oodles of meanings, and
although endemic gambling has rendered it a “lucky
number” in today’s world, previously it has had little
symbolic significance.67 Today’s other lucky number
for gamblers, seven, may have had symbolic signifi-
cance in early Islamic mosque architecture, and a
number of scholars have suggested as much,68 but
eleven has never been considered, presumably
because it so rarely occurs. The choice of such a plan
was difficult almost to the point of being perverse (at
least from the standpoint of a geometer or a builder),
and can hardly have been an accident, assuming, as
we must on the basis of the available “archaeological”
information, that the arrangement is original. Grabar
north Italian manuscript in Paris, Bibliothèque natio-
nale de France, cod. lat. 10593, fol. 1v, for which see Ernst
Heinrich Zimmermann, Vorkarolingische Miniaturen,
Denkmäler Deutscher Kunst iii, 1(Berlin, 1916), pp. 39
and 147–148 and pl. 3.
67 For a heroic effort to define its significance see Dee
Finney, “The Symbolism and Spiritual Significance of
the Number 11” (http://www.greatdreams.com/eleven/
num11.htm; accessed 4/6/2011) : “Number Eleven pos-
sesses the qualities of intuition, patience, honesty, sen-
sitivity, and spirituality, and is idealistic. Others turn to
people who are ‘Eleven’ for teaching and inspiration,
and are usually uplifted by the experience.” For a consid-
erably less sunny presentation of its significance see Ency­
clopedia Brittanica Online (http://www.britannica.com/
EBchecked/topic/1086220/number-symbolism/248168/11)
(accessed 4/6/2011), which presents only negative
views, while noting eleven’s paltry significance relative
to its great neighbors.
68 See Katia Cytryn-Silverman, “The Umayyad Mosque at
Tiberias,” Muqarnas 26(2009), 37–61, at 60 note 66 for
discussion and bibliography.
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72
found no parallel or explanation for this eccentric
plan, nor has anyone else, remarking that “the num-
bers of columns [erroneously] given by Nasir-i
Khosraw [in the eleventh century] are more logical
and easier to understand then the true ones [that is,
an outer ring of eleven columns, and an inner of six],
which have not been explained to this day.”69 The
number of columns in the Dome of the Chain may
well not have been iconographically significant to
later observers, and it seems that some observers did
not take the first necessary step toward seeing any
possible significance, counting the columns. Grabar
noted that the Iranian author of the early tenth cen-
tury, Ibn al-Faqih, who left detailed accounts of sites
and structures in Jerusalem, wrote that the Dome of
the Chain had twenty columns, when in fact it had
seventeen, the outer eleven and an inner six.70 Nasir-i
Khosraw inaccurately and carelessly reported that
the Dome of the Chain had eight columns and six
piers;71 it is probably a fair inference that an author so
interested as was he in collecting local traditions and
explanation would not have made such a false
statement were there then in circulation a meaning-
ful explanation of the eleven columns.
In other words, by the tenth century at the lat-
est, any possible significance with which the
strange number and geometry might once have
been endowed was completely lost. In 1992 Robert
Hamilton noted that the building that he regarded
as the third Aqsa mosque, whose monumental col-
umns he re-evaluated and dated to the later eighth
century, had been described by al-Muqaddasi in
985 as having eleven doors on the east side.72
69 Grabar, Dome of the Rock, p. 152. For a “plan” of the
Dome of the Chain according to Nasir-i Khosraw’s
description, which nicely regularizes everything, and
makes the two adjacent structures more congruent, see
Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, fig. on p. 126.
70 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, p. 163.
71 Grabar, Dome of the Rock, p. 152, observes that “here again,
Nasir-i Khosros did not check his notes, or else he took
them without observing the structure very carefully.”
72 Robert Hamilton, “Once again the Aqsa,” in Raby and
Johns, Bayt al-Maqdis i, pp. 141–144 at 143 (he does not
give a textual reference for the source).
chapter 4
Perhaps one could imagine in the Aqsa mosque
some reference to the earlier structure to its north,
the eleven-sided Dome of the Chain, but it seems
more likely, as Hamilton argued, that the eleven
doors simply corresponded to the eleven interco-
lumniations of the side aisle of the third Aqsa
mosque, which resulted from a colonnade num-
bering twelve shafts. In other words, the number
eleven is a contingent accident following from the
use of twelve supports. It is the number of sup-
ports that is counted, and that is important, which
only reinforces the peculiarity of the Dome of the
Chain’s outer ring of eleven columns. It is geomet-
rically and iconographically anomalous, almost
weird, but in fact there are analogues, and in my
view the eleven-ness of the structure is closely tied
to its original meaning and function.
Bema and Eleven Columns
One analogue can be cited for an eleven-sided
structure, and only one known to me. It has not
previously been cited in connection with the
Dome of the Chain’s remarkable plan, perhaps
having escaped attention because it is no longer
extant, and perhaps because it is not a building
strictu sensu, but a large structure set within a
building. This lattermost anomaly is another fac-
tor connecting it with the Dome of the Chain,
which apparently never had walls and probably
should not be considered a “building” either. The
analogue to which I refer is described in a forty-
four-line hymn (Syr. sugitha) written in the Syriac
language, in celebration of the newly constructed
cathedral of Edessa. That building was con-
structed after its predecessor on the site was
destroyed, in 524, and was probably constructed
with the support of Emperor Justinian, being
nearly contemporary in date with, and related in
basic form to, Justinian’s great church in
Constantinople. Like that church it was dedi-
cated to Holy Wisdom, Hagia Sophia. First
published, along with a German translation,
by Heinrich Goussen in 1925 from a probably
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The Dome of the Chain
­thirteenth-century manuscript in the Vatican,73
the hymn was introduced into art-historical lit-
erature by André Grabar in 1947, who was at the
time working on his book Martyrium, which dealt
in extenso with central-plan, and especially with
domed, buildings of sacred character.74 The
Edessa hymn was seen by Grabar especially in
connection with cosmic symbolism, based on
such passages as the following: the church “in its
smallness should resemble the great world, not
in size but in type,” and “its dome [is] like the
heaven of heavens, the arches like mountain
tops.”75 According to the Edessa hymn, three
great windows in the apse area of the church are
linked to the Trinity, and in the middle of the
building (verse 15) is “a podium after the model
of  the upper room of Zion, and underneath it
are  eleven columns [emphasis mine] like the
eleven apostles who were hidden therein.” Thus,
the text not only specifically mentions eleven col-
umns, but also explicitly endows that number
with a significant symbolic referent, the apostles.
73 Heinrich Goussen, “Über eine ‘Sugitha’ auf die
Kathedrale von Edessa,” Le muséon 38(1925), 117–136.
The manuscript is Vatican, cod. Syr. 95, the text found
on fols. 49v–50r; Goussen’s transcription of the hymn is
on pp. 118–119 in his article.
74 André Grabar, Martyrium. Recherches sur le culte des
reliques et l’art chrétien antique (Paris, 1946).
75 André Grabar, “Le témoinage d’une hymne syriaque sur
l’architecture de la Cathédrale d’Édesse au vie siècle
et sur la symbolique de l’édifice chrétien.” Cahiers
archéologiques 2(1947), 41–67. For the full text and
French translation see A. Dupont-Sommer, “Une
hymne syriaque sur la Cathédrale d’Édesse,” Cahiers
archéologiques 2(1947), 29–39. For an English version see
Cyril Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453,
Sources and Documents in the History of Art (Englewood
Cliffs, nj, 1972) pp. 57–60. For more recent discussions
see the newer translation and edition by Andrew Palmer,
“The inauguration anthem of Hagia Sophia in Edessa: a
new edition and translation with historical and architec-
tural notes and a comparison with a contemporary
Constantinopolitan kontakion. With an appendix by
Lyn Rodley,” in Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies
12(1988), 117–167, the edition pp. 152–155.
73
Topographically, the reference in the Syriac
hymn is to the upper room of Zion where, accord-
ing to Acts 1: 13, immediately after witnessing the
Ascension of Christ on the Mount of Olives, the
eleven remaining apostles (instead of the custom-
ary twelve, for Judas, having betrayed Christ and
committed suicide, had not yet been replaced)
returned to Jerusalem. Both the Mount of Olives to
the east and (the mount of) Zion to the southwest
are in sight from the center of the Haram al-Sharif,
where the Dome of the Chain is located (Fig. 1.1).
The Jerusalem topographical references in the
Edessa hymn continue in the next verse, referring
to a column behind the “podium” crowned by a
cross and representing Golgotha, the hill also visi-
ble from the center of the Haram, to the west,
where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre stands.
The Edessa hymn in effect locates the eleven-sided
“podium” of Edessa within a symbolic or virtually
imagined Jerusalem.76 That it should do so is not
entirely surprising, for the hymn text consistently
refers to the cathedral of Edessa as the “temple”
(Syriac haykla), using a word more commonly
applied to the Jerusalem Temple than to a Christian
church.77 Although unusual, the use of this term
appears also in other more or less contemporary
texts such as the long inscription on the nearly con-
temporary sixth-century church of St. Polyeuktos
in Constantinople, which refers to the Temple and
specifically to Solomon.78
76 It is noteworthy in this topographic context that the
sobriquet Hagia Sophia for the Edessa Cathedral need
not refer, or at least not exclusively refer, to Justinian’s
great church in Constantinople. According to the
Piacenza pilgrim, writing perhaps about 570, just below
Sion in Jerusalem was the basilica of Saint Mary, and near
it where the Praetorium had been, the place of the trial of
Jesus, “the basilica of Saint Sophia, which is in front of
the Temple of Solomon”; see John Wilkinson, Jerusalem
Pilgrims before the Crusades (Warminster, 2002), p. 141.
77 Jodi Magness, “Helios and the Zodiac Cycle in Ancient
Palestinian Synagogues,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers
59(2005), 1–52, at 46.
78 Martin Harrison, A Temple for Byzantium. The Discovery
and Excavation of Anicia Juliana’s Palace Church in
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74
Erich Renhart argued strongly that that the
information about the form of the “podium” in
Edessa should be taken as historically plausible
and not dismissed as mere ekphrasis. He also
noted, following Kathleen McVey, that the consis-
tent reference to the cathedral in Edessa as “tem-
ple” (Syr. haykla) rather than church (Syr. idhtha =
Gr. ekklesia) is not necessary from the metrical
standpoint, the words scanning similarly, so that
the deliberate choice is “provocative” (McVey’s
word quoted by Renhart).79 Certainly the repeti-
tion of eleven as the number of both the columns
of the Edessan “podium” and of the apostles sug-
gests that we have here far more than a slip of the
tongue, or careless counting, but even if anyone
involved with the planning of Islamic buildings,
especially the Dome of the Chain, on the Haram
al-Sharif knew the Edessa hymn, which is possible
but seems far-fetched, why make a connection
with Edessa’s “podium?”
I struggled for some time with this question,
pursuing a dead-end path, based on the associa-
tion of Edessa from the later medieval period
with Abraham, and thinking that there might
be an Abrahamic association or reference, link-
ing  Jerusalem and Edessa.80 The association of
Abraham with Edessa is, however, not present in
Istanbul (Austin, tx, 1989), pp. 33 and 137–139. The
complete text of the poem is published as Greek
Anthology i, 10. According to one famous source,
Justinian is alleged to have said when entering his
newly rebuilt church of Hagia Sophia, “Solomon I have
surpassed you.”
79 Erich Renhart, Das syrische Bema. Liturgisch-
archäologische Untersuchungen, Grazer Theologische
Studien 20 (Graz, 1995), pp. 147–150, and Kathleen
E. McVey, “The domed church as microcosm: literary
roots of an architectural symbol,” Dumbarton Oaks
Papers 37(1983), 91–121 at 86.
80 Such an Abrahamic background was suggested by Oleg
Grabar, The Formation of Islamic Art (2nd ed.: New
Haven and London, 1987), pp. 53–54, although he rec-
ognized it as problematic, given “that the early Islamic
tradition was very uncertain about the actual localiza-
tion of the main events of Abraham’s life” (the quota-
tion on p. 53).
chapter 4
the sixth-century hymn, because that association
is a late medieval development. In the early medi-
eval period there seems to have been no challenge
to the scriptural association of Abraham not with
Edessa at all, but instead with nearby Harran.81
The answer to the puzzle, it seems to me, is not
that Jerusalem (the Dome of the Chain) was refer-
ring to Edessa (the “podium” in the great cathe-
dral), but that Edessa (the hymn about the new
cathedral) was referring to Jerusalem, for as will
be seen, there are several other “elevenses” that
can be cited, all of which are associated with
Jerusalem, and would have been available to the
writer of the Syriac hymn about the new cathe-
dral in Edessa. At least one of these other “elev-
enses” is a text showing that the theme of “eleven
apostles,” perhaps going back to the earliest days
of the Christian church in Jerusalem, was demon-
strably circulating there in the eighth century. The
81 For Edessa see Judah Benzion Segal, Edessa ‘the blessed
city’ (Oxford, 1970), and more recently Mattia Guidetti,
“The Byzantine Heritage in the Dar al-Islam: Churches
and Mosques in al-Ruha between the Sixth and Twelfth
Centuries,” Muqarnas 26(2009), 1–36. That the Edessa
area saw interchange among different religious and
language communities during later sixth century, the
time of the Edessa hymn, is attested by “a Byzantine
official inscription in Greek, Syriac, and Arabic, found
near Harran in the Taurus foothills and dating to the
latter part of the sixth century a.d. – an era before
Arabic had any written literature – [which] reveals
that speakers of Arabic were regular enough residents
there to warrant the great effort that writing a hith-
erto  unwritten language must have entailed”; see
Fred McGraw Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests
(Princeton, 1981), p. 95. One of our earliest Jerusalem
sources, Abu Bakr al-Wasiti ‘s Fada’il al-Bayt al-Muqad-
das, praise of Jerusalem, dating from the late tenth or
early eleventh century, makes no connection between
Abraham and Jerusalem, as was noted by Nasser
Rabbat, “The Meaning of the Umayyad Dome of the
Rock,” Muqarnas 6(1989), 12–21, at 14. That Mt. Moriah,
the Temple Mount or Haram al-Sharif, was “never given
as the place of Abraham’s sacrifice, even when the epi-
sode was reported to have taken place in Palestine” is
stated by Rabbat, “Dome of the Rock Revisited,” at 72.
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The Dome of the Chain
Life of Willibald, written in the late eighth century
by Hugeburc, describes an Anglo-Saxon pilgrim
who visited the Holy Land for a period of four
years in the 720s, and this text actually refers
twice to the eleven apostles. On his first visit to
Jerusalem Willibald saw a
“great column standing in front of the city gate,
which had on top of it a cross as a sign to remind
people of the place where the Jews wanted to take
away the body of St. Mary. For as the eleven apos-
tles [emphasis mine] were carrying the body of St.
Mary and taking it down from Jerusalem [etc.] . . St
Mary departed this life right in the middle of
Jerusalem at the place called Holy Sion. Then the
eleven apostles [emphasis mine] carried her in the
way I have described.”82
The connection of the Edessa hymn with
Jerusalem, and more specifically with the Dome of
the Chain, is most easily grasped by considering
the possible function of each structure. What,
then, was the function of this “podium” at Edessa?
Cyril Mango identified it as the ambo,83 what we
might call in English a pulpit, a raised platform
from which the religious leader would speak to the
crowd of the faithful, either reading from sacred
82 Quoted from Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims before
the Crusades, p. 243, referring to the edition of the
Vita by Oswald Holder-Egger, “Vitae Willibaldi et
Wynnebaldi, auctore sanctimoniali Heidenheimensi,” in
Vitae aliaeque historiae minores, Monumenta Ger­
maniae  Historica, Scriptorum xv, 1 (Hannover, 1887),
pp. 86–106, and also printed with notes by Odilo Engels
in Harald Dickerhof [with Ernst Reiter and Stefan
Weinfurter], eds., Der hl. Willibald, Klosterbischof
oder Bistumsgrunder, Eichstätter Studien, N.F. 30
(Regensburg, 1990), pp. 175–178. For an accessible
English translation by C[harles] H. Talbot see
“Huneberc of Heidenheim, The Hodoeporicon of Saint
Willibald,” in Thomas F.X. Noble and Thomas Head,
eds., Soldiers of Christ. Saints and Saints’ Lives from Late
Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (University Park,
pa, 1995), pp. 141–164, the particular passage discussed
here on p. 156.
83 Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, p. 59 n. 17.
75
scripture or delivering a sermon, or both. It is
essential to note, however, that the Edessa text is
in Syriac, not in Greek, and the Syriac word used in
the text is bema, not ambo (Greek ambon, ˋαμβων).
That Syriac word84 appears to be a borrowing from
the Greek bema (βήμα),85 which has a long history
developing from the root meaning of a step, and
already used by Attic authors such as Thucydides
and Demosthenes for a raised place with one or
more steps from which one could address a
crowd.86 Basically the same meaning was main-
tained in Greek authors of the patristic period, for
whom a bema could be a rostrum or seat within
either a secular or ecclesiastical context.87
However, in late antiquity bema also developed a
quite distinct and specific significance, in which it
denoted the entire area of the sanctuary,88 roughly
corresponding to the use of the term “choir” for
later medieval architecture in western Europe,
while the pulpit, the raised platform for speaking,
was described as the ambo (ἄμβων); this usage has
become the common one also in modern scholarly
literature. The raised structure referred to in the
Syriac hymn, the bema (pl. bemata, often angli-
cized bemas), was an important structure in the
84 The word occurs first in line 30 of the text, the crucial
passage. I am grateful to Joseph Daniels for reading the
Syriac text for me and for identifying the terminology
that it employs.
85 For the likelihood that some Greek authors knew
Syriac, and the certainty that some Syriac authors
knew Greek, with special reference to the area near
Edessa, see Sebastian Brock, “Edessene Syriac inscrip-
tions in late antique Syria,” in Hannah M. Cotton,
Robert G. Hoyland, Jonathan J. Price and David
J. Wasserstein, eds., From Hellenism to Islam. Cultural
and Linguistic Change in the Roman Near East
(Cambridge, 2009), pp. 289–302.
86 Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English
Lexicon (9th ed., with Supplement; Oxford, 1996),
p. 314, with examples.
87 G.W.H. Lampe, ed., A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford,
1961), p. 296 at B, with examples. See also Renhart,
Syrische Bema, pp. 123–154.
88 Lampe, Patristic Greek Lexicon, p. 296 at C, with
examples.
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76
late antique and early medieval period, known
from texts to have been a feature of major churches,
set in or near the center of the structure. No exam-
ple survives intact or complete, although we have
significant fragments from Ravenna89 and from
Stobi.90 The ambos in the great sixth-century
Constantinopolitan churches of St. Polyeuktos
and of Hagia Sophia are gone, but are commonly
reconstructed in historical views as placed at
the center of the nave, under the dome, and raised
on columns.91 The type continues into the later
89 Associated with Archbishop Agnellus of Ravenna
(557–570), this ambo was made of Proconnesian mar-
ble and probably imported from Constantinople, prob-
ably made for the city’s cathedral and still preserved
there, and is decorated with panels of birds, fish and
animals; see Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis, Ravenna
in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2010), pp. 213–214 and
Fig. 71. Its inscription calls it a pyrgus, perhaps directly
derived from and alluding to the pyrgos (πύργος) in
Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, according to Rafaella
Farioli Campanati, “Il pyrgus dell’arcivescovo Agnello
e la sua datazione,” Corsi di cultura sull’arte Ravennate
e Bizantine 41(1994), 207–218. The term pyrgus, com-
monly used for a tower, clearly relates to a structure that
is of considerable height, not a mere step. Nonetheless,
in form, as reconstructed by Farioli Campanati, Fig. 2, the
Ravenna ambo would have had two tall narrow stair-
cases, closed on the sides, meeting at a central platform
at the top; it is striking that each of the sides, taken sepa-
rately, conforms fairly closely to the minbar in later
mosques, being narrow walled and steeply ascending
steps.
90 Surviving in fragments from the likely early sixth-
century basilica at Stobi, in Macedonia: see Rudolf
Egger, “Die städtische Kirche von Stobi,” Jahreshefte des
Österreichischen Archäologischen Instituts in Wien
24(1929), 42–87 at plate following p. 64; for its location
near the center of the nave of the basilica see Fig. 26.
91 Harrison, Temple for Byzantium, Fig.  167. For Hagia
Sophia’s ambo and its setting, see Stephen G. Xydis,
“The chancel barrier, solea, and ambo of Hagia Sofia,”
Art Bulletin 29(1947), 1–24. On the crowds pressing to
be close to the preacher see Robert F. Taft, “The Decline
of Communion in Byzantium and the Distancing of the
Congregation from the Liturgical Action: Cause, Effect,
or Neither?” in Sharon E.J. Gerstel, ed., Thresholds of
the Sacred: architectural, art historical, liturgical and
chapter 4
­ edieval period, with such well known examples
m
as the pulpit from Pistoia by Giovanni Pisano, ca.
1300, and others throughout Italy.92 In the Greek
tradition, and in the Italian examples that stem
from it, the platform is high and quite small, and
raised generally on a dense packing of columnar
supports or piers. In the Syriac church, however,
the bema generally had a very different form, was
less dramatically elevated, and was without such
prominent columns.93
More important in relation to the Dome of the
Chain than the distant Western descendants of the
type are the occurrences of the bema in various
religious traditions of the late antique Near East,
including even the Manichaeans, for whom the
bema festival has been characterized as “the holi-
est day in their calendar and marked the annual
day of judgment for believers…[who] would stand
before the bema to be judged.”94 Here I will con-
centrate on the use of the bema in Christian and
Jewish worship in late antique Syria and Palestine,
for unlike the Manichaean usage, known only from
texts, we have Christian and Jewish buildings in
Syria and Palestine with surviving physical evi-
dence for the bema, some of which were highly
theological perspectives on religious screens, East and
West (Washington, d.c., 2006), pp. 26–50 at 36–37, with
references.
92 On Italian medieval pulpits see recently Anita
F. Moskowitz, Nicola and Giovanni Pisano Pulpits
(Turnhout, 2006).
93 Emma Loosey, The Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema
in fourth- to sixth-century Syrian Churches, Patrimoine
syriaque 2 (Kaslik [Lebanon], 2003), pp. 92–94 dis-
cussed the Edessa bema and concluded that in form it
was more like the Greek ambo, and that it was there-
fore likely that the Greek, rather than the Syriac, liturgy,
was used in that church. She also discussed (pp. 29–30)
the relationship between bemata and ambos, and their
geographical and chronological distribution.
94 Loosey, Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema, pp. 31–32
(whence the quotation) and 87. See also Julien Ries, “La
fête de Bêma dans l’église de Mani,” Revue des Études
augustiniennes 22(1976), 218–233. I am grateful to Lucy-
Anne Hunt for providing me bibliographical sugges-
tions for the early Syrian churches.
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The Dome of the Chain
important sites demonstrably known to early
Muslims, including Muslim rulers. Renhart dis-
cussed the meaning of the term bema in Syriac
Christian usage in late antiquity, identifying two
different meanings, one primarily a step and the
other a seat or throne, both used in scripture and
liturgy with these meanings, the term having in
some contexts a connotation of rulership, and in
others of a place where the scriptures were read.95
In addition, as Emma Loosey has indicated, in the
Syriac tradition the term also has an eschatological
meaning, although in her view this is primarily a
Greek inheritance, somewhat hidden in the Syriac
bema churches, which in her view derive their pri-
mary function and meaning from the Jewish tradi-
tion of scriptural reading.96 In a wider sense, the
image of the empty throne, signifying the absence
and the presence of god, looking forward to the
end of time and the day of judgment, is implicit in
the widespread use of the etimasia or hetoimasia
(έτοιμασία) or empty throne, in early Christian art
across the Mediterranean world.97 Appearing fre-
quently in monumental art from the fifth and sixth
century, in churches such as S. Maria Maggiore in
Rome, and in the Orthodox and Arian Baptisteries
of Ravenna,98 it continued to be used into the
95 Renhart, Syrische Bema, pp. 123–154.
96 Loosey, Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema, p. 88. On
this point see also Thomas Mannooramparampil, “Bema
in the East Syrian Church,” Christian Orient 19(1998),
84–99, esp. 94. The author also discusses the possible
archaeological evidence for a bema structure as early as
the third century at Dura-Europos, and most intriguingly
at the important Arabic Christian center at al-Hira (p. 86),
for which he cites Robert F. Taft, “Some Notes on the
Bema in the East and West Syrian Traditions,” Orientalia
Christiana periodica 34(1968), 326–359 at 330, and Loosey,
Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema, pp. 86–87.
97 On the hetoimasia see Renhart, Syrische Bema, pp. 155–
159 with references, especially Thomas von Bogyay,
“Hetoimasia,” in Klaus Wessel and Marcell Restle, eds.,
Reallexikon zur Byzantinischen Kunst 2(Stuttgart, 1971),
cols. 1189–1202.
98 See Deliyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity, pp. 96–97
and Fig. 25 for the former, which is particularly inter-
esting in having four such empty thrones arranged in
77
ninth century, in association with important
church councils, representing the presence of god
through his scriptures.99 Perhaps most interesting,
albeit deeply problematic, is the presentation of a
series of such images, of the throne or altar with
book open upon it, in the mosaics of the Church of
the Nativity in Bethlehem, much restored and con-
troversial as to dating, the views of some favoring a
date in the eighth-century challenged by those
favoring a twelfth-century dating.100
It is not clear in what religious tradition,
whether Jewish, Christian or indeed Manichean,
the use of the term bema, or the object to which it
refers in this sense, originated, but I will begin
with the Jewish tradition, which has striking and
surprising connections with the Dome of the
Chain that have never hitherto attracted notice.
First is a Jewish text originating in the late Antique
period and concerning the enforcement of laws on
purity around the Temple in Jerusalem. Eleven
spatial divisions narrow from the land of Israel as
a whole, each more holy than the last, culminating
in the tenth division, the sanctuary of the temple,
and the eleventh, the Holy of Holies, entered only
by the high priest on the Day of Atonement.101 This
the four corners around a dome, and for the latter p. 183
and Fig. 62.
99 See Leslie Brubaker, “Politics, patronage and art in
ninth-century Byzantium: the homilies of Gregory of
Nazianzus in Paris (b.n. Gr. 510),” Dumbarton Oaks
Papers 39(1985), 1–13, at 4 with earlier literature, and
Fig. 4 (fol. 355r picturing the Council of 381).
100 See Gustav Kühnel, “Die Konzilsdarstellungen in der
Geburtskirche in Bethlehem: ihre kunsthistorisch
Tradition und ihr kirchenpolitisch-historischer Hinter­
grund,” in Byzantinische Zeitschrift 86/87(1993/1994),
86–107 and pls. iv–xi (pls. x and xii in color). Here the
very extensive earlier literature. The twelfth-century
dating seems more favored in recent scholarship,
according with the undisputed date of other mosaics in
the church.
101 Mishnah Kelim 1:6–9, quoted in Baruch M. Bokser,
“Approaching Sacred Space,” Harvard Theological
Review 78(1985), 279–299 at 289–290, who “locates” the
text in the post-expulsion world. Cited in abbreviated
form in Ann Marie Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces in
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78
source refers to a structure, to be sure a remem-
bered rather than a then extant structure, but it is
important to consider the bema in synagogues in
Palestine and Syria in connection with this text.
Emma Loosey suggested that the earliest known
example of a bema (= Hebrew bimah, pl. bimot, but
I will use the commonly employed Greek/Syriac
spelling bema henceforth) is found in a synagogue
at Nabratein in upper Galilee. Loosey followed a
tradition of scholarship dating it as early as the
second century,102 although it is important to note
that this dating of the building has recently been
strongly challenged by Jodi Magness, who argued
for a date not before the later fourth century.103
Whether or not a “patch in the stone pavement in
the center of the room” indicates that a bema
existed in the mid-third-century synagogue at
Dura-Europos is unclear,104 as is the date for the
earliest use of the term bema in a Jewish religious
context. Steven Fine discussed a rabbinic text,
probably datable to the second or third century,
which uses the term, likely anachronistically, for a
wooden platform (bema) at the center of the syna-
gogue in Alexandria.105 In its usage in the Jewish
the Late Antique Mediterranean. Architecture, Cult, and
Community (Cambridge, 2009), p. 29. It is intriguing to
note that incense was used in the Temple twice daily
(Lev. 16:12–13 and Num. 17.5) and was restricted for use
in the Temple, for Ex. 30.37 forbids using that this for-
mula in private homes; see Geoffrey Wigoder, ed., with
Fred Skolnik and Shmuel Himelstein, The New
Encyclopedia of Judaism (New York, 1989), pp. 388–389.
102 Loosey, Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema, p. 31.
103 Jodi Magness, “The Ancient Synagogue at Nabratein,”
Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research 358
(May 2010), 61–68.
104 Michael Avi-Yonah, “Synagogue architecture in the late
Classical Period,” in Cecil Roth, ed., rev. ed. by Bezalel
Narkiss, Jewish Art (2nd ed., Greenwich, ct, 1971), pp.
65–82 at 75, cited by Loosey, Architecture and Liturgy of
the Bema, p. 31. The likely existence of a central bema in
the Dura synagogue is accepted by Lee I. Levine, The
Ancient Synagogue. The First Thousand Years (New
Haven and London, 2000), p. 86.
105 Steven Fine, “‘Chancel’ Screen in Late Antique
Palestinian Synagogues: A Source from the Cairo
chapter 4
tradition, Fine suggested that the bema was based
upon a passage in Nehemiah 8:4, in which Ezra
read the Scripture from a raised platform when
he  re-established worship in Jerusalem after the
Babylonian Captivity. This passage was accompa-
nied by the rabbinic comment that “the king stood
[on a bema] in the Temple to read publicly from
the Torah on the first day of Sukkot,”106 indicating
that this original performance by Ezra was remem-
bered as having been regularly repeated. The
Biblical passage, Nehemiah 8: 1–6, is worth pre-
senting at some length here. The Israelites having
just re-settled in Jerusalem after having returned
from exile in Persia,
“When the seventh month came, and the Israelites
were now settled in their towns, all the people
assembled with one accord in the broad space in
front of the Water Gate [in Jerusalem], and
requested Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the
law of Moses, which the Lord had enjoined upon
Israel…. From early morning till noon he read
aloud from it. . [and] the people all listened atten-
tively to the book of the law. Ezra the scribe stood
on a wooden platform [Greek βήματος, bema]
which had been made for this purpose; beside him
stood…”
A list of names follows, given variously in different
translations. The Vulgate gives eleven names here,107
Genizah,” in Hayim Lapin, ed., Religious and Ethnic
Communities in Later Roman Palestine, Studies and
Texts in Jewish History and Culture 5 (Potomac, md,
1998), pp. 67–85 at 74, and Steven Fine, This Holy Place:
On the Sanctity of the Synagogue during the Greco-
Roman Period (Notre Dame, 1998), pp. 43–45.
106 Fine, “‘Chancel’ Screen,” p. 75 (in the Palestinian Talmud?
Fine cites m. Sota 7:8). Fine’s argument was cited in
Loosey, Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema, p. 45.
107 ii Ezra (= Nehemiah) 8: 1–6: “et venerat mensis septimus
filii autem Israhel errant in civitatibus suis congrega-
tusque est omnis populus quasi vir unus ad plateam quae
est ante portam Aquarum et dixerunt Ezrae scribae ut
adferret librum legis Mosi quam praecepit Dominus
Israheli…stetit autem Ezras scriba super gradum ligneum
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The Dome of the Chain
and apparently so does the Greek text.108 Is it possi-
ble that the eleven columns of the bema at Edessa,
and perhaps also in the Dome of the Chain, have
some such public reading in mind, and that the Old
Testament passage helps explain the structures’
highly unusual number of columns?
Another passage from the Jewish scriptures
taken over into Christian should be cited here
(2 Chronicles 6:13–14), for it locates ritual reading
from the holy scripture by the ruler on the Temple
Mount, the future Haram al-Sharif. Here the read-
ing is by Solomon, who was explicitly associated in
some of the later Muslim explanations of the
Dome of the Chain with that structure. The con-
struction of the Temple had just been completed,
and the Ark of the Covenant had just been brought
to the newly constructed Temple of Solomon, and
installed in the Holy of Holies. Then
“standing in front of the altar of the Lord in the
presence of the whole assembly of Israel, Solomon
spread out his hands. He had made a bronze plat-
form, five cubits long, five cubits broad, and three
cubits high, and had placed it in the center of the
quem fecerat ad loquendum et steterunt iuxta eum
Matthathia et Sema et Ania et Uria et Helcia et Maasia ad
dextram eius et ad sinistram Phadaia Misahel et Melchia
et Asum et Asephdana Zaccharia et Mosollam at aperuit
Ezras librum coram omni populo…”
108 Loosey, Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema, p. 44, cit-
ing André Grabar, “Les Ambons Syriens et la function
liturgique de la nef dans les églises antiques,” Cahiers
archéologiques 1(1945), 129–133 at 130. Grabar refers to
the eleven surrounding figures, citing the source as 2
Ezra 8, 4, and also cites 3 Ezra 9, 42 for specifying seven
on either side of Ezra. The former passage, with eleven
accompanying figures, is cited also by Levine, Ancient
Synagogue, p. 320. However, the Septuagint text that I
consulted lists thirteen names around Ezra, six at his
right and seven at his left; see The Septuagint Version of
the Old Testament with Apocrypha (Grand Rapids, mi,
1972), p. 641. The situation is confusing, and of course
we have no good way of knowing what text would have
been known, orally or in writing, among those who
might have been involved with the construction of the
Dome of the Chain.
79
precinct. He mounted it and knelt down in the
presence of the assembly, and spreading out his
hands toward heaven, he said, ‘Lord God of Israel,
there is no God like you in heaven or on earth,
keeping covenant with your servants and showing
them constant love while they continue faithful to
you with all their heart…”109
That is, at the inauguration of the worship of the one
god in the temple constructed for him in Jerusalem,
Solomon prays first standing and then kneeling, on a
raised platform located just before the altar “in the
center of the precinct.” The exact location of the
altar is unknown today (albeit often discussed!), and
where if anywhere early Muslim tradition believed it
to have been located in the seventh century is equally
unknown, but if by the “precinct” one understands
the entire sanctuary in the seventh century, then its
center is marked, as noticed by several scholars, by
the Dome of the Chain (Fig. 4.5)!
It is interesting that although the Palestinian
Talmud refers in two passages to a platform or
podium called a bema in a synagogue, the
Babylonian Talmud and the Egyptian sources do
not do so. In the context of the synagogue, the
usage of the term bema, and very likely the con-
struction of such a podium,110 apparently was
restricted to Palestine and Syria, with a possible
outlier farther north and west at Sardis in western
Anatolia, where the base for what has been com-
monly interpreted as a bema is located in the
center of the “nave” of the synagogue (Fig. 4.11).111
109 ii Paralipomenon (= 2 Chronicles) 6:13–14: siquidem
fecerat Salomon basem aeneam et posuerat eam in
medio basilicae habentem quinque cubitos longitudinis
et quinque cubitos latitudinis et tres cubitos in altum,
stetitque super eam et deinceps flexis genibus contra uni-
versam multitudinem Israhel et palmis in caelum levatis
ait: Domine Deus Israhel non est similis tui Deus in caelo
et in terra qui custodies pactum et misericordiam cum
servis tuis qui ambulant coram te in toto corde suo.
110 Fine, “‘Chancel’ Screen,” pp. 76–77, cited in Loosey,
Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema, p. 46.
111 On the possible but not certain evidence for a bema in
the Sardis synagogue see Rachel Hachlili, Ancient Jewish
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80
The dating of synagogues in late antique Palestine
and in the Golan area is highly controversial, and
few have any features definitely identifiable as a
bema, perhaps because, following the scriptural
precedents, such structures may have been made
of wood or metal and designed to be removable, or
at least would not leave a trace discoverable to
archaeology.112 The remaining evidence is none-
theless considerable, with the bema taking varying
forms, executed in differing materials, and placed
in differing locations; evidently although the type
was widespread, it was not strongly determined in
Art and Archaeology in the Land of Israel (Leiden, 1988),
p. 182, and Andrew R. Seager, “The Building History of
the Sardis Synagogue,” American Journal of Archaeology
76(1972), 425–435 at 426 and note 8. For a plan and axo-
nometric section of the building see George M.A.
Hanfmann and William E. Mierse, Sardis from
Prehistoric to Roman times. Results of the Archaeological
Exploration of Sardis 1958–1975 (Cambridge, ma and
London, 1983), Figs. 252–253. In a personal communica-
tion for which I am most grateful Professor Seager has
informed me that in the forthcoming final report on the
Sardis synagogue he will express serious reservations
about the identification of the structure with a “bima”
title, since he now feels that the uprights are too slight
to support a platform. For the dating of the Sardis syna-
gogue complex into the sixth rather than the fourth
century see Jodi Magness, “The Date of the Sardis
Synagogue in Light of the Numismatic Evidence,”
American Journal of Archaeology 109(2005), 443–475. It
would be interesting to speculate further about whether
the occurrence of the bema, with its powerful linkage
with the Jerusalem temple, in Palestinian and Syrian
synagogues might be related to the continuing pres-
ence of priests as opposed to rabbis in leading positions
within the congregation, as was suggested for Dura
Europos by Jodi Magness, “Third-century Jews and
Judaism at Beth Shearim and Dura Europos,” in David
Gwynn and Susanne Bangert, eds., Religious Diversity in
Late Antiquity (Leiden and Boston, 2010), pp. 135–166,
and previously for other Palestinian synagogues in
Magness, “Helios and the Zodiac Cycle,” at 21–28.
112 For evidence of wooden bemata, essentially the exis-
tence of post-holes, see the evidence from ‘En-Gedi
and perhaps Ma’on, in Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art and
Archaeology, p. 183.
chapter 4
architectural terms.113 In some cases, as for exam-
ple at Gush Halav, the bema (or successive bemata)
seems to have been along the south wall, thus fac-
ing Jerusalem.114 Where there are remains, there
are often only one (as at Beth Alpha) or two (as at
Susiya or Hammath Gader) steps leading up to the
platform, so at least in these cases the bema
appears to have been low, as in the case of the
Syriac bema churches to be addressed shortly.115
A stone feature identified by E.L. Sukenik as a
small bema was found atop the floor mosaic in
front of the apse in the synagogue at Beth Alpha
(Fig.  4.12), visible at the upper left in this image,
whose well-known floor mosaic is commonly
dated to the sixth century, and thus the bema
structure should probably be dated in the later
sixth or seventh century.116 The figural floor mosaic
113 Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology, pp. 182–183.
114 For discussion, for the most part focusing on dating,
see Jodi Magness, “The Question of the Synagogue: The
Problem of Typology,” in Jacob Neusner and Alan
J. Avery-Peck, eds., Judaism in Late Antiquity, Part
Three: Where We Stand: Issues and Debates in Ancient
Judaism, vol. 4: The Special Problem of the Synagogue,
Handbuch der Orientalistik 49 (Leiden, 2001), pp. 1–48
at 8–9, and Eric M. Meyers, “The Dating of the Gush
Halav Synagogue: A response to Jodi Magness,” in the
same volume, pp. 49–63 at 56–58.
115 Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology, p. 183.
116 Eleazar Lipa Sukenik, The Ancient Synagogue of Beth
Alpha. An Account of the Excavations Conducted on
Behalf of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem ([from the
Hebrew] Jerusalem and London, 1932; reprint
Hildesheim and New York, 1975), pp. 13 and 53–54,
Fig.  47 (reconstruction showing the bema in position
before the apse), pl. v 1 and 2 (photos of the area), viii
(detail of the mosaic with the bema structure), and
xxvii (plan of the synagogue showing the location of
the presumed bema); and Eleazar Lipa Sukenik,
Ancient Synagogues in Palestine and Greece, The
Schweich Lecture of the British Academy (London,
1934), pp. 32 (with Fig. 7) and 57. See Steven Fine, ed.,
Sacred Realm. The Emergence of the Synagogue in the
Ancient World (Oxford and New York, 1996), pl. i, for a
color reproduction model showing the mosaic in situ,
and pl. xxxii for a detail of the section with the possi-
ble foundation of the bema. See recently on the mosaics
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The Dome of the Chain
at Beth Alpha (Fig. 4.13) has a focus on Jerusalem
at each end, with the Temple and menorah at the
top, near the location of the possible bema, and
the Sacrifice of Isaac at the other, entrance, end,
while a zodiacal/cosmological wheel formed the
center. The Temple was, of course, located some-
where on the Haram al-Sharif and known to have
been there,117 and some traditions link Abraham’s
sacrifice with that location, while there is abun-
dant evidence locating the omphalos, the center of
the world, on the Haram, and specifically at the
Rock, beside which the Dome of the Chain was
constructed.118
Whether or not Christian churches in Syria
adopted their bema from an earlier usage in syna-
gogues is debatable, and the terms of the debate will
depend upon the dates assigned to the buildings,
and the structures within them. The moment of
adoption lay somewhere between the second and
Magness, “Helios and the Zodiac Cycle,” Fig. 3, and see
Lee I. Levine, Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity. Historical
Contexts of Jewish Art (New Haven and London, 2012),
pp. 280–293, noting at 280 the presence of the bema,
and its orientation toward Jerusalem. Note that some
published reproductions of the mosaic show it with
the bema removed.
117 Exactly where the Second Temple was located remains
unknown and a subject of much conjecture. For a
recent discussion, with earlier literature, see Joseph
Patrich, “The Location of the Second Temple and the
Layout of its Courts, Gates, and Chambers: A New
Proposal,” Katharina Galor and Gideon Avni, Unearthing
Jerusalem.150 Years of Archaeological Research in the
Holy City (Winona Lake, in, 2011), pp. 205–229.
118 For discussion see Lawrence Nees, “Blue behind Gold:
the inscription of the Dome of the Rock and its relatives,”
in Jonathan Bloom and Sheila Blair, eds., “And Diverse are
Their Hues”: Color in Islamic Art and Culture (New Haven
and London 2011), pp. 152–173 at 163, and Rodney Aist,
The Christian Topography of Early Islamic Jerusalem. The
Evidence of Willibald of Eichstätt (700–787 ce) (Turnhout,
2009), pp. 88–89 with references. For the subsequent
shift in the Muslim conception of the center of the world
to Mecca see Paul Wheatley, The places where men pray
together. Cities in Islamic lands seventh through the tenth
centuries (Chicago and London, 2001), p. 95.
81
the end of the fourth century. The issue of origin, like
that of priority among different religious traditions,
is not a concern here, the important point is to note
the common presence of such features in both syna-
gogues and churches in Syria and Palestine during
the seventh century, when Islam arrives in the
area.119 In a large group of churches constructed in
Syria from approximately the later fourth to the sev-
enth century,120 many of which were still in use in
the early Islamic period, the architectural form of
the bema was so prominent that it has given its name
to the entire group, the “bema churches,” the exam-
ple at Resafa/Sergiopolis being the one of greatest
interest for this investigation, and a good representa-
tive example of the group (Figs. 4.14 and 4.15). Robert
Taft described the distinctive structure of the bema
in Syriac churches as “not unlike a low-walled roof-
less apse, transported to the middle of the church
and turned around to face east.”121 These have been
discussed and analyzed as a group by a number of
authors, by Erich Renhart as previously mentioned,122
a useful pictorial survey being by Georges
Tchalenko,123 and a more recent analytical study by
Emma Loosey.124 Dating is, as ever, controversial, but
“the earliest securely dated bema” is found in the
very interesting martyrium of St. Babylas built at
Qausiyeh, east of Antioch, which has a mosaic floor
with the date 387.125 Unlike most churches of the
119 Loosey, Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema, pp. 46–47.
120 Loosey, Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema, p. 28.
121 Taft, “Some Notes on the Bema,” p. 329.
122 Renhart, Syrische Bema (as above, n. 77).
123 Georges Tchalenko, Égilises syriennes à Bêma, Institut
français d’archéologie du Proche-Orient, Bibliothèque
archéologique et historique 105 (2 vols.; Paris, 1990). [n.b.
the volume of photographs has a separate title, Edgar
Baccache, Églises de village de la Syrie du Nord,
Documents d’archéologie: La Syrie à l’époque de l’Empire
Romain d’Orient 1; Institut français d’archéologie du
Proche-Orient, Bibliothèque ar­chéologique et historique
105 (Paris, 1980), Album].
124 Loosey, Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema.
125 Loosey, Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema, p. 49, and
Tchalenko, Égilises syriennes à Bêma, pp. 219–220, plan
p. 253, Fig. 31, and pls. 348–351.
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82
period up to the seventh century, which exhibit a
longitudinal shape, some form of basilican hall,
Qausiyeh was a central-plan church, arranged as a
Greek cross with four equal arms, the bema located
at the center, and apparently serving as the focus of
all ritual liturgical practices, since all four cross arms
had entrances, and there is no evidence for an altar.
It is very much a locus sanctus, indeed recalls the
description of the structure over Jacob’s well at
Sichem in Adomnán’s De locis sanctis and a drawing
in an early manuscript of that work (Fig.  3.2).126
Qausiyeh’s bema church marks a powerfully holy
place, in a small village, not a congregational struc-
ture for regular use, but a site for pilgrimage. It is
striking that the central plan recurs in a very grand
building indeed, the large aisled tetraconch at
Seleucia in Pieria,127 and therefore in a building type
that has some strong connections with the Dome of
the Rock, as will be explored in the next chapter.
In this group of Syrian churches the bema is con-
sistently located, as in this early example at
Qausiyeh, at the center of the church building, as
defined by diagonals drawn from its outer corners,
as can be seen from the plans of the members of
the group assembled by Tchalenko, who put those
diagonals on his plans;128 note that the Dome of
the Chain is located in the center of the Haram in
precisely this way, at the intersection of diagonals
from the corners, as well as at the intersection of
the main axes of the platform (Fig. 4.5). Among this
large group of Syriac bema churches, numbering in
126 See discussion at length in Chapter 3 above.
127 Tchalenko, Égilises syriennes à Bêma, pp. 221–222, plan
p. 244, Fig. 12, pls. 353–355.
On this important building type see W. Eugene
Kleinbauer, “The Origin and Functions of the Aisled
Tetraconch Churches in Syria and Northern Meso­
potamia,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 27(1973), 89–114.
128 Tchalenko, Égilises syriennes à Bêma, pp. 242–256,
Figs. 1–45. In his drawings, the central point is in most
cases located at the center of the flat side of the bema
structure, the entrance, facing the apse and altar of the
church, but the churches at Qausiyeh, Seleucia in
Pieria and at Resafa are exception to this norm, having
the bema center near the church center.
chapter 4
all several dozen, one of the largest, best preserved,
and perhaps most striking in its evidently close
relationship to Umayyad architecture is the great
basilica at Resafa, also known as Sergiopolis, after
its patron Saint Sergius, one of the greatest of late
antique miracle-workers.129 Several churches were
constructed at this site, but only one of them has a
bema, the largest of them, Basilica A, now often
known as the Basilica of the Holy Cross, probably
late Justinianic in date, from roughly the mid-sixth
century (Figs. 4.14 and 4.15).130 It is a large basilica,
and at the center of the nave is the bema, taking the
typical form in this group, a slightly raised plat-
form, a step or two above the nave level, in form
roughly speaking a rectangle with a semi-circular
arrangement at one end, here at Resafa, as is usu-
ally the case, the semi-circular portion being in the
end farthest from the apse and altar, and closest to
the central position in the church. At the central
point of this curving portion, directly opposite the
apse and altar, the enclosing low wall was slightly
raised, creating a lectern, with a sloping side on the
inner face, and it was upon this that the Gospels
manuscript was placed, after having been brought
from the altar area by a liturgical procession; the
example from Bennawi gives a good idea of this
lectern structure (Fig. 4.16).131 It is from this point
that the bishop would read from the holy scrip-
tures. Surrounding the bishop, the reader, were
benches for the other members of the clergy, who
surrounded him at this important point of the
liturgical service.132
At Resafa, the entire church and its bema were
large enough to accommodate twenty-four sup-
porting clergy, but the usual number seated on a
129 Tchalenko, Égilises syriennes à Bêma, at pp. 203–213,
plan p. 252, Fig.  30 and pls. 307–315, and Loosey,
Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema, pp. 277–280,
Figs. 209–216.
130 Thilo Ulbert, Die Basilika des Heiligen Kreuzes in Resafa-
Sergiupolis, Resafa 2 (Mainz, 1986).
131 See Baccache, Églises de Village de la Syrie du Nord,
Fig. 390.
132 See Loosey, Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema,
pp. 117–133 for the bema in the Syriac liturgy.
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The Dome of the Chain
bema in other churches equipped with this fea-
ture was apparently twelve,133 patently alluding to
the bishop/reader as taking the place of Christ,
and his clergy identified with the apostles. The
number of accompanying clergy is not an arbi-
trary guess, but attested in some examples by indi-
vidualized stalls with armrests along the bank,134
although Tchalenko suggested that in many cases
one of the places in the southeast corner was
taken by the “placard liturgique,” so that the num-
ber of surrounding listeners would have been
eleven, not twelve!135 In making this observation,
Tchalenko made no reference to the appearance
of exactly eleven supporting listeners in the pas-
sage cited above from Nehemiah, where Ezra
reads the scripture in Jerusalem from a raised
podium surrounded by eleven men, but the coin-
cidence is striking. As commonly understood
today on the basis of the available early sources,
the bema in the Syriac churches represents the
historical and earthly Jerusalem, and the sanctu-
ary around the altar the heavenly Jerusalem.136 At
Resafa, in the mid-seventh century, after the
Islamic conquest, the relics of St. Sergius were
transferred into the church itself from the previ-
ous location in an annexed martyrium chapel, and
a baldacchino or canopy was put upon the bema,
resting on four colonettes with octagonal bases,
giving the bema the form of a small dome.137
Whether this domed bema in Resafa pre-or post-
dated the Dome of the Chain cannot be deter-
mined, since neither structure is closely dated, but
they do seem to be roughly contemporary. In the
eighth century, the city of Resafa, already in the
pre-Islamic period one of the royal residences of
133 Loosey, Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema, p. 280.
134 As for example at Resafa, for which see Églises de
Village de la Syrie du Nord, p. 140, pl. 386.
135 Tchalenko, Égilises syriennes à Bêma, p. 260, cited by
Loosey, Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema, p. 122.
136 Loosey, Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema, p. 115.
137 These are illustrated in Églises de Village de la Syrie du
Nord, p. 141, Figs. 387 and 388, showing their bases and
capitals, and pp. 138, Figs. 379 and 382, and 139, Figs. 384–
385 shown in situ against the remains of the bema.
83
the Ghassanid rulers, was favored by Caliph
Hisham (reigned 724–744), who made it his princi-
pal residence.138 By that time the domed bema in
the church was extended and its decoration
embellished, with colonettes running around the
exterior (Fig. 4.17).139 A large mosque and palace
were then constructed beside the bema church.140
Recently Lara Tohme addressed this extraordinary
juxtaposition of Christian and Islamic religious
structures, noting also that the two buildings
share a common central courtyard linking them,
and their association also with the center of “secu-
lar” political authority, emphasizing the conver-
gence of spiritual and political in the caliph’s lead-
ership of prayer.141
138 See Elizabeth Key Fowden, “Christian monasteries and
Umayyad residences in late antique Syria,” in Garth
Fowden and Elizabeth Key Fowden, Studies on
Hellenism, Christianity and the Umayyads (Athens,
2004), pp. 175–192, at 186–190.
139 Baccache, Églises de Village de la Syrie du Nord, Fig. 387.
Described by Tchalenko, Égilises syriennes à Bêma, at p.
210, with references to the numerous plates, and shown
in section on pp. 270–271, Figs. 19–22. He does not give
the total number, nor can this be inferred from his
drawings and photographs; he does specify that all
seem to be spoliated, coming from a different struc-
ture, and that those around the hemi-cycle alone are
full shafts with round diameters, those along the
straight sides being engaged half-columns, and those
on the side facing the apse and flanking the entrance
flattened pilasters.
140 Dorothée Sack, Die grosse Moschee von Resafa – Rusafat
Hisam, Resafa 4 (Mainz, 1996).
141 Lara Tohme, “Spaces of convergence: Christian monas-
teries and Umayyad architecture in Greater Syria,” in
Alicia Walker and Amanda Luyster, eds., Negotiating
Secular and Sacred in Medieval Art. Christian, Islamic,
and Buddhist (Farnham [Surrey], 2009), pp. 129–145 at
137–141, Figs.  5.3 (aerial view) and 5.4 (plan). Tohme
also cites the argument by Elizabeth Key Fowden, “An
Arab Building at al-Rusafa Sergiopolis,” Damaszener
Mitteilungen 12 (2000), 302–324 that a Ghassanid build-
ing with inscription praising al-Mundhir, seen by Jean
Sauvaget as exclusively secular, could have functioned
as both a church and an audience hall, thereby antici-
pating recent analysis of the famous Cappella Palatina
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84
There is other physical evidence for instances
of direct continuity between the Jewish or
Christian bema and an early Islamic mosque. The
al-Hayyat mosque of Aleppo was, according to
Ernst Herzfeld, formerly a synagogue, since it has
an Arabic inscription written in Hebrew letters,
attributing its construction to Hillel son of Nathan,
and providing a date of the Seleucid era that
Herzfeld converted to 1241 ce, and which he under-
stood to refer to the conversion of the synagogue
into a mosque.142 Inside the mosque was a black
basalt block, measuring 95.5 × 52 cm at its base,
having two steps leading up to a roughly square
platform (48.5 × 52 cm), which Herzfeld dated to
the sixth century, and termed a memor, or little
minbar, and which Eleazar Sukenik termed a
bema.143 According to the plans published by
Sobernheim in 1915 (and by Sukenik in 1932 and
1934 and by Herzfeld in 1956), the object has nine
in Palermo, for which see William Tronzo, The Cultures
of his Kingdom. Roger ii and the Cappella Palatina in
Palermo (Princeton, 1997). The al-Mundhir building
will be discussed at greater length in the next chapter.
142 Ernst Herzfeld, Inscriptions et Monuments d’Alep,
Matériaux pour un Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum,
2me partie: Syrie du Nord, a (Cairo, 1956), pp. 309–312.
143 Herzfeld, Inscriptions et Monuments d’Alep, p. 312,
Fig.  96 and pl. cxv d and f, and Sukenik, Ancient
Synagogues in Palestine and Greece, p. 57, with drawing
on p. 58, Fig.  17; also published in Sukenik, Ancient
Synagogue of Beth Alpha, pp. 53–54 and Fig.  48. The
photographs published by Herzfeld show the monu-
ment in the courtyard of the mosque, but according to
Sukenik it was already transferred to the National
Museum by 1934; I have not been able to ascertain its
current location, or obtain more recent photographs.
The earliest publication, cited by Sukenik as his source,
is M. Sobernheim, “Eine hebräisch-aramäische Inschrift
aus Alepp,” in Gotthold Weil, ed., Festschrift Eduard
Sachau, zum siebzigsten Geburtstage gewidmet von
Freunden und Schülern (Berlin, 1915), pp. 311–313 and pl.
iii . Jean Sauvaget, Alep, essai sur le développement d’une
grande ville syrienne, des origines au milieu du xixe siè-
cle (Paris, 1941), p. 60, mentions this “chaire,” which he
dates to the sixth century, but does not discuss it, refer-
ring only to reproductions in Encyclopedia Judaica ii,
372, a reference I was unable to confirm.
chapter 4
attached colonettes, three on each side around the
top platform (in three groups of three, an almost
free-standing colonette at the center flanked by
engaged half-columns at either side), and also two
free-standing colonettes at the forward corners,
for a total of eleven colonettes altogether (Fig. 4.18).
I have been thus far unable to ascertain the pres-
ent location of this object, last attested in the
National Archaeological Museum in Aleppo, and
can illustrate it here only with an old photograph
(Fig.  4.19). Surely it is at the very least a striking
coincidence that the number eleven, indeed spe-
cifically eleven columns, emerges again in connec-
tion with a bema or minbar, a place for reading
from scripture and/or sermons, and in this case
one that seems to have been carried from a Jewish
into an Islamic setting without changing its func-
tion, if indeed it had served as a bema in the syna-
gogue and then as a minbar in the successor
mosque on the site.
The bema was strongly associated with the
theme of judgment in Christian and Jewish, and
even Manichaean traditions in the pre- and early
Islamic period in greater Syria and Palestine, and
this theme of judgment seems to be fundamental
in the later Islamic texts about the Dome of the
Chain, and indeed it is from this theme that that
structure derives its name. The chain, if there ever
was a physical one, no longer exists, but there is a
remarkable Umayyad chain still in existence not
far away, “a chain with a cone-shaped pendant
(altogether 1.5 meters long) cut from a single block
of conglomerate limestone (Fig. 4.20), which origi-
nally hung from a ring affixed to the top of the very
same niche [in the Umayyad ‘palace’ at Khirbat al-
Mafjar] in which the mosaic of the ‘caliph and his
wife’ was found (Fig. 4.21).”144 The mosaic in ques-
tion is not, in fact, an anthropomorphic image, but
a piece of fruit and a knife, which has been inter-
144 Richard Ettinghausen, From Byzantium to Sasanian
Iran and the Islamic World. Three Modes of Artistic
Influence, The L.A. Mayer Memorial Studies in Islamic
Art and Archaeology 3 (Leiden, 1972), p. 24 and pl. xvii,
Fig. 60.
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The Dome of the Chain
preted in other ways, but there is no doubting the
prominent position of the chain; this apse is
marked as Apse v on Richard Ettinghausen’s plan,
after Robert Hamilton, and is directly on axis with
the entrance to the magnificent bath structure.
Presumably it was here that the caliph would
appear on ceremonial public occasions, as analo-
gously in the main hall of the bath house at Qusayr
ʿAmra, where there was in fact a large image of the
enthroned ruler on the wall above and behind the
seat of the living embodiment of royal power.145
Ettinghausen’s interpretation of the chain links
it with a chain hanging above Shah Khosraw I in
the Sasanian throne hall at Ctesiphon described by
Ibn Ishaq and also by al-Tabari, but there is a cru-
cial difference in that the Sasanian chain had a
crown at its end.146 Ettinghausen goes on to
describe a hanging crown described in the imperial
palace in Constantinople in the twelfth century,
and he fails to mention the more nearly contempo-
rary crowns hanging, like the examples he cites,
from golden chains, in Visigothic Spain, datable to
the seventh century.147 However, all these chains
are golden, not limestone, and all suspend crowns,
not a truncated cone. It seems to me that a more
direct interpretation of the chain at Khirbat al-
Mafjar would link it not with Sasanian or Byzantine
or Visigothic analogues, but with the concept of
the chain of judgment, the chain explicitly of royal
145 Claude Vibert-Guigue and Gazi Bisheh, Les peintures de
Qusayr ʿAmra. Un bain omeyyade dans la bâdiya jor-
danienne, Institut français du Proche-Orient, Amman,
Beyrouth, Damas, Bibliothèque archéologique et histo-
rique 179/Jordanian Archaeology 1 (Beirut, 2007), p. 38
and pls. 15, 19–21, 96b, 112c and 141a, and Garth Fowden,
Qusayr ʿAmra. Art and the Umayyad Elite in Late Antique
Syria (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 2004),
pp. 115–141 and Figs. 36–37.
146 Ettinghausen, From Byzantium to Sasanian Iran,
pp. 28–29.
147 See Alicia Perea, El tesoro visigodo de Guarrazar (Madrid,
2001), and more recently Maria Filomena Guerra,
Thomas Calligaro, and Alicia Perea, “The treasure of
Guarrazar: Tracing the gold supplies in the Visigothic
Iberian peninsula,” Archaeometry 49(2007), 53–74.
85
judgment, given concrete form in the royal hall,
and alluded to with a stronger eschatological over-
tone in the Dome of the Chain in Jerusalem.
Hanging items are attested in the early monuments
on the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem; according to
al-Wasiti, above the rock itself in the Dome of the
Rock hung the horn of Abraham, the crown “of
Kisra” [perhaps referring to Shah Khosros but per-
haps to the generic Persian ruler], and the Yatima
pearl.148 Grabar discussed at length the objects
kept in the Kaʿba in Mecca in connection with the
images of crowns and regalia in the mosaics of the
Dome of the Rock, emphasizing that these Meccan
objects seem very much to have a connection with
themes of rulership, and Caliph ʿUmar was said to
have hung in the Kaʿba crescents taken from the
conquered Persian capital.149 All of this suggests
that the Dome of the Chain had from the begin-
ning strong connections with themes of rulership,
and in the next sections I shall argue for widening
and deepening our understanding of those con-
nections by noting the evidence for seeing this fas-
cinating little structure in connection with func-
tions filled in later Islamic traditions by the minbar
and the maqsura.
Minbar and Maqsura
The analogue or successor in the Islamic mosque
to the bema of earlier and contemporary syna-
gogues and churches of Palestine and Syria is the
minbar, steps usually set beside or near the mihrab.
From the minbar the imam could give a “sermon”
the khutba (hence he was the khatib) at the Friday
prayer. The earliest surviving example of a minbar
is generally thought to be a teakwood example in
the Great Mosque of Kairouan (Fig. 4.22), which is
in the classic, indeed canonical form of the later
Islamic tradition, a tall narrow staircase with
enclosed sides, having a small canopy at the top
148 Rabbat, “Dome of the Rock Revisited,” (as above, n. 19),
at 71.
149 Grabar, Formation of Islamic Art, p. 57.
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86
and a gated entrance.150 However, the earliest
minbar was by no means necessarily the same in
form as its later representatives. The term minbar
goes back to the pre-Islamic period, and was
applied to the place from which the Prophet
Muhammad led prayers in the mosque in Medina.
Later references to the Prophet’s minbar suggest
that it was still in existence in the latter part of the
seventh century.151 Jean Sauvaget thought that it
was then still in its original location, in the third
bay west of the mihrab, the original minbar of the
Prophet being a seat reached by two steps, but that
Caliph Muʿawiya made various alterations in the
mosque, and made of the minbar a larger struc-
ture reached by six steps.152 When the Prophet
Muhammad led the prayers of the community
from the mosque in Medina, he is said according
to the tradition to have also been seated on a raised
platform on more than one occasion;153 in later
traditions the speaker would stand, not sit, and
would not mount to the top of the steps.154
The significance of the raised seat is primarily
political rather than religious, designating the
place of the ruler, and some mosques contained
a  separate raised structure for the ruler called a
150 Robert Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture. Form function
and meaning (Edinburgh, 1994; rep. with amendments
2000), p. 46 and Fig.  34, and K.A.C. Creswell, Early
Muslim Architecture 2 (Oxford, 1940), pp. 317–319.
151 For discussion see Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture,
pp. 46–48. According to one tradition related by al-
Tabari, when ʿAli ibn Abi Talib was acclaimed as caliph,
in the mosque in Medina, he was standing on the
“Messenger of Allah’s minbar”; see Adrian Brockett,
trans., The Community Divided, The Caliphate of ‘Ali I,
a.d. 656–657/A.H. 35–36, The History of al-Tabari 16
(Albany ny, 1997), pp. 2–4.
152 Jean Sauvaget, La mosquée Omeyyade de Médine. Étude
sur les origines architecturales de la mosquée et de la
basilique (Paris, 1947), pp. 85–86.
153 For discussion see Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture,
pp. 46–48. For extensive literature and citations from
the Qurʾan see H[amilton] A.R. Gibb, ed., Encyclopedia
of Islam (new [2nd] ed.; Leiden, 1954–2007), s.v.
“minbar.”
154 See Encyclopedia of Islam, s.v. “minbar.”
chapter 4
maqsura, which seems to have been most often
characterized by openwork screens, according to
Robert Hillenbrand, who compared it to the choir
screens of Byzantine architecture.155 From the elev-
enth century the maqsura, especially in the eastern
Islamic world, was often given a domical cover, as in
the Great Mosque of Isfahan; Hillenbrand even
notes that “they were proceeded by an empha­sized
central aisle.156 In the Great Mosque of Kairouan,
the early teakwood minbar stands immediately
beside a wooden (and according to Robert Hillen­
brand mobile) maqsura (Fig. 4.22).157 A wonderful
albeit very late example of the form is provided by
Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, after its conversion for use
as a mosque, and now a museum, where the later
split between imam or prayer leader, who spoke
from the steps of the minbar, and the ruler seated on
the raised platform of the maqsura, often covered, is
visible in the two large structures in the apse area.158
The maqsura was both a recognition of the ruler’s
rank and also an attempt to increase his safety. The
caliphate in the seventh century was a dangerous
office, ʿUmar assassinated in a mosque, and his
successor ʿUthman in his home, while at prayer
according to some authorities, and ʿAli ibn Abi Talib
stabbed inside the mosque at Najaf by a disaffected
supporter.
The hypothesis that I would like to offer for
consideration is this. The Dome of the Chain may
originally have been constructed as some part of
the first structure on the Haram al-Sharif, as a
155 Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, pp. 48–50. The com-
parison to Byzantine choir screens seems to me not
very helpful, for these are not elevated structures at any
time, and their development in the early medieval
period is very uncertain; see Lawrence Nees, “The
Iconographic Program of Decorated Chancel Barriers
in the pre-Iconoclastic Period,” Zeitschrift für
Kunstgeschichte 46(1983), 15–26.
156 Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, p. 50; the mosque of
Baybars in Cairo has this feature.
157 Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture, p. 46 and Fig. 34.
158 On the minbar see H.A.R. Gibb and J.H. Kramers,
Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden, 1953, reprint
1995), pp. 343–345 with references.
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The Dome of the Chain
place for the ruler to stand, or perhaps sit, before
and slightly above the crowd of the faithful, to
lead them in prayer and/or to address them. It
conceivably also had something of a memorial
function, erected after the time of ʿUmar to mark
the place where he had worshipped in Jerusalem.
These various possible functions for the Dome of
the Chain when it was originally constructed
probably cannot be unscrambled, because there
are no comparanda for it from anything like this
early period. The Kairouan minbar and maqsura
are probably the earliest extant, but date only
from the mid-ninth century. The development of
minbar and maqsura and also for that matter the
dakka or dikka, a raised platform in the mosque
used for the call to prayer at the Friday service,159
eventually developed as separate structures with
distinctive morphological characteristics. Note­
worthy, perhaps, is the very elaborate dikka now
standing in the Aqsa Mosque, constructed largely
from spoliated sculpture from the twelfth-century
Crusader period, to which I will briefly return at
the end of the next chapter.160 Different traditions
connect all of these structures within mosques
with seventh-century origins, often having some
association with Caliph Muʿawiya, and these tex-
tual sources deserve to be gathered and explored,
with special attention to their possible bearing on
the Dome of the Chain, starting with the minbar.
Minbar
Ibn Khaldun wrote in his great historical work
about “…the prayer from the pulpit (minbar) during
the (Friday) sermon…[that] it should be said that
the caliphs at first directed the prayers themselves.
159 On the dakka or dikka see Shorter Encyclopaedia of
Islam, p. 345, and Encyclopedia of Islam, vol. vi, p. 663,
which cites an “unreliable” tradition that the first
example of such a structure was erected by Maslama,
Muʿawiya’s governor in Egypt.
160 See Jaroslav Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy
Land 1098–1187 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 441–456, pls.
10.13a–10.13w.
87
Therefore, they used to say a prayer (for them-
selves) after the obligatory prayer for the Prophet
and the blessings for the men around him had
been spoken.”161 Fortunately we have sources far
earlier than this late albeit deeply learned text, for
a large number of texts from the seventh century
that underscore the close association between
minbar and ruler. One startling text suggests that
some kind of structure called a minbar not only
existed but was of great symbolic significance
already at the beginning of the reign of the first
Umayyad caliph, Muʿawiya ibn Abi Sufyan.162 In
656, Muʿawiya had already been governor in Syria
for close on twenty years, having succeeded his
brother in 639, when that brother Yazid, with many
other Muslims in Palestine, died of the plague. For
the previous twelve years, the ruling caliph had
been ʿUthman ibn ʿAffan, a relative of Muʿawiya
within the clan Umayya, who had ruled since suc-
ceeding ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab in 644, when ʿUmar
was assassinated. In 656 ʿUthman was murdered
by Egyptian rebels while in his house in Medina,
and the failure to punish those rebels was the fun-
damental rationale, whatever other reasons there
might have been, for Muʿawiya’s sharp conflict
with ʿAli ibn Abi Talib, the Prophet Muhammad’s
son in law, who was acclaimed as Caliph by the
killers of ʿUthman and others in Medina and
Mecca. Muʿawiya was left as “ʿUthman’s kinsman
and the spokesman for the honor of his clan,” in
the words of Stephen Humphreys, and took a dra-
matic action. As related by al-Tabari,
“When al-Nuʿman b. Bashir came [from Medina]
to the Syrians with the bloodstained shirt ʿUthman
was wearing when he was killed and with the
severed fingers of Naʾilah, his wife…. Muʿawiya
hung the shirt on the minbar and wrote to the
161 Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah. An Introduction to
History, trans. Franz Rosenthal, Bollingen series 43 (New
York, 1958), vol. 2, pp. 69–73 [Chapter iii, Section 34].
162 On Muʿawiya see in general R. Stephen Humphreys,
Muʿawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, From Arabia to Empire
(Oxford, 2006), which I generally follow here.
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88
Syrian garrison towns. The people kept on coming
and crying over it as it hung on the minbar, with
the fingers attached to it, for a whole year.”163
Humphreys also presents this startling passage, but
makes it more accessible to a wider readership by
rendering minbar as “pulpit.”164 This translation is
acceptable especially in light of the apparent use in
some early texts of the word minbar to designate
supports for the Qurʾan codex when it was read
aloud in the mosque at Medina, a function that
later came to be associated with the kursi rather
than the minbar.165 What is striking is that the min-
bar, whatever form it took, was in a public place,
and accessible to the people generally, and was cho-
sen for a display that was both personal and politi-
cal in the highest degree, connected to the caliph.
Other passages in this same account speak
repeatedly of the pulpit, the minbar,166 in a way that
suggests it was an important place and associated
with the caliph, as preaching, presumably if not
explicitly associated with the minbar, was a central
caliphal prerogative and responsibility. In the long
series of sources compiled by al-Tabari leading up
to the killing of ʿUthman are the following:
“Another time, when ʿUthman was standing on
the pulpit, Jabalah forced him to get off.”167
163 al-Tabari 16, at 3255, quoted in the version by Brockett,
Community Divided, p. 196.
164 Humphreys, Muʿawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, p. 77.
165 See Alain George, “Calligraphy, Colour and Light in the
Blue Qurʾan,” Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 11(2009),
75–125 at 100, relying on a text by Ibn Shabban (d. 878).
166 The translation I am using for this portion of al-Tabari’s
work is by R. Stephen Humphreys, The Crisis of the Early
Caliphate: The Reign of ʿUthman, a.d. 644–656/a.h. 24–
35, The History of al-Tabari (Taʾrikh al-rusul waʾl-muluk)
15 (Albany ny, 1990). In his translation of the passage on
ʿUthman’s bloody shirt, in his book Muʿawiya ibn Abi
Sufyan, p. 78, Humphreys gives “pulpit” where Brockett
gave “minbar,” and I assume that Humphreys’s “pulpit”
in the translations here is also rendering minbar.
167 Al-Tabari 2981; Humphreys, al-Tabari 15, p. 182.
chapter 4
“One day ʿUthman was preaching to the people
when ʿAmr b. al-ʿAs said, ‘O Commander of the
Faithful, you have incurred grave dangers, and we
have incurred them with you. Repent, and we shall
repent.’ ʿUthman turned in the direction of Mecca
and raised his arms in supplication. Abu Habibah
states: I have never seen more men and women
weeping than on that day.”168
“I was watching ʿUthman as he preached leaning
on the Prophet’s staff – the staff on which (the
Prophet), Abu Bakr, and ʿUmar used to lean while
they preached. Jahjah said to him, ‘You hyena, get
down off this pulpit!’”169
These passages associate the minbar and preach­ing
with the staff of the Prophet and the previous
caliphs, and also perhaps explain the importance of
the murdered caliph’s garment, here a “shirt,” that
Muʿawiya displayed on the minbar. ʿUthman is twice
quoted as saying, when asked to abdicate his office,
“I am not one to remove a robe that God has placed
upon me,”170 and in another passage, immediately
after ʿUthman had finished preaching “Jahjah al-
Ghifari came up to him and cried, ‘ʿUthman, we
have brought this old she-camel, and on it there are
a robe and a rope. Get down [from the minbar?]!
We will dress you in the robe and kill you.’”171
Another remarkable text related to the minbar
is a poem in a tenth-century collection, the Kitab
al-Aghani (Book of Songs), which includes a poem
“said to have been performed by the Iraqi poet
Mislin (ca. 708) at a majlis concerning the succes-
sion” to Muʿawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, which would
place it in the year 680.172 The poem is very inter-
esting for its likely early date, and for its images of
168 Al-Tabari 2982; Humphreys, al-Tabari 15, p. 183.
169 Al-Tabari 2982; Humphreys, al-Tabari 15, p. 183.
170 Al-Tabari 2989 and 2990; Humphreys, al-Tabari 15,
pp. 189 and 190.
171 Al-Tabari 2982; Humphreys, al-Tabari 15, p. 183.
172 See Andrew Marsham, Rituals of Islamic Monarchy.
Accession and Succession in the first Muslim Empire
(Edinburgh, 2009), pp. 92–93.
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The Dome of the Chain
the grouse stirred up in coming to the caliph, and
of the gazelle prostrating itself; it might be, but to
the best of my knowledge it has not been, cited in
connection with the Umayyad “palace” at Khirbat
al-Mafjar, with its plethora of the stucco grouse-
like birds in the dome of the diwan and the famous
mosaic in the apse beneath, with lion attacking
gazelles under a tree.173 The poet seems to use
“lord of the western pulpit (minbar)” as a term to
refer to the reigning Caliph (in this case Muʿawiya).
The three figures named in the fourth line (ʿAbd
Allah ibn ʿAmir, Saʿid ibn al-ʿAs and Marwan ibn
al-Hakam) are all descendants of ʿAbd Shams,
father of Umayya, and close relatives of Caliph
ʿUthman, all conceivably successors of Muʿawiya.
This is the opening of the poem as recently pre-
sented by Andrew Marsham:
“If I am summoned as Miskin, I am a son of the
Assembly (Ibn Maʾshar), most protected and
defended of people.
Their journey to you, Commander of the Faithful,
stirs up the sandgrouse at night, as they keep a
night vigil,
And they are shaded from the noon sun like their
gazelle, when it prostrates itself with horns on
the ground.
I wish I knew what Ibn ʿAmir and Marwan say, or
what Saʿid says,
Go slowly, sons of God’s Caliphs (bani khulafaʾ
Allah), for the Merciful only takes a position
when He wants;
When the Lord of the western pulpit (minbar)
vacates it, and the Commander of the Faithful is
Yazid.”
The early development of the pulpit, the minbar,
and its bestowal of a literally elevated status on the
173 For both see the convenient publication by Etting­
hausen, From Byzantium to Sasanian Iran (above, note
142). Such possible connections were not mentioned
by Andrew Marsham, who published the poem in his
helpful recent book about early Islamic royal rituals,
from which the quotation is taken.
89
person who speaks from it, is attested by a tradi-
tion that Caliph ʿUmar opposed its use, castigating
ʿAmr b. al-ʿAs,
“The first to use a pulpit…when he built his
mosque in Egypt. ʿUmar (b. al-Khattab) wrote to
him: ‘And now: I have heard that you use a pulpit
and thus raise yourself above the necks of the
Muslims. Is it not sufficient for you that you are
standing while the Muslims are at your heels?
Therefore, I urge you to smash it to bits.’”174
In another place, the minbar is specifically associ-
ated with Caliph Muʿawiya, and with very public
performance to the Muslims as a group. Al-Tabari
related an incident in which, early in Muʿawiya’s
reign as caliph, Ibn Khazim’s behavior led to com-
plaints, so Muʿawiya sent for him, and
“when he [Ibn Khazim] came and apologized for
what was said about him. Muʿawiya told him,
‘Stand up and apologize to the people tomorrow.’
Ibn Khazim returned to his companions and said,
‘Indeed, I was put in charge of the sermon
(khutba), but I am not a master of speech. So sit
around the pulpit (minbar) and when I speak,
show your approval.’ He then stood up on the mor-
row, and after praising and extolling God, he spoke,
‘Indeed, a leader of worship [imam] must either
deliver the sermon, finding no escape from it…’”175
One could argue that in delegating the delivery of
the sermon from the minbar, Muʿawiya acted
improperly, even impiously, something of which
he was often accused,176 but in this context what is
important is that the passage presents speaking
174 Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah. vol. 2, pp. 69–73 [Chapter
iii, Section 34].
175 Michael G. Morony, trans., Between Civil Wars: the
Caliphate of Muʾawiyah, a.d. 661–680/a.h. 40–60, The
History of al-Tabari (Taʾrikh al-rusul waʾl-muluk) 18
(Albany ny, 1987), p. 70 Year 43 [663–664].
176 For Muʿawiya’s alleged impiety see Humphreys,
Muʿawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, pp. 123–128.
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90
from the minbar, or determining who would do so,
as a caliphal prerogative.
Finally, we have one tradition suggesting that it
is at the minbar that a new caliph would be
acclaimed, or at least that this was the case with
the accession of ʿAli ibn Abi Talib in 656, Muʿawiya’s
rival and immediate predecessor. As is generally
the case, al-Tabari’s history transmits several differ-
ent traditions for the assumption of the title of
caliph by ʿAli ibn Abi Talib, all of them set immedi-
ately after the murder of ʿUthman. The first account
says that when ʿAli finally agreed to be acclaimed,
after resisting the people who wished him to do so,
he said “It should be done in the mosque. Allegiance
must not be given secretly or without the approval
of the Muslims.” In the next version, allegiance is
again specified as having been given in the mosque.
In the next and longer version it is specified that
ʿAli “mounted the minbar and the people crowded
around,” and the witness specified that he was
standing “by the Messenger of Allah’s minbar”
when he heard ʿAli’s acceptance of the investiture
as caliph. The next version of the event given by
al-Tabari, long and complex, says that ʿAli was first
given allegiance privately, but then he “went out to
the mosque and ascended the minbar, his sandals
in his hand, wearing a waist wrap and a cape and a
silk turban, supporting himself on a bow. All those
there gave him allegiance.”177
These texts all underline the importance of the
pulpit, the minbar, during the middle of the sev-
enth century. None of them specifically refer to a
minbar in Jerusalem, to be sure. The pulpit con-
nected with ʿUthman’s preaching was manifestly in
Medina; its location there is not specified, but was
presumably in the mosque. The pulpit on which
Muʿawiya displayed ʿUthman’s blood-stained gar-
ment was presumably in Damascus, and presum-
ably also in the mosque there, although no location
is specified. As noted previously, a tradition of the
earlier eighth century related that “Muʿawiya stood
177 Brockett, al-Tabari 16, pp. 2–4. Marsham, Rituals of
Islamic Monarchy, does not mention the emphasis on
the minbar in the investiture of ʿAli.
chapter 4
on the minbar of Jerusalem saying: Everything
between the two walls of this mosque is loved by
Allah, may He be exalted, more than any on
earth.”178 In none of these texts is there any intima-
tion of the possible form of the pulpit/minbar, or
of the material of which it was made. Evidently it
provided some measure of elevation, for ʿUthman
is asked to “get down” from it, and ʿAli to “mount” it.
In one case, it is specified that ʿUthman “stands” on
the minbar, and in another he turns to face Mecca;
it would seem that it is assumed, at least by the
transmitters of the accounts, if not necessarily by
the originators of them, that the minbar is not a
seat, but a podium or step (or steps) of some sort
upon which the caliph would stand.
All of this information is in accord with the
accounts of the bema in synagogues and in Christian
churches, which appear to have varied somewhat in
form during the seventh and preceding centuries,
with one important exception. In both the Christian
and Jewish bema there was an important connection
with a throne or seat of some sort, but it was in effect
an empty seat, reserved for Moses or for the absent
divinity, or for the holy scriptures, not for the speaker
who read the scriptures or delivered a sermon. One
interesting Old Testament text has the ruler seated to
the east of the Holy of Holies. Ezekiel 40–44 is a long
description of the future temple to be rebuilt in
Jerusalem, from which the prophet and people had
been exiled twenty-five years previously. The prophet
was brought to the top of a mountain with a city
beneath it, to the south, and he describes a large
enclosure with gates to north, south, east and west,
within which was a large courtyard at whose center
stood a building, again with entrances at north, south
and east, but with the inner sanctum, the Holy of
Holies at the west.179 The passage continues:
178 Elad, Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship, p. 33.
Note that al-Tabari refers to the maqsura and minbar
already in the time of Muʿawiya, although his refer-
ences do not specify whether he is talking about some-
thing in the mosque in Jerusalem or in Damascus.
179 The passage is cited in connection with Mircea Eliade’s
concept of the sacred center by Jonathan Z. Smith, To
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The Dome of the Chain
“The man led me to the gate which faced east, and
there, coming from the east was the glory of the
God of Israel. The sound of his coming was like
that of a mighty torrent, and the earth was bright
with his glory. The form that I saw was the same as
I had seen when he came to destroy the city, the
same I had seen by the river Kebar, and I pros-
trated myself (Ezekiel 43: 1–3) … The man brought
me round to the outer gate of the sanctuary fac-
ing east. It was shut, and he said to me, ‘This gate
is  to be kept closed and is not to be opened. No
one may enter by it, for the Lord the God of Israel
has entered by it. It must be kept shut. Only the
ruling prince himself may sit there to eat the sacri-
ficial meal in the presence of the Lord. He is to
come in and go out by the vestibule of the gate.’”
(Ezekiel 44: 1–3)
This critical prophetic text describing the tem-
ple in Jerusalem does, then, especially associate
the eastern side of the sanctuary and enclosure
with the eventual coming of god in judgment,
and in the period before his coming with the rul-
ing prince. Evidently, then, not only might the
Christian and Jewish bema have historical and/or
eschatological connections with rulers, but in this
case with a ruling prince in pre-eschatological
time seated to the east of the Holy of Holies, a
location that could have been identified with the
Dome of the Chain, to the east of the sacred rock.
The Muslim sources cited make a powerful con-
nection between the living caliph and the minbar.
It seems on the whole unlikely that the analogies
may be regarded as merely coincidental, although
accounting for the analogies and tracing a process
of transmission is difficult and must be highly
speculative. Moreover, we have an important early
Muslim source that specifically notes that David
prayed on a site to the east of the later temple, and
enjoins a pious Muslim visitor also to pray there:
“He who visits the Temple of Jerusalem should also
Take Place. Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago, 1987),
pp. 56–57. His discussion is summarized by, and his
illustration reproduced in, Yasin, Saints and Church
Spaces (as above, n. 99), pp. 26–29 and Fig. 1.1.
91
visit David’s prayer place on the eastern side, and
pray in both of them.” This statement is in al-Was-
iti’s work on Jerusalem from the late tenth or early
eleventh century, and derived by him from the ear-
lier account apparently written by the late ninth or
early tenth-century author al-Walid b. Hammad
al-Ramli al-Zayyat, which is cited 118 times, com-
prising seventy percent of al-Wasiti’s work.180
How exactly would the Dome of the Chain have
functioned as a minbar? In its present form
(Figs.  2.6 and 4.3), it has no raised platform or
podium, but is level at the ground. As previously
discussed, the archaeological reports that we have,
sketchy as they are, make clear that the current
pavement is later, and higher, than the original,
that the column bases are at a lower level and in
their original position. It is possible that there
would be an indication of a raised platform at the
center of the structure, which was not noted in the
reports of the renovations, because it would not
have been anticipated, and because it might have
been no more than a few holes or discoloration, as
it is only such traces that suggest the possible pres-
ence of a raised bema in many early synagogues. It
may be also that there is no report of any trace of a
raised central podium for the simple reason that
no such evidence was found, because it was never
there, and the central area was always, as it is
today, flat. Even if there was no raised platform in
stone, there might have been one in wood, or
bronze, which has not survived or left any trace;
the scriptural sources cited above specify that the
platform used by Ezra in Jerusalem was wooden,
180 Cited in Suleiman Ali Mourad, “The symbolism of
Jerusalem in early Islam,” in Tamar Meyer and Suleiman
A. Mourad, eds., Jerusalem. Idea and Reality (New York
and London, 2008), pp. 86–102 at 89 for the relation-
ship of the two texts and at 93 for the quotation, refer-
ring to Isaac Hasson ed., Abu Bakr Muhammad
b. Ahmad al-Wasiti, Fada’il al-bayt al-muqaddas,
(Jerusalem, 1999), p. 44 no. 61. Mourad argues that the
Fada’il Bayt al-Maqdis (“Merits of the Holy House”) of
al-Walid b. Hammad al-Ramli al-Zayyat (d. 912) can be
reconstructed from late texts that preserved it through
quotation.
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92
and that used by Solomon was bronze. The later
tradition of the minbar in Islamic usage allows for
various materials, both wood and stone being pos-
sible, although if anything wood seems to be pre-
ferred. It remains the case that the minbar is not
fixed to the pavement, but at least potentially
movable.181 The earliest reference known to me
concerning a minbar that says anything about its
form or material comes from Egypt, and was dis-
cussed by Creswell. The report is that the Christian
King of Nubia presented a minbar to ʿAbd Allah
ibn Saʾd ibn Abi Sarh, governor of Egypt during the
caliphate of ʿUthman, and sent “a carpenter named
Boktor (a Coptic name the equivalent of Victor) of
Dendera…with it, presumably to put it together.”182
Evidently it was, or was remembered as, a wooden
structure. Its form is unknown, and assuming that
its form was that which became canonical from
the ninth century, namely a tall and narrow
wooden staircase, is just that, an assumption,
based on a view that Islamic traditions have never
undergone change, which in terms of material cul-
ture is manifestly not the case.
My best guess, and it is no more than that, is
that as originally conceived, under the dome, at
the center of the Dome of the Chain, there would
have been a low podium, one, two or at most three
steps above the pavement level, from which the
caliph could lead prayer and deliver a sermon as
the imam. It seems to me very unlikely that he
would have ascended to the flat roof over the outer
“ambulatory” of the Dome of the Chain by means
of a ladder or steps now lost; the existing structure
makes no accommodation for such usage, and this
would also ruin the symbolism of the dome; the
181 For discussion of the minbar, focused on a magnificent
wooden example, see Jonathan M. Bloom, ed., The
Minbar from the Kutubiyya Mosque (New York, 1998),
with bibliography.
182 Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, p. 41. Creswell’s
claim on the basis of this passage, and one comparison,
that the form of the Muslim minbar was dictated by
Christian precedents goes much farther than I would
follow.
chapter 4
center of the cosmos, the center of power is always
under the dome, not beside it. Imagining the
caliph seated or standing at the center, under the
dome, would accord well with the remarkably
open structure of the Dome of the Chain, whose
columns are slight. The structure is highly trans-
parent from any point around it; one observer,
admittedly a modern one, even pointed out that
the odd geometry means that the columns do not
line up, and sight lines are excellent from any van-
tage point.183 As the foregoing discussion demon-
strates, there are many factors that suggest some
connection in terms of function between the
Dome of the Chain and the bema tradition of con-
temporary Christian and Jewish Syria and Palestine
on one hand, and on the other hand the early
Islamic minbar: the location at the center of the
mosque (here taking the mosque in seventh-
century Jerusalem to have been the entire area of
the Haram al-Sharif, as argued in Chapter 2 above),
the remarkably odd number of the columns, and
the association or at least analogy with Jewish and
Christian traditions about worship in Jerusalem
and the reading of the scriptures there. The links
are all historical and functional, perhaps icono-
graphic too, however, and not stylistic or morpho-
logical. The Dome of the Chain does not look like a
bema in a synagogue, or in a Christian church in
northern Syria,184 or like a later Islamic minbar, so
one must assume that some other factor or factors
determined its form as a central planned structure
with a dome.
183 Inchbold, Under the Syrian Sun (above, note 3), p. 399:
The Dome of the Chain is “a beautiful cupola sup-
ported by two concentric rows of graceful marble pil-
lars, constructed in such a fashion as to enable all to be
visible at one time.”
184 The bema at Resafa was covered with a dome-like sup-
port, a canopy resting on four columns, from roughly
the middle of the seventh century, but this transforma-
tion may very well have taken place after the Dome of
the Chain had already been planned and constructed,
and in any event seems unlikely to have been a model
or even a sound parallel for the structure in Jerusalem.
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The Dome of the Chain
Maqsura and Dome
As previously noted, the minbar is often associ-
ated with a second structure, the maqsura, as in
the case of the earliest example of each, in the
ninth-century mosque in Kairouan. Whereas the
minbar is a common, nearly universal presence in
mosques, the maqsura is rare, being used only in a
mosque where a ruler would come to pray, and
was first and foremost designed to provide separa-
tion for the ruler from the crowd of worshippers,
for the sake of security.185 It is convenient to begin
again with Ibn Khaldun:
“The prayer enclosure (maqsura) and the prayer dur-
ing the (Friday) sermon. These two things are caliphal
prerogatives and royal emblems in Islam. They are
not known in non-Muslim dynasties. The enclosure
for the ruler to pray in is a latticed screen around the
prayer niche (mihrab), and the space immediately
adjacent. The first to use one was Muʿawiya b. Abi
Sufyan, after a Kharijite had stabbed him. The story is
well known. It is also said that the first to use one was
Marwan b. al-Hakam, after a Yemenite had stabbed
him. Afterwards, all the caliphs used it. It became a
custom distinguishing the ruler from the rest of the
people during prayers…”186
Again, we have seventh-century evidence, in this
case both textual and architectural, in support of
185 See Encyclopedia of Islam, s.v. maksura. For the para-
pets separating the central nave, wherein the ambo
would be located, from the aisles in the Cathedral of
Ephesus, the apparently seventh-century church of St.
Artemios in Constantinople, and other late Roman
churches see Urs Peschlow, “Dividing Interior Space in
Early Byzantine Churches: The Barriers between the
Nave and Aisles,” in Sharon E.J. Gerstel, ed., Thresholds
of the Sacred: architectural, art historical, liturgical and
theological perspectives on religious screens, East and
West (Washington, d.c., 2006), pp. 52–71, Fig. 8 and esp.
Fig.  19, a ground plan of St. Artemios, showing the
ambo at the center of the church.
186 Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah, vol. 2, pp. 69–73 [Chapter
iii, Section 34].
93
Ibn Khaldun’s statement. The earliest maqsura of
which we have any, and here admittedly slight,
physical evidence was in the mosque built for al-
Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, ʿAbd al-Malik’s governor of Iraq,
at Wasit in 84/703, described by Jeremy Johns as
“the earliest for which the date is reasonably secure
and almost universally accepted.” Johns quoted
Fuad Safar and Creswell as believing that the Wasit
mosque had “thickened foundations” indicating a
“monumental maqsura.”187 For the seventh cen-
tury we have only textual evidence, but it is exten-
sive. Muʿawiya’s palace in Damascus, constructed
while he was still governor of the province for his
relative ʿUthman, known as the Qubbat al-
Khadra,188 is said to have been built directly beside
the Great Mosque, with access from the residence
through a door into the area near the mihrab
of the Companions, in the southeastern part of
the qibla wall, and into the maqsura of the
Companions.189 Writing at the end of the eighth
century, Ibn al-Faqih, citing the authority of Kaʿb,
187 Jeremy Johns, “The ‘House of the Prophet’ and the
Concept of the Mosque,” in Johns, Bayt al-Maqdis. Part
2 (as above, n. 14), pp. 59–112 at 59, for which see Fuad
Safar, Wasit: the Sixth Season’s Excavations (Cairo, 1945),
pp. 25–32, Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture i,
pp. 132–138, and Marie-Odile Rousset, L’archéologie
islamique en Iraq: bilan et perspective (Damascus, 1992),
pp. 44 and 142 note 205 with bibliography.
188 Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture i, pp. 39–41.
Creswell accepted too readily, in my view, the disparag-
ing remarks about the structure by a hostile Greek
source, perhaps amalgamating the rude quality with
“Arculf’s” description of the earliest mosque in
Jerusalem, which Creswell accepted at face value, erro-
neously in my view (see Chapter 3 above).
189 See Finbarr Barry Flood, The Great Mosque of
Damascus. Studies on the Makings of an Umayyad
Visual Culture, Islamic History and Civilization, Studies
and Texts 33 (Leiden and Boston, 2001), pp. 147–159 esp.
at 149, with al-Muqaddasi and other sources, noting
also the existence of a door giving direct access to the
maqsura in the mosque at Sana’a in Yemen, built by al-
Walid in the early eighth century. On the maqsura at
Damascus in the time of Muʿawiya see also Creswell,
Early Muslim Architecture, i, p. 41.
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94
claimed that Muʿawiya “was the first to establish
mihrabs and maqsuras.”190 Al-Tabari reports in his
account of the Year 44[664–665] that “In this year
Marwan made the maqsura, and Muʿawiya also
made one in Syria.”191 Not only did Muʿawiya have
a maqsura, so did at least one of his governors. At
Basra, the remarkable Ziyad ibn Sumayya (also
known as Ziyad ibn Abihi and Ziyad ibn Abi
Sufyan), governor of Basra from 665 (and also of
Kufa from 668) until his death in 673, built or re-
built the communal mosques in both cities, for
unlike his patron the caliph Muʿawiya, Ziyad was a
builder, who “also spent substantial amounts on
public works, both for utility and to give symbolic
expression to his (and Muʿawiya’s) regime.”192
When he rebuilt the mosque at Basra, he also con-
structed a residence beside it, on the southern
side. According to al-Baladhuri, “Al-Walid ibn-
Hisham ibn-Kahdham says: – When Ziyad built
the mosque [at Basra], he made its portico resting
on five columns, and built its minaret of stone. He
was the first to make the choir [note 1a; Arabic
maqsura], and to move the official residence to the
south of the mosque.”193 When Ziyad rebuilt the
mosque at Kufa, he did the same thing, construct-
ing a maqsura there “as a protected enclosure built
within it for his own use, where he would be safe
from any violence.”194
190 Whelan. “Origins of the Mihrab Mujawwaf,” p. 210. In
note 41 Whelan discusses two alternative candidates
for who this Kaʿb might be, both seventh-century fig-
ures, the former close to Muʿawiya.
191 Morony, al-Tabari 18, p. 75. This passage on the maqsura
might be the source, and in any event supports the
notion that there are early sources, for Ibn Khaldun’s
statement that Muʿawiya had the first maqsura made.
192 Clive Foss, “Muʿawiya’s State,” in John Haldon, ed.,
Money, Power and Politics in early Islamic Syria. A review
of current debates (Farnham [Surrey] and Burlington
vt, 2010), pp. 75–96 at 79.
193 See Francis Lark Murgotten, trans., The Origins of the
Islamic State, Being a translation from the Arabic accom-
panied with annotations geographic and historic notes of
the Kitab Futuh al-Buldan of al-Imam abu-l ‘Abbas Ahmad
ibn-Jabir al-Baladhuri, (New York, 1924), Part 2, p. 62.
194 Foss, “Muʿawiya’s State,” p. 79, citing Baladhuri 277.
chapter 4
Nothing is known of the form of these early
maqsura structures, alas, nor can it be known
whether Ziyad’s two maqsura structures precede,
or follow, the maqsura of Muʿawiya in the mosque
at Damascus. It seems more likely that Muʿawiya’s
was first and served as prototype on both chrono-
logical grounds, since Muʿawiya’s palace at any
rate is said to date from the period of his gover-
norship, before 660, and thus a decade or more
before the beginning of Ziyad’s governorship, and
also on political grounds, since Ziyad would be
following the caliph rather than creating some-
thing new. Ziyad was famously loyal to Muʿawiya,
who adopted him into the Sufyanid family, and is
best known for the eloquent khutba delivered in
the mosque at Basra upon taking office, stating in
the most emphatic and explicit terms the divinely
supported and instituted character of the caliph’s
power, as reported by many sources including al-
Tabari, whose version is given here: “O people, we
have become your rulers and protectors. We rule
you by the authority [sultan] of God, which He
gave us, and protect you with the fay’ [income] of
God, which He bestowed on us. So you owe us
obedience in whatever you desire, and we owe
you justice in whatever we were assigned.”195 In
al-Tabari’s version, when Ziyad finished this
speech, someone in the crowd said “O amir, I tes-
tify that you have been granted wisdom and
195 Morony, al-Tabari 18, pp. 80–81, Year 45 [665–666]. Cited
also by Humphreys, Muʿawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, p. 91,
and  by Foss, “Muʿawiya’s State,” p. 77. On this political
theory, government authoritative after god, see Michael
Morony, Iraq after the Muslim Conquest (Princeton, 1984;
2nd [unchanged, but with author’s index] ed.; Piscataway
nj, 2005), pp. 32–33: “Terminology ascribed to Ziyad cor-
responds to the usages of the Sufyani period, and in fact,
provides a good deal of the evidence for Sufyani usage,
in which the regime was called the government of God
(A./Ar. Sultan Allah), the military forces were called the
army of God (A./Ar. jund Allah) and the treasury was no
longer called the property of the Muslims (Ar. Mal al-
Muslimin) but the property of God (Ar. mal Allah). It was
Haritha [ibn Badr al-Ghudani author of a panegyric in
praise of Ziyad – in Tabari p. 78] who, in praising Ziyad,
called Muʿawiya the Deputy of God (Ar. khalifat Allah)
and Ziyad his wonderful assistant (Ar. wazir).”
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The Dome of the Chain
unmistakable judgment,” to which Ziyad piously
responded “You have lied. That was the prophet
of God, David,”196 referring to the passage in the
Qurʾan, Sura 38, on David’s judgment, previously
adduced in connection with the Dome of the
Chain. This could of course be a mere coinci-
dence, or a later interpretation, but the connec-
tion of minbar, from which Ziyad spoke, and
maqsura, as emblematic of divine authority for
caliphal government, with the judgment of
David, traditionally associated with the Dome of
the Chain, is remarkable. Remarkable, too, are
the connections of the architectural form at the
core of the Dome of the Chain, the dome, with
several early Islamic rulers.
Domes are always impressive structures, even
when built on a relatively small scale, and occu-
pied a pre-eminent position in the later Roman
world, used in both religious and secular contexts,
often carrying some sort of cosmological over-
tones, implicitly or sometimes explicitly, as seen
for example in the Syriac hymn for the Cathedral
of Edessa, discussed above with reference to its
remarkable eleven-columned bema, but certainly
far better known for its explicit symbolic and
­cosmological interpretation of the large central
dome.197 The dome often was used to mark a
particularly holy place, especially in late antique
Christian architecture, and it was also very
196 Morony, al-Tabari 18, p. 81.
197 In general the aged volume by E. Baldwin Smith, The
Dome, A Study in the History of Ideas (Princeton, 1950)
remains a useful overview; none of the claims advanced
here are controversial, and Karl Lehmann, “The Dome
of Heaven,” Art Bulletin 27(1945), 1–27, is a classic study.
Some of the “universal” claims for such cosmological
symbolism have been challenged, especially for Roman
antiquity, as in Hetty Joyce, “Hadrian’s Villa and the
‘Dome of Heaven’,” Mitteilungen des Deutschen
Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung 97(1990),
347–381 at 375, but the challenge is only to the continu-
ity of cosmological symbolism from antiquity to late
antiquity, not its currency in the latter; I am grateful to
Nicola Camerlenghi for reminding me of this point. For
the Hymn of Edessa see discussion above, with
literature.
95
commonly used by and associated with rulers.
These traditions are shared by Islamic architec-
ture, in which domes were common from an early
period, for example used to mark the space before
the mihrab in early mosques, such as the Great
Mosque of Damascus.198 Since what we know of
earlier mosques built during the seventh century
at Wasit, Kufa, Basra or Fustat does not indicate
that any of them included any dome, nor does for
that matter the renovation of the mosque of the
Prophet in Medina as rebuilt by al-Walid I,199 the
presence of a dome in the mosque at Damascus,
and only in Damascus, could be a reflection of its
special status as the caliphal capital. Indeed,
domes are an important feature of some surviving
early Islamic royal complexes, “palaces” for want
of a better word, for example at Qusayr ʿAmra, and
at Khirbat al-Mafjar, very close to Jerusalem. The
presence of a dome gave the name to the palace
built by Muʿawiya in Damascus, remarkably while
he was still governor of the province for his rela-
tive and predecessor as caliph ʿUthman, for the
palace is known as the Qubbat al-Khadra.200
Sources say that the structure as a whole was of
baked brick, and Creswell interpreted the name to
mean “green dome,” but this interpretation has
been convincingly challenged by Jonathan Bloom,
who read it rather as “dome of heaven,” and pro-
ceeded to elucidate the significance of the dome
in the tradition of Islamic palace architecture and
198 See Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture i, pp. 167–169,
accepting that there was a dome in the mosque built by
al-Walid, although the present dome is a later replace-
ment after the first dome was destroyed by fire in the
eleventh century. Flood, Great Mosque of Damascus,
p. 2, accepts that the original plan called for a dome.
199 Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, i, pp. 142–149,
Fig. 74.
200 Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture i, pp. 39–41.
Creswell accepts too readily, in my view, the disparag-
ing remarks about the structure by a hostile Greek
source, perhaps amalgamating the rude quality with
“Arculf’s” description of the earliest mosque in
Jerusalem, which Creswell accepted at face value, erro-
neously in my view (see Chapter 3 above).
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96
its literary representation.201 There is no question,
then, that Muʿawiya built a dome to represent his
power in Damascus, apparently the first dome
known in the Islamic tradition. He is not known as
a builder, by any means. Stephen Humphreys lists
as constructions associated with his patronage a
dam in the Hijaz, attested by a surviving original
inscription, and a bath built by one of his gover-
nors at Hamman Jadar in Galilee.202 The contrast
with his Marwanid successors is striking.203 What
then is the basis for thinking that he would have
built something in Jerusalem, namely the Dome of
the Chain?
Jerusalem must have had symbolic importance
for Muʿawiya, although it was never a residence,
and indeed as far as we know he only visited the city
on one occasion. But what an occasion! In 660 or
661, he was acclaimed there as caliph. Muslim
sources are remarkably concise about this impor-
tant event, al-Tabari’s many accounts of the investi-
ture of ʿAli are in stark contrast to his single state-
ment, with no elaboration at the very end of his
narrative of year 40 (May 17, 660–May 6, 661): “In
this year Muʿawiya was rendered allegiance as
Caliph in Jerusalem (Iliya).”204 That is all that is said.
Not a word is said about where in Jerusalem the
event took place, who was there, what exactly was
said or done, nothing. This is very disappointing! An
anonymous Maronite Christian gave a much fuller
account, including three different pledges of alle-
giance, the first by the army at al-Hira, the second at
a gathering of amirs and soldiers at a place not
mentioned, which went on to say that he made his
throne (kursis) in Damascus and “refused to go to
201 Jonathan M. Bloom, “The ‘Qubbat al-Khadra’ and the
Iconography of Height in Early Islamic Architecture,”
Ars Orientalis 23(1993), 135–141.
202 Humphreys, Muʿawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, pp. 10–11.
203 Jere L. Bacharach, “Marwanid Umayyad Building
Activities: Speculations on Patronage,” Muqarnas
13(1996), 27–44.
204 Morony, al-Tabari 18, p. 6. I assume that the “allegiance”
involves the pledge (bay’a) and handclasp, the essential
ritual discussed by Marsham, Rituals of Islamic
Monarchy, esp. pp. 82 and 87, with several alternative
Syriac phrases for “proffering the right hand.”
chapter 4
Muhammad’s throne” (in Medina). The third ver-
sion located the event in Jerusalem where “many
nomads gathered at Jerusalem and made Muʿawiya
king, and he went up and sat down on Golgotha; he
prayed there, and went to Gethsemane and went
down to the tomb of the blessed Mary to pray in
it.”205 This version of the newly acclaimed caliph’s
itinerary has been accepted as accurate by a num-
ber of scholars, although it seems to me that this is
patently what a Christian writer would have
believed he ought to have done, and ought to be
regarded with some suspicion.206
Muʿawiya had been engaged for at least four
years in a struggle with ʿAli for the succession as
caliph, and had never rendered allegiance to ʿAli. If
we accept the traditional chronology, recently
challenged by James Howard-Johnston’s revision-
ist proposal that ʿAli’s death should be placed
probably in 658 rather than 661,207 then we must
allow several years for Muʿawiya to prepare for his
205 Andrew Palmer, ed., The Seventh Century in the West
Syrian Chronicles,Translated Texts for Historians 15
(Liverpool, 1993), pp. 29–31, here presented with the
“slight modifications” by Marsham, Rituals of Islamic
Monarchy, p. 87. See now the important study of this
source by James Howard-Johnston, Witnesses to a
World Crisis. Historians and Histories of the Middle East
in the Seventh Century (Oxford, 2010), pp. 175–178 and
191 for the date of the event. Howard-Johnston often
diverges from previous scholars in terms of dates, but
although he accepts the evidence of the Maronite
Chronicle for Muʿawiya’s recognition as caliph in
Jerusalem, noting that “there is nothing I this notice
[by the chronicler] to arouse suspicion,” he prefers a
date for the “assumption of kingship by Muʿawiya
before an Arab assembly at Jerusalem” in 659–660,
with the “formal recognition of Muʿawiya as deputy of
God, sealed with the baya” only in July 660. He thus put
both events after rather than before ʿAli’s death, which
he dated to 657–658, rather than the customary date of
661. On Muʿawiya’s accession see also Marsham, Rituals
of Islamic Monarchy, Chapter 4, esp. pp. 86–88.
206 Most recently see Robert G. Hoyland and Sarah
Waidler, “Adomnán’s De Locis Sanctis and the Seventh-
Century Near East,” English Historical Review 129, no.
539 (2014), 787–807 at 796, with earlier references.
207 Howard-Johnston, Witnesses, p. 482 and elsewhere.
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The Dome of the Chain
own acclamation as Caliph, and for him to choose
the place and the manner of it. Even if we choose
to retain the traditional chronology, there is no tra-
dition that acclamation as caliph was thrust sud-
denly upon a reluctant Muʿawiya, as the tradition
related concerning ʿAli. Muʿawiya had the oppor-
tunity to choose the time and place of his accla-
mation. Why Jerusalem? We cannot know, but
Jerusalem is a royal city, even in the Islamic tradi-
tion, like no other. Neither Mecca nor Medina nor
Damascus nor any other city in the Qurʾan has
important kings, but both David and Solomon are
very important indeed in the Qurʾan, discussed at
length, in several places, especially with their royal
status at the fore, in regard to David in Sura 38
(Sad), where verses 25–28 read and apply to David
the Arabic word caliph:
“David, behold, We have appointed thee
A viceroy [Arabic khaliyfatan, caliph] in the earth;
therefore judge
Between men justly, and follow not caprice,
Lest it lead thee astray from the way of God.
Surely those who go astray from the way
Of God – there awaits them a terrible
Chastisement, for that they have forgotten
The Day of Reckoning.”208
Solomon in Sura 27 (The Ant), is specified as
David’s heir, and the two of them together in Sura
21 (The Prophets) are linked with the concept of
judgment:
“And David and Solomon – when they gave
Judgment concerning the tillage, when the sheep
of the people strayed there, and We bore witness
to their judgment;
and We made Solomon to understand it,
and unto each gave We judgment
and knowledge, And with David We subjected
the mountains to give glory, and the birds, and
We were doers.”209
208 Arberry, The Koran Interpreted, vol. ii, p. 160.
209 Arberry, The Koran Interpreted, vol. ii, p. 23.
97
We know that Muʿawiya built a domed structure as
part of his residence in Damascus, and we also
know of other domed structures erected during
his time. These are especially associated, once
again, with the important figure of Ziyad, governor
of Basra and Kufa. According to al-Baladhuri, who
is writing about the construction of a canal to
bring water to Basra, the Nahr Maʾkil, and, citing as
his source al-Kahdhami: “When Ziyad had brought
the canal of Maʾkil as far as his pavilion from which
he reviewed the troops, he turned it toward the
south…[and subsequently]. Before that time it
[the canal of Maʾkil] had been in bad shape, so
that the water overflowed as far as the pavilion
from which Ziyad used to review the troops.”210 In
both of these texts, I assume that the word ren-
dered in this translation as “pavilion” is in fact the
same as the word for “domed chamber” used in
reference to these passages by Clive Foss and
Michael Morony; indeed Morony specifically
reports the use of qubba here.211
There is no way to demonstrate conclusively that
the Dome of the Chain was built by or during the
caliphate of Muʿawiya. In the later tradition, its
construction is often connected with ʿAbd al-Malik,
presumably in part because it stands immediately
beside the Dome of the Rock, and shares in the
most general sense its unusual form, with a central
dome, leading to the tradition that their relation-
ship could be termed “model” and “copy.” Certainly
construction of the Dome of the Chain during the
Marwanid period, especially during the time of
ʿAbd al-Malik cannot be ruled out, but I have found
little reason to think that it is likely. Moreover,
Nasser Rabbat cites a text from al-Wasiti specifying
that “Muʿawiya, after ʿUmar, built (bana) the Bayt
210 See Philip Khuri Hitti and Francis Lark Murgotten,
trans., The Origins of the Islamic State, being a transla-
tion from the Arabic accompanied with annotations geo-
graphic and historic notes of the Kitab Futuh al-Buldan
of al-Imam abu’l ‘Abbas Ahmad ibn-Jabir al-Baladhuri,
Studies in History, Economics and Public Law lxviii,
163a, part 2 (New York and London, 1916), p. 89
[Section 364 of Arabic edition].
211 Foss, “Muʿawiya’s State,” at p. 78, and. Morony, Iraq after
the Muslim Conquest, p. 60.
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98
al-Maqdis, i.e. the Dome of the Rock.”212 The state-
ment cannot be correctly referring to the Dome of
the Rock, built later by ʿAbd al-Malik, and suggests
some tradition for Muʿawiya building on the Haram
al-Sharif. It is easy to assume that the reference is to
the building of the Aqsa mosque, but if the argu-
ments advanced in Chapter 2 have validity, and ref-
erences to the Aqsa mosque are connected with the
Haram al-Sharif as a whole and not with a specific
structure within it, then the most likely candidate
for what Muʿawiya would have built would be
indeed the Dome of the Chain. If it was built first,
and this was part of the collective memory, then
that might help to explain the impossible tradition
that that little structure was built as a “model” for
its great neighbor. Rabbat does suggest that
Muʿawiya’s prophetic association with Jerusalem
“probably set the precedent” for ʿAbd al-Malik’s
building in the city.213 The foregoing discussion
attempts to marshal evidence that might shed light
on the meaning and function of the Dome of the
Chain, and that evidence seems to point toward an
earlier period, and a connection with the caliph as
imam, leading prayer from the minbar, and at the
same time enjoying some protection in a maqsura.
It seems to me likely that the Dome of the Chain
was either constructed for Muʿawiya’s accession as
caliph, which took place in Jerusalem, according to
the sources, or perhaps more likely was constructed
after that event, as a permanent memorial of it, or
perhaps with a view toward using it on future occa-
sions. However, for a variety of reasons, no such
future occasion occurred.214
212 Rabbat, “Meaning of the Umayyad Dome of the Rock,”
12–21 at 15.
213 Rabbat, “Meaning of the Umayyad Dome of the
Rock,” 15.
214 Beatrice St. Laurent (Bridgewater State University) and
Isam Awwad (Chief Architect and Conservator of the
Haram al-Sharif, 1972–2004) were scheduled to present
a lecture on “Muʿawiya’s role in the development of the
Haram al-Sharif and its nearby neighborhoods in sev-
enth-century Jerusalem” at a conference on “The
Religious Institutions of Late Antique and Early Medieval
Jerusalem and its Hinterland” at the Kenyon Institute in
chapter 4
We have only scanty information about the suc-
cession to Muʿawiya. His choice of his son Yazid
was highly controversial and many Muslims
objected, both on the grounds of principle, that the
caliphate should be elective rather than hereditary,
and on the grounds of the personal suitability, or
lack thereof, of Yazid to succeed his father.215 The
available sources suggest that, presumably recog-
nizing the likely opposition, Muʿawiya sought
pledges of allegiance to his son as successor at least
several years before his own death, on separate
occasions, from the army in Syria, from representa-
tives from Iraq, and from the Hijaz. According to
the later sources at least some prominent Muslims
refused to make such a pledge.216 Evidently the
attempt to secure his son’s succession was difficult,
and needed to be done repeatedly. Al-Tabari pres-
ents the succession of Yazid as having been first
demanded by Muʿawiya already in the year 56
(675–676): “During this year Muʿawiya summoned
the people to acknowledge his son, Yazid, as his
successor, and made him heir apparent [wali al-
ʿahd].”217 Al-Tabari gives no more details such as the
place or setting or specificity of “the people,” and he
says only that Yazid was made heir, not that he was
made caliph. Al-Tabari goes on to relate at greater
length that Muʿawiya “wrote to Ziyad, asking him
for advice,” and has Ziyad say to a companion, that
Muʿawiya “is afraid of the people’s disapproval…”
Ziyad counsels him to “go slowly in this matter,” and
hopes that Yazid will amend his behavior before
anything is announced.218 In his narrative of the
Jerusalem, but the conference was postponed because
of the security situation in the region at the time.
I hope that they will present, and ideally publish, their
ideas about Muʿawiya in the near future.
215 Humphreys, Muʿawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, pp. 98–102.
216 Marsham, Rituals of Islamic Monarchy, p. 90, and n. 25
with list of the sources, and 91 on the refuseniks. For a
recent study of the Umayyads and the oath of alle-
giance see, Adbulhadi Alajmi, “Ascribed vs. Popular
Legitimacy: The Case of al-Walid ii and Umayyad ʿahd,”
Journal of Near Eastern Studies 72(2013), 25–33.
217 Morony, al-Tabari 18, p. 183.
218 Ibid., pp. 184–185.
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The Dome of the Chain
beginning of the caliphate of Yazid, al-Tabari opens
with another bald statement, “In this year (60/680),
the oath of allegiance was given to Yazid b.
Muʿawiya after the death of his father on 15 Rajab
(April 22, 680) in the reports of some, but in the
reports of others on the 20th of the month.”219
Again no details are provided, no indication of
where or how the accession was performed or
announced, and again this bald statement is fol-
lowed by a detailed discussion of the various
figures who refused to acknowledge Yazid as caliph,
which runs for the next nine pages of the printed
English translation.220 As presented, this succes-
sion is hardly the environment for a great public
ceremony, at which opposition could be expected.
If the Dome of the Chain had been constructed as a
ceremonial place for the caliph to be acclaimed
and acknowledged, to make his first sermon, on a
place associated with the kingship of David and
Solomon,221 and their wisdom and justice, it was
used only once, if at all. Its original purpose and
context were largely forgotten, the only thing being
remembered was the association with David and
Solomon and their judgment.
Nonetheless, the Dome of the Chain exists, and
its position beside what at least very shortly there-
after was recognized as the most holy place in the
area, the holiest in the Islamic tradition save only
Mecca and Medina, certainly suggests that this
was an important structure, with some kind of
function. The argument by Patricia Crone and
Martin Hinds that in early Islam religious and
­secular authority were merged in the caliph, and
only later generally viewed as separate, at least in
the Sunni tradition,222 would have important
219 I.K.A. Howard, The Caliphate of Yazid b. Muʾawiyah,
a.d. 680–683/a.h. 60–64, The History of al-Tabari
(Taʾrikh al-rusul waʾl-muluk) 19 (Albany ny, 1990), p. 1.
220 Ibid., pp. 2–10.
221 On the importance of David and Solomon in the
Qurʾan as precedents for Umayyad building in
Jerusalem see Rabbat, “Meaning of the Umayyad Dome
of the Rock,” esp. 17–18.
222 Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds, God’s Caliph. Religious
authority in the first centuries of Islam (Cambridge,
99
implications, if accepted, for what a caliphal
mosque in Jerusalem might have signified. Such an
understanding of the caliphal role seems to me to
support the hypothesis here advanced that the
later separate structures of minbar and maqsura
were united in a single structure in the Dome of
the Chain, and also helps explain why this original
function was abandoned, and then forgotten,
since it violated the later tradition. Since the tradi-
tions seem to agree that it is early in date, either
pre-Islamic at least in character (the David’s judg-
ment explanation) or earlier than the Dome of the
Rock (the model explanation) or connected with
the caliph (the treasury explanation), it seems
likely that it would have demanded explanation,
and in the usual human way, later developments
were read back into it, whether or not it actually to
any degree inspired those later developments.
Something happened that led to the loss of func-
tion, and eventually to the loss of a clear memory
of what that function had originally been. It is not
difficult to imagine what the “something” was: the
construction first of the Dome of the Rock, and
then of the Aqsa Mosque.223 It is to neglected
aspects of the former of those, the Dome of the
Rock, that the next chapter is devoted.
1986). For one of the many examples listed by Crone
and Hinds for the use of the title khalifat Allah (deputy
of god) applied to ʿAbd al-Malik see now the transla-
tion and commentary on al-Akhtal, “The Tribe Has
Departed” in Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych, The Poetics
of Islamic Legitimacy (Bloomington and Indianapolis,
2002), pp. 80–109.
223 Rabbat, “Meaning of the Umayyad Dome of the Rock,”
at 18 has already suggested the “shift in significance” in
the meaning of that larger and later building after the
construction of the Aqsa mosque “aligned with its
north–south axis, thus incorporating it into a larger
complex whose focal point it became…[and] when
the religious functions of the Dome of the Rock and the
whole sanctuary supplanted the political ones, and
the events that had led to the Dome’s construction had
lost their relevance.”
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 chapter 5
The Columns and Eagle Capitals in the Dome of the Rock
The Dome of the Rock (Fig. 1.3) has been regarded
by Muslim tradition for over a millennium as the
most sacred structure in the world, after only the
mosques associated with the Prophet Muhammad
in Mecca and Medina. From the moment of its
construction, and according to the tradition before
its construction, it was the site of pilgrimage and
veneration, and so it has remained to this day. It is
not and has never been a mosque, a place of prayer
for the Muslim community gathered together. It is
well known to scholars and students, featuring in
virtually every general book about Islamic art, and
has been the subject of many articles and mono-
graphs.1 It has recently become a political icon,
invoked in differing ways by different sides in con-
temporary controversies.2 Some have overtly
threatened to destroy it, and unabashedly pro-
fessed publicly their desire to do so. Any Google
search will show the widespread invocation of the
monument to serve varying political and confes-
sional agendas. To say that the building is a site of
controversy is a gross understatement, and I offer
no comment related to that controversy, nor will
I attempt to address the building in a comprehen-
sive fashion, dealing with all its fascinating aspects
and problems. Rather here I hope to focus on
two  features of the building that have almost
entirely escaped scholarly attention, its columns
and the three column capitals having images of
1 Bibliography on the Dome of the Rock is vast, and growing
so rapidly that there is little doubt that any list offered here
would be out of date by the time it was published. For the
most convenient and concise overview, and a recent one,
with a survey of the earlier literature, including his funda-
mental earlier studies, see Oleg Grabar, The Dome of the
Rock (Cambridge, ma and London, 2006).
2 See for example Christiane J. Gruber, “Jerusalem in the
visual propaganda of post-revolutionary Iran,” in Tamar
Meyer and Suleiman A. Mourad, eds., Jerusalem. Idea and
Reality (New York and London, 2008), pp. 168–197.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi 10.1163/9789004302075_006
eagles, now partially erased but still unambigu-
ously identifiable.3
It sometimes passes for common knowledge
that the Islamic tradition was hostile to, or at least
refrained, from the depiction of living creatures.4
Many contemporary Muslims hold this view, as
3 A much abbreviated earlier form of this chapter was pre-
sented in the form of a lecture, as “The Eagle Capitals in
the Dome of the Rock,” at the annual meeting of the
Southeastern Medieval Association (sema), with the
theme “Natural, Unnatural, & Supernatural,” in Roanoke,
Virginia, November 18, 2010. I would like to thank the orga-
nizers for their kind invitation to address the meeting, and
my generous audience for their comments. Versions of
that talk were subsequently presented, as it evolved, at
Harvard University, the University of Minnesota, Sweet
Briar College, the University of Notre Dame, and Trinity
College in Dublin, and I am also grateful to those audi-
ences for their comments and suggestions.
4 For a still fundamental general discussion see Oleg Grabar,
The Formation of Islamic Art (rev. ed.; New Haven and
London, 1987), pp. 72–89, concluding with a discussion of
the early images in Jerusalem and Damascus, which in
stating that “in neither Jerusalem nor in Damascus are
there any representations of men or animals” (p. 89) does
not consider the spoliated capitals discussed here. See also
Sheila S. Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom, “The Mirage of
Islamic Art: Reflections on the Study of an Unwieldy
Field,” Art Bulletin 85(2003), 152–184, esp. at 172–174, and
discussion with earlier bibliography in Jonathan M. Bloom
and Sheila S. Blair, eds., “Iconoclasm,” in The Grove
Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture 2 (Oxford,
2009), pp. 182–183, including Terry Allen, “Aniconism and
Figural Representation in Islamic Art,” in his Five Essays on
Islamic Art (Sebastopol ca, 1988). See Finbarr Barry Flood,
“Between Cult and Culture: Bamiyan, Islamic Iconoclasm,
and the Museum,” Art Bulletin 84(2002), 641–659; the
author has a volume on the subject in preparation. For a
remarkable and strange re-casting of the issue in tortured
post-modernist language(s) see Hamid Dabashi, “In the
Absence of the Face,” Social Research 67, 1(Spring 2000),
127–185. Very recently the subject was addressed by Mika
Natif, “The Painter’s Breath and the Concept of Idol
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
did many in the past, but the notion of a general
“prohibition” in force throughout the long history
of Islam cannot be supported. From the earliest
times, and in many if not all parts of the Islamic
world, depictions of animals, human beings, and
sometimes even of the Prophet Muhammad him-
self, whether veiled, as is more common, or even
unveiled, were produced.5 Muslims can and do
hold differing views on this, as on many matters. It
is widely understood, although perhaps less widely
than one might hope, that this alleged aniconism
is restricted to religious contexts, especially
mosques and texts of the Qurʾan itself. Secular
dwellings of the Umayyad period are incontest-
ably filled with animal and human figures,6 but
even in the religious sphere there are exceptions to
the avoidance of images, notably for example in a
famous early manuscript of the Qurʾan with deco-
rative paintings that are generally interpreted as
“images” of buildings.7 Among early mosques the
images of architecture and landscapes and of
plants in the mosaic decoration of the Great
Mosque in Damascus, built and decorated by the
Anxiety in Islamic Art,” in Josh Ellenbogen and Aaron
Tugenschaft, eds., Idol Anxiety (Stanford, 2011), pp. 41–55.
5 Even portraits of the Prophet Muhammad were apparently
conceivable; see Oleg Grabar, “Les portraits du Prophète
Mahomet à Byzance et ailleurs,” Académie des inscriptions et
belles-lettres, Comptes rendus, Novembre-Décembre 2002
(Paris: Boccard, 2002), pp. 1431–1514, Oleg Grabar and Mika
Natif, “The Story of Portraits of the Prophet Muhammad,”
Studia Islamica 96(2003), 19–38 and pls. vi–ix, and Priscilla
Soucek, “The Life of the Prophet: Illustrated Versions,” in
Priscilla Soucek, ed., Content and Context of Visual Arts in the
Islamic World (University Park and London, 1988), pp. 193–217.
I am grateful to Oleg Grabar for providing me with copies of
his two intriguing articles.
6 See in general Grabar, Formation of Islamic Art, pp. 133–169.
For a proliferation of birds and beasts throughout the secu-
lar structures, on floors and also on walls, see Ghazi Bisheh,
“From Castellum to Palatium: Umayyad Mosaic Pavements
from Qasr al-Hallabat in Jordan,” Muqarnas 10 (1993),
49–56.
7 On the great Sana’a Qurʾan with images of mosques see
most recently Alain George, The Rise of Islamic Calligraphy
(London, 2010), Figs.  53–54 and pp. 79–89, with earlier
literature.
101
order of Caliph al-Walid I after 705, are well known,
but there are no figures of animals or humans.8
The Dome of the Rock is not only a religious struc-
ture, but one of the highest significance, indeed
sanctity, so the presence in it not only of images of
animals of any kind, but especially of three-
dimensional sculptural images of animals,9 is thus
problematic, and of course also fascinating.
Sources that might help in addressing the eagle
capitals in the Dome of the Rock and their possible
significance are difficult, because sources, at least
in the sense of specific written sources, are alto-
gether lacking. I know of no descriptive or other
text from the medieval, or for that matter from the
early modern period that mentions or even seems
to allude to these figured capitals in the Dome of
the Rock. Why this silence should be so, in a build-
ing so often described, is itself a matter of some
interest, going beyond the fact that people tend to
see what they expect, and quite simply not to see
what they do not expect. In this case, however, we
must reckon with a powerful tradition that there
should not be figural art in the Dome of the Rock;
the easiest way to deal with the existence of such
art is not to explain it but instead to ignore it. As I
hope to show, however, the material evidence has a
compelling story to tell, and there are indeed also a
variety of written and visual sources that can be
brought to bear on the question of why eagles are
present in the Dome of the Rock, why they may
have been installed there, what they may have sig-
nified, how they may have functioned, and how
they are related to wider traditions in the world of
late antiquity becoming the early Middle Ages.
The Dome of the Rock has often been referred
to as if miraculously preserved through its long
8 On the Damascus mosque and its images see Finbarr Barry
Flood, The Great Mosque of Damascus. Studies on the
Makings of an Umayyad Visual Culture (Leiden, 2001), with
earlier literature.
9 One section of Richard Ettinghausen, “The Man-Made
Setting,” in Bernard Lewis, ed., The World of Islam. Faith
People Culture (London, 1976), pp. 57–88 at 62 is titled “the
rejection of sculpture,” and cites a passage from Surah 92
of the Qurʾan and a hadith on this point.
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102
­ istory, implying that what we see today is its origi-
h recover that will-o-the-wisp “original appearance”
nal appearance.10 It is a bit of a shock to read in the
second paragraph of Oleg Grabar’s recent mono-
graph on the building that “Nearly everything one
sees in this marvelous building, both inside and
outside, was put there in the second half of the
twentieth century.”11 Grabar was deliberately
shocking here, perhaps in reaction to what he
shortly thereafter termed “the assumption, by the
Muslim faithful but also by many historians, that
this building is a work of Umayyad art completed
in 691…[whereas] In fact, the building is almost
entirely the work of our own times.”12 The golden
dome (Fig.  1.3), a fixture of recent most popular
imagery of the Dome of the Rock, a chief “sign” of
the building, was erected as recently as 1999, imi-
tating the dome erected in 1960–1962.13 Prior to
that time the dome was dark, a slate-toned blue-
grey, as seen in the many views in early modern
paintings and a few color photographs ante-dating
the restoration.14 The golden color is then literally
“new”, but it is nevertheless also an attempt to
10 General books suggesting that the Dome of the Rock is
well preserved include Markus Hattstein and Peter
Delius, Islam. Art and Architecture, trans. George Ansell
et alia (Cologne, 2000), p. 64: “The interior decoration,
which has been largely maintained in its original state.”
Barbara Bernd, Islamic Art (London and Cambridge, ma,
1991), p. 24: “The earliest Islamic building to survive in its
original form is the Dome of the Rock. Though it has
often been restored down the ages, much of the seventh-
century work is still visible.” That the building is well
preserved in its original form is literally textbook wis-
dom, for example Fred S. Kleiner, Gardner’s Art through
the Ages. A Global History (13th ed,; Boston, 2009), p. 344:
in contrast to the much restored exterior “The interior’s
rich mosaic ornament has been preserved and suggests
the original appearance of the exterior walls.”
11 Grabar, The Dome of the Rock, p.1. For Ottoman and
early modern restorations see Beatrice St. Laurent and
András Riedlmayer, “Restorations of Jerusalem and the
Dome of the Rock and their Political Significance,
1537–1928,” Muqarnas 19(1993): 76–84.
12 Grabar, Dome of the Rock, pp. 3–4.
13 Grabar, Dome of the Rock, p. 72.
14 Images of the blue dome of the Dome of the Rock in
paintings and early color photographs.
chapter 5
according to some of the earliest descriptions.15 At
least we are fairly confident of the date and patron
of the building, from the long inscription stating
that it was the work of the Caliph ʿAbd al-Malik,
and giving the date 72 ah/691–692 ce. Even this
information is not entirely what it seems; the name
of Caliph ʿAbd al-Malik is not, in fact, present today
in the inscription. The name of the ninth-century
Abbasid Caliph al-Maʾmun replaced it, but every-
one accepts that the date of 72/691–692 (hereafter
given as simply 692), which indeed is still present,
and apparently original, must mean that ʿAbd al-
Malik was originally named. Clearly al-Maʾmun
could not have been responsible for a building
dated more than a century before his time. It is dif-
ficult to imagine that changing the name but leav-
ing the date could be a mere oversight; presumably
when the inscription was altered and the name of
a different caliph inscribed, the date was already
itself in some manner sanctified, and the Abbasid
Caliph presents himself not as the founder but the
re-founder of the building, perhaps taking credit
for the purging of the name representing a previ-
ous dynasty that had a very bad press in the early
Abbasid period.16 There is controversy as to
whether that date marks the completion or the
beginning of the construction,17 but that need not
concern us here.
15 For sources describing the dome as covered with gilded
copper sheets (variously described as brass or copper or
lead) and glittering in the sun, see Andreas Kaplony, The
Haram of Jerusalem 324–1099. Temple, Friday Mosque,
Area of Spiritual Power, Freiburger Islamstudien 22
(Stuttgart, 2002), pp. 530–531.
16 On the “bad press” of the Umayyads in the Abbasid
period see R. Stephen Humphreys, Islamic History.
A Framework for Inquiry (rev. ed.; Princeton, 1991),
pp. 105–127 on the Abbasid Revolution; see also Nasser
Rabbat, “The Meaning of the Umayyad Dome of the
Rock,” Muqarnas 6(1989), 12–21 at 13 and note 12.
17 This is an important point, for the difference of a few
years is important. For presentation of the view that
the date marks the beginning and not the end of con-
struction see Sheila Blair, “What is the date of the
Dome of the Rock?” in Julian Raby and Jeremy Johns,
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
The chief inscription is not, however, on the
outside of the building, as for example on ancient
Roman buildings, but on the inside (Fig. 5.1), more
in the manner of a number of important late
Antique buildings to be discussed in the next
chapter of this book. Here it is important only to
note the location of the inscription. Very long, it
runs along the top of the entire wall above the
outer of the two colonnades, the octagonal one,
beginning on the inside at the southwest corner,
where you would see it if you stood with your back
to the rock under the dome, the sacred place, and
faced south, the qibla, the direction of prayer for
Muslims, toward Mecca (Fig.  5.2). It runs from
right to left, and thus anti-clockwise around the
building, beginning with “In the name of God, the
beneficent, the merciful. There is no god but God
alone, without partner,” which is written on the
qibla (south) wall. The first part of the inscription
then ends on the southwest-facing wall. At that
point it jumps back to the southeastern side,
where it continues on the outer side of the colon-
nade, reading right to left, so that the second part
of the inscription reads clockwise. Across the
southern, qibla wall is the same phrase used on the
inside inscription, “In the name of God, the benefi-
cent, the merciful. There is no god but God alone,
without partner,” and then ends where it began, on
the southeast corner. Clearly the positioning of the
text is carefully thought out, the beginning points
being arranged so that in each case the qibla wall
has the same text, the basmala, and the insistent
theme that god is alone, without partner.
The interior (Fig.  5.1) gives a generally more
accurate impression of the original appearance
than does the exterior, and it is in this respect that
one might accept the recent statement by Michael
Greenhalgh that “although it has suffered the tra-
vails of restoration this structure is, in comparison
eds., Bay al-Maqdis. ʿAbd al-Malik’s Jerusalem, Oxford
Studies in Islamic Art 9, Part 1 (Oxford, 1992), pp. 59–88.
See also the important forthcoming study of the
mosaic inscription by Marcus Milwright, The Umayyad
Mosaic Inscriptions of the Dome of the Rock, Edinburgh
Studies in Islamic Art (Edinburgh – in press).
103
with almost any other structure Christian or
Islamic [of such antiquity] essentially as built.”18
The ceiling and floor coverings are new, but the
marble paneling and the mosaics date from the
692 construction, although at least in some areas
heavily reworked. The only things that appear to
be entirely original and unchanged are the column
shafts, those gloriously colored shafts, twenty-
eight in all, sixteen in the outer colonnade in eight
pairs, each pair set between eight piers, and twelve
in the inner colonnade, four sets of three, between
four piers. They are all apparently in their original
locations (Fig.  5.2), and have their twenty-eight
original capitals, whose current gilding may or
may not be traced to the original campaign, but
which has certainly been renovated.
The Columns in the Dome of the Rock
Strangely, no study of the column shafts and their
arrangement inside the Dome of the Rock has been
published. They are all Roman spolia, removed
from one or more Roman buildings, whose identity
and location are unknown, but whose superb qual-
ity is clear.19 An investigation of the column shafts
and their arrangement and possible significance,
along the lines of the important work by Dale
Kinney with the spoliated columns at S. Maria in
Trastevere, or by Lex Bosman for the Vatican basil-
ica, would be highly desirable, and likely very
revealing.20 Such deliberate arrangement of col-
18 Michael Greenhalgh, Marble Past, Monumental Present.
Building with Antiquities in the Mediaeval Mediterra­
nean, The Medieval Mediterranean. Peoples, Econo­
mies and Cultures, 400–1500, 80 (Leiden and Boston,
2009), p. 284.
19 Some of the material presented about the columns will
appear separately as “Moving Stones: on the columns
of the Dome of the Rock, their history and meaning,”
Bianca Kühnel, Renana Bartal and Neta Bodner, eds.,
Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual
Translation of Place, 500–1500.
20 Dale Kinney, “Spolia from the Baths of Caracalla in
S. Maria in Trastevere,” Art Bulletin 68(1986), 379–397,
and more recently on related topics Dale Kinney,
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104
ored column shafts has been investigated in previ-
ous scholarship on early Islamic architecture, at
least in one case. Christian Ewert and Jens-Peter
Wisshak studied the arrangement of thirteen dif-
ferently-colored columns in the Great Mosque of
Kairouan, and found what they saw as an implicit
“building within a building” in the Kairouan
mosque, since the colored shafts appear to make
an octagonal shape in the middle of the prayer hall,
which they compared to the Dome of the Rock.21
They suggested that this octagonal shape also
seems to have governed the arrangement of the
spoliated capitals, which also suggest this special
arrangement.22 Ewert and Wisshak argued that the
Kairouan mosque is archaizing, and also deliber-
ately refers to the Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem in its
overall form, and they related this referentiality to
the foundation of the Kairouan building, the
mosque of Sidi Uqba, in 836 only five years after
the apparent date for the alteration of the inscrip-
tion in the Dome of the Rock by Caliph al-Maʼmun,
who replaced ʿAbd al-Malik’s name with his own.
Whether one can find such patterns in other
Islamic buildings that have yet to be interrogated
remains an open question, and Ewert and Wisshak’s
interpretation of the Kairouan column arrange-
ment is controversial. Richard Ettinghausen, Oleg
Grabar, and Marilyn Jenkins-Madina illustrated the
findings and hypothesis in their book on early
Islamic art and architecture, apparently accepting
the basic idea while also noting that such pattern-
ing would have been invisible to an observer, and
“Bearers of Meaning,” Jahrbuch für Antike und
Christentum 59(2007), 139–153. Lex Bosman, The Power
of Tradition: Spolia in the Architecture of Saint Peter’s
in  the Vatican (Hilversum, 2004), esp. 29–56, and
Lex  Bosman, “Spolia in the fourth-century basilica,”
in  Rosamond McKitterick, John Osborne, Carol
M.  Richardson and Joanna Story, eds., Old St. Peter’s,
Rome (Cambridge, 2013), 65–80.
21 Christian Ewert and Jens-Peter Wisshak, Forschungen
zur Almohadischen Moscheen 1, Madrider Beiträge 9
(Mainz, 1981), 15–20 and especially 31–54, Fig. 20.
22 Ewert and Wisshak, Forschungen, Fig. 23.
chapter 5
must involve something esoteric or even magical.23
Robert Hillenbrand reported the findings and
hypothesis with apparent approval, although he
noted that this “esoteric meaning” had long been
unnoticed, and seems to have been unnoticed by
any medieval observers, so its “refined symbolism
was not bruited abroad but was intended for the
cognoscenti alone.”24
A surprising source may bear witness to a strong
interest in columns and their decoration in the
early Islamic, and indeed in the Umayyad period.
Representations of elaborate columns appear as
sura dividers in several de luxe manuscripts which
have been associated by some scholars with the
Umayyad period, the most recent discussion being
by François Déroche.25 Déroche suggested that
these manuscripts might be linked with the
administrative and artistic projects under ʿAbd al-
Malik links their appearance with the columns in
the Dome of the Rock,26 although the connection
is more apparent in the decoration above the
painted columns than on the shafts, which often
have decorative motifs, such as shafts with both
vertical and diagonal fluting, better paralleled in
contemporary manuscripts from the Christian
East and West than in early Islamic architecture.27
23 Richard Ettinghausen, Oleg Grabar and Marilyn
Jenkins-Madina., Islamic Art and Architecture, 650–1250
(New Haven and London, 2001), pp. 33–35 and Fig. 35.
24 Robert Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture (Edinburgh,
1994, rev. ed. 2000), p. 20.
25 François Déroche, Qurʾans of the Umayyads. A First
Overview, Leiden Studies in Islam and Society (Leiden,
2014), esp. pp. 89–92 and Figs, 20, 24, 25, with earlier
literature. I will not address the provocative statement
that a large brass salver in Berlin might be dated to the
seventh-eighth century, and the building depicted at
its center, with a prominent column in its central door-
way, might be related to the Dome of the Rock; see
[Ulrike al-Khamis and Stefan Weber, eds.], Early
Capitals of Islamic Culture. The Artistic Legacy of
Umayyad Damascus and Abbasid Baghdad (650–950)
(Berlin, n.d. [2014]), pp. 30–31.
26 Déroche, Qurʾans of the Umayyads, pp. 94–95.
27 For example: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France,
cod. Lat. 10593, a probably seventh-century manuscript
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
A striking example of such a sura divider was pub-
lished recently by Alain George, which shows two
columns, one above the other, both with shafts
evidently imitating colored marbles, one of them
with a strong red and white character, the other
green and white.28 These correspond to the two
different colors used in the inner colonnade of the
Dome of the Rock, and it is interesting that they
are both shown with gilding on the columns’ bases
and capitals, perhaps suggesting some support for
the view that the gilding of the capitals goes back
to their original use in the building.
The colors of the column shafts in the Dome of
the Rock vary dramatically (Fig. 5.1), as was com-
mon in Late Antiquity, when color, and varietas in
color as well as other features, was so important, a
feature of ancient and medieval buildings long
forgotten, ignored, or repressed.29 The recent
restoration of the Red Monastery at Sohag in
Upper Egypt (Fig.  5.3), dating probably from the
fifth to seventh century and thus very roughly
from northern Italy, with similar columns carrying an
arch used as a frontispiece, for which see Ernst Heinrich
Zimmermann, Vorkarolingische Miniaturen, Denkmäler
Deutscher Kunst iii, 1 (Berlin, 1916), pp. 39 and 147–148
and pl. 3, and Babette Tewes, Die Handschriften
der Schule von Luxeuil. Kunst und Ikonographie eines
frühmittelalterlichen Skriptoriums, Wolfenbütteler
Mittelalter-Studien 22 (Wiesbaden, 2011), Fig.  142. For
similarly decorated columns probably datable to the
first quarter of the eighth century and produced in
northern Francia see Trier, Domschatz, cod. 61, fol. 11r, for
which see Nancy Netzer, Cultural Interplay in the Eighth
Century. The Trier Gospels and the making of a scripto-
rium at Echternach (Cambridge, 1994), pl. 5.
28 From the manuscript St. Petersburg, Russian National
Library cod. Marcel 13, fol. 33r; see Alain George, The
Rise of Islamic Calligraphy (London, Berkeley and
Beirut, 2010), p. 148.
29 On this issue with specific reference to columns see Beat
Brenk, “Spolien und ihre Wirkung auf die Ästhetik der
varietas. Zum Problem alternierender Kapitelltypen,” in
Joachim Poeschke, ed., Antike Spolien in der Architektur
des Mittelalters und der Renaissance (Munich, 1996),
pp. 49–92, and more recently discussion and bibliogra-
phy in Kinney, “Bearers of Meaning,” at 15.
105
chronologically and geographically in the area of
the Dome of the Rock, by a team led by Elizabeth
Bolman,30 gives a sense of the rich color that was
sought, in this case with paint imitating what a
building like the Dome of the Rock achieved with
colored stones (Fig.  5.1). After the sixth century
most of the quarries from which such colored
marbles stemmed were closed,31 and the use of
older column shafts was a necessity, if such luxuri-
ous material was to be incorporated in a building.
Whether and to what extent there were ideologi-
cal issues involved in the use of Roman spolia is
another of those complex and fascinating issues
that I shall not address here,32 but which surely
deserves more consideration than it has received.33
30 Elizabeth S. Bolman, “Late Antique Aesthetics,
Chromophobia, and the Red Monastery, Sohag, Egypt,”
Eastern Christian Art 3 (2006), 1–24.
31 See Alfred Michael Hirt, Imperial Mines and Quarries in
the Roman World. Organizational Aspects 27 bc–ad 235
(Oxford, 2010). This issue was noted in reference to the
marble columns and capitals on the Haram by John
Wilkinson, Column Capitals in al Haram al Sharif ( from
138 a.d. to 1118 a.d.) (Jerusalem, 1987), p. 4, whose view
was that the very last to close did so ca. 550, and the oth-
ers had closed at an earlier date. Bosman, “Spolia,” p. 73
noted that the use of colored marbles in Roman archi-
tecture was increasingly common in the first and sec-
ond centuries ce, probably peaking in the third century,
and declining thereafter, but he found evidence that at
least some of the columns in the fourth-century Vatican
basilica were newly made rather than spoliated.
32 For discussion of spolia, in late antiquity specifically
and in general, see Friedrich Wilhelm Deichmann, Die
Spolien in der spätantiken Architektur (Munich, 1975),
Beat Brenk, “Spolia from Constantine to Charlemagne:
Aesthetics versus Ideology,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers
41(1987), 103–109, and Dale Kinney, “Roman
Architectural Spolia,” Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society 145(2001), 138–161, and Richard
Brilliant and Dale Kinney, eds., Reuse Value. Spolia and
Appropriation in Art and Architecture, from Constantine
to Sherrie Levine (Farnham, Surrey, 2011).
33 For an example of what might be attempted for
Umayyad Jerusalem, see Susana Calvo Capilla, “The
Reuse of Classical Antiquity in the Palace of Madinat
al-Zahraʾ and its Role in the Construction of Caliphal
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106
To the best of my knowledge, we still await a
study that identifies the kind of stone from which
each column was hewn. Such a study would allow
scholars to address the issue of the arrangement
of the columns on a more secure basis. Is there a
pattern to the arrangement, or is it random, hap-
hazard? We do not know. The remarks here are
necessarily preliminary, based on the very incom-
plete published photographs of the building, and a
brief few minutes inside the building during a visit
in January 2010, not long enough to have permitted
complete notes to be made about the disposition
of the columns. The most important observation, it
seems to me, at least for the present investigation,
has to do with the arrangement of columns on the
inner circular arcade, also the only ones that I had
an opportunity to quickly examine. There are
twelve columns here, the largest in the building,
arranged in four groups of three, separated by piers
at the northwest, northeast, southeast and south-
west, so that there are three columns on north,
south, east and west (Figs. 5.1 and 5.2). It is striking
that the arrangements on the three columns is the
same on the north (Fig.  5.4), east (Fig.  5.5) and
south (Fig. 5.6) sides, but different on the west.34 In
Legitimacy,” Muqarnas 31 (2014), pp. 1–33. I am very
grateful to the author for having permitted me to read a
pre-publication version of the work.
34 I have no photograph of the west side inner columns,
which at the time of my visit were blocked by an opaque
screen inside the western door, as well as by the scaffold-
ing in the center of the building. There is a view from this
point available online, from the “Virtual Walking Tour of
the Haram al-Sharif” narrated by Oleg Grabar, with pan-
oramic (and zoom-able) photographs by Barry Gross
and Michael Gross, and available on the website of Saudi
Aramco World, at http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/
issue/200901/al-haram/tour.htm (accessed 1/1/2015), the
view inside the west door of the Dome of the Rock at #8.
It is my impression based on this website, that the west
side of the inner colonnade has two of the red columns
which were set at the center of the other sides, set as a
pair at the outside, flanking a central column that is
darker in color, but, as already noted, I was not able to
confirm this arrangement on the site.
chapter 5
north, south and east, the central column of the set
of three has a striking and attention-grabbing col-
ored shaft, boldly patterned with white and a deep
red verging almost to purple. I pretend no exper-
tise in the study of marble, and am most reluctant
to claim that I can properly name this remarkable
stone, but for the sake of convenience I will call it
“pavonazetto,” based on its similarity, at least to my
eyes, to an illustration so designated in the book on
ancient marble by Raniero Gnoli (Fig.  5.7).35
Because the photographs presented here were
made with poor light conditions, the red color of
the “pavonazetto” columns is not clearly apparent,
and appears better in the professional photograph
by Saïd Nuseibeh published here (Fig. 5.1).36 On a
visual level, it seems to me the same stone as that
used for the two outermost columns on the exte-
rior north porch of the Dome of the Rock, photo-
graphed in better light, and with the red color of
the “pavonazetto” far more evident (Fig. 5.8).37 At
least to my eyes, this stone is distinct from a second
more uniformly red stone used for columns on the
interior of the Dome of the Rock,38 and also on the
exterior, for example the central columns flanking
35 Raniero Gnoli, Marmora Romana (rev. ed.; Rome, 1988),
pp. 169–171, Fig.  126. The stone is also called Phrygian
marble, synnadicu, or docimenium, and stems from a
quarry in Anatolia, modern Turkey. See also Raniero
Gnoli, Maria Cristina Marchei and Attilia Sironi,
“Repertorio,” in Gabriele Borghini, ed., Marmi antichi (rev.
ed.; Rome, 2001), at pp. 264–265, no. 109, Figs. 109a and b.
36 Saïd Nuseibeh and Oleg Grabar, The Dome of the Rock
(New York, 1996), pp. 63–64 and a slightly different
view showing all three columns more clearly on the
volume’s cover. The photograph in Grabar, Dome of the
Rock, Fig. 3 also shows all three columns, but the colors
are less clear.
37 Unfortunately, time did not permit me to investigate
the columns in the outer, octagonal arcade, and I can-
not say one way or the other whether the same stone is
used for any of the columns there. Some published
views suggest that it does occur, although variations in
lighting make it difficult to say for certain; see Nuseibeh
and Grabar, Dome of the Rock, pp. 62 and 65.
38 For a good example, see Nuseibeh and Grabar, Dome of
the Rock, p. 69, in the southeast octagonal arcade.
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
the entrance on the south porch (Fig.  5.9). The
stone was mentioned (as Phrygian marble) by
many Roman authors (Ovid, Tibullus, Martial,
Juvenal),39 and used in buildings of the highest
prestige in Rome, apparently for the twenty-four
columns of the Basilica of S. Paolo fuori le mura
taken from the Mausoleum of Hadrian and
destroyed by fire in 1823,40 and for twelve great col-
umns still in S. Lorenzo fuori le mura.41
Whence did these remarkable shafts come?
Obviously we cannot say with certainty, but per-
haps because their color has not been catalogued
or even specially remarked, there has been no con-
sideration of this issue. It is striking that in his long
description of Justinian’s new church of the Virgin
Mary, commonly known as the Nea Ekklesia,
Procopius makes a major point of the columns
needed for the huge church not being available
until “God revealed a natural supply of stone per-
fectly suited to this purpose in the nearby hill, one
which had either lain there in concealment previ-
ously, or was created at that moment.”42 Procopius
goes on to say that “the church is supported on all
sides by a great number of huge columns from that
place, which in color resemble flames of fire [τώ
χρώματι πυρός τινα φλόγα],” and that “two of these
columns stand before the door of the church,
exceptionally large and probably second to no
39 See Gnoli, Marmora romana, p. 169.
40 Borghini, Marmi antichi, p. 265.
41 Gnoli, Marmora romana, p. 169.
42 Procopius, De aedificiis v.vi.22; see H.B. Dewing, trans.,
Procopius, vol. 7: Buildings, Loeb Classical Library,
vol. 343 (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press and
London, 2000), pp. 342–349 at 346. The passage was
quoted in full in Meir Ben-Dov, In the Shadow of the
Temple. The Discovery of Ancient Jerusalem, trans.
[from Hebrew] Ina Friedman (New York, 1982),
pp. 233–235. On this text see now Charlotte Roueché,
Jean-Michel Carrié, and Noël Duval, eds., De Aedificiis:
le texte de Procope et ses réalités, special number of
L’antiquité tardive 8(2000), including the essay by
Yoram Tsafrir, “Procopius and the Nea Church in
Jerusalem,” pp. 149–164.
107
column in the whole world.”43 The Nea’s history is
complex and need not be thoroughly reviewed
here. Built by Justinian in the mid-sixth century on
an enormous scale and at great expense, this huge
basilica is now known to have stood to the south-
west of the Haram al-Sharif, where extensive
remains have been found in excavations con-
ducted after 1967, some inside and some continu-
ing outside the Ottoman city wall.44 In the useful
summary discussion of those excavations, Meir
Ben-Dov discussed the columns at length, and sug-
gested, plausibly, that the story of the miraculous
discovery of a hidden supply of such magnificent
stone near Jerusalem is not only unlikely but also a
common literary trope. Ben-Dov then suggested
that the “flame-colored” columns might have been
taken from the Haram, where they had formed
part of Herod’s great stoa along the southern side
of the platform.45 He did not suggest, and as far as
I can see no one has suggested, a possible connec-
tion between these “flame-colored columns” of
the Nea Ekklesia and those boldly-patterned red
“pavonazetto” columns featured so prominently in
the inner arcade of the Dome of the Rock. Nor
does a more recent study by Yoram Tsafrir on the
Nea Ekklesia make any such suggestion. Indeed,
Tsafrir’s reading is quite different from Ben-Dov’s,
for he noted that there is a quarry of red-veined
stone near Jerusalem, indeed one still containing a
cracked monolith twelve meters tall, so that
Procopius’ “miracle” might be a true story, if not
43 Procopius, quoted in Ben-Dov, In the Shadow of the
Temple, p. 235.
44 For the archaeological study of the Nea Ekklesia see
Oren Gutfeld, ed., Jewish Quarter Excavation
Excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem Conducted by
Nahman Avigad 1969–1982, vol. 5: The Cardo (Area X)
and the Nea Church (Areas D and T Final Report),
(Jerusalem, 2012), pp. 141–267, and most recently
Gideon Avni, The Byzantine-Islamic Transition in
Palestine. An Archaeological Approach, Oxford Studies
in Byzantium (Oxford, 2014), p. 109.
45 Ben-Dov, In the Shadow of the Temple, pp. 233–241, with
remains, plan and reconstruction.
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108
necessarily miraculous.46 Whether this mizzi
ahmar stone is the same as that used so promi-
nently in the Dome of the Rock remains to be
established, and seems to me a question well
worth posing.47
Procopius’ “flame-colored” could be variously
interpreted, if it is to be taken literally at all.48
Presumably it requires us to think of a stone with
red in it, and the “pavonazetto” shafts prominently
displayed in the Dome of the Rock seem to me to
fit the “flame” term better than the other red col-
umns, on account of their bolder pattern and
extensive amount of white against which the red
seems to play, one might almost say to flicker. What
about the size of these columns? Are they such as
might have been deployed in the Nea Ekklesia? It is
not clear when that church was destroyed; some
have suggested the earthquake of 749, but it may
well have been demolished during the Persian sack
of the city in 614.49 Certainly most of its material
46 Tsafrir, “Procopius and the Nea Church in Jerusalem,”
pp. 162–164, cited by Greenhalgh, Marble Past,
Monumental Present, p. 281.
47 Tsafrir cites L.A. Picard “Geology of Jerusalem,” in
Mikael Avi-Yonah, ed., Sepher Yerushalayim [Book of
Jerusalem]: Jerusalem, its natural conditions, history
and development from the origins to the present day 1:
The natural conditions and the history of the city from its
origins to the destruction of the Second Temple
(Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv:, 1956), 5–44 (in Hebrew), and
D. Gill, “The Geology of the City of David and its
Ancient Subterranean Waterworks,” in Donald T. Ariel,
Alon De Groot, Elisheva Kamaiski, Raz Kletter and
Aryeh E. Shimron, eds., Excavations at the City of David
1978–1985 iv (= qedem 35) (Jerusalem, 1996), pp. 3–28.
Neither shows the stone in question in color, or
describes it in detail.
48 Recently Greenhalgh, Marble Past, Monumental
Present, p. 281 cited a recent study finding that
Procopius’ descriptions are usually reliable, Denis
Roques, “Les ‘constructions de Justinien’ de Procope de
Césarée: document our monument?” Académie des
inscriptions et belles-lettres, Comptes rendus (November
1998), pp. 989–1001.
49 This is the view advanced by Ben-Dov, In the Shadow of
the Temple, p. 241, but rebutted by Gideon Avni, “The
chapter 5
must have been removed, and at least some of it
re-used, or the huge church would not have been
so difficult to find, its traces now almost entirely
restricted to foundations, with no remains of col-
umns discovered. It seems that a portion of the lin-
tel of the church, including a large cross-in-wreath
with rosettes and the Alpha and Omega in the
quadrants, was re-used for secondary construction
in the eighth-century Umayyad “palace” area at the
southwest corner of the Haram (Fig.  5.10),50 very
near the site of the Nea just to its west. Is it possible
that these prominent “pavonazetto” columns axi-
ally aligned with the north, east and south doors of
the Dome of the Rock were either taken from the
Nea Ekklesia, or referred to its striking “flame-col-
ored” columns? Much more work needs to be done
on these columns before such a question can be
answered, but it is important to pose it, and to urge
that a thorough photographic documentation of
the columns of the Dome of the Rock should be
undertaken and made available to scholars for
study.51 Here it must suffice to say that the columns
appear to have been arranged in a deliberate, not
haphazard fashion. Whether or not this arrange-
ment carried meaning or had a particular function
remains to be investigated. Important for what fol-
lows, however, is the observation that the north,
east and south sides of the inner arcade are treated
differently from the west, and that the central col-
umns of the arcades on these three sides appear to
have been emphasized.
Sack of Jerusalem by the Sassanian Persians (614) – an
Archaeological Assessment,” Bulletin of the American
School of Oriental Research 357(2010), 35–48, and Avni,
Byzantine-Islamic Transition, p. 309.
50 Ben-Dov, In the Shadow of the Temple, p. 241 and Fig.
p. 237.
51 For further discussion of the possible source of these
columns on the Dome of the Rock and/or in the Nea
Ekklesia see Lawrence Nees, “Moving Stones: on the
columns of the Dome of the Rock, their history and
meaning,” in Bianca Kühnel, Renana Bartal. and Neta
Bodner, eds., Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the
Visual Translation of Place, 500–1500 (forthcoming).
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
The Eagle Capitals in the Dome
of the Rock
Columns need capitals, and John Onians has given
many examples showing that the arrangement
of different types of capitals was often deliberate
and  meaningful, as in the case of the column
shafts themselves.52 Here we are somewhat better
informed and better served by previous scholar-
ship. We have no catalogue of the column shafts,
but we do have a catalogue of the column capitals,
published by John Wilkinson in 1987.53 It includes
not only the twenty-eight capitals in the Dome of
the Rock but the others on the Haram al-Sharif,
where they are used also in the Dome of the Chain,
the Aqsa mosque, the Bab al-Rahma or Golden
Gate, and some other structures. Like the column
shafts, the great majority of the capitals are spoli-
ated, taken from a variety of earlier buildings, dat-
able on stylistic grounds from as early as the sec-
ond century to the sixth. Only some three dozen of
the total of 163 column capitals on the Haram are
datable to the Islamic period, and their separation
from most of the spoliated capitals is very easy,
because all the Islamic period capitals are lime-
stone rather than marble, since the marble quar-
ries were no longer in operation.54 Only a few
spoliated pre-Islamic capitals were made in lime-
stone, although as will be seen these include some
important examples. The spoliated marble capi-
tals, which includes all of the capitals in the Dome
of the Rock, where no Islamic-period imitations in
52 John Onians, Bearers of Meaning. The Classical Orders
in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance
(Princeton, 1988). Onians often mentioned the special
arrangement of the shafts, as for example the black
monoliths flanking the entrance and the altar in the
early ninth-century chapel of S. Zeno in the church of
S. Prassede in Rome (pp. 94–95 and Figs.  59a and b),
but he made no attempt to do so systematically, and I
will make no attempt here to consider the arrangement
of all the capitals in the Dome of the Rock, which
might lead to significant findings.
53 Wilkinson, Column Capitals.
54 Wilkinson, Column Capitals, pp. 4 and 29.
109
limestone are found, vary widely in size and form,
some being Corinthian, some double Corinthian,
some composite, some basket capitals. The total of
163 includes altogether 127 spoliated pre-Islamic
capitals. In nearly all cases, their locations on the
Haram al-Sharif were indicated on charts provided
in Wilkinson’s catalogue.
Wilkinson’s catalogue is indispensable, literally,
to the best of my knowledge, the only place where
any of the capitals are illustrated, and almost the
only place where they have been discussed by any
scholar.55 However, it is limited by its purpose,
which is primarily descriptive, and analytical. The
catalogue is arranged by type of capital, rather
than by the building in which the capitals are
found, reflecting Wilkinson’s main purpose, which
was to provide dates for the capitals, and perhaps
lead toward identifying the buildings from which
they might have been taken. Wilkinson is a great
scholar on Christian Jerusalem, author of indis-
pensable works on Christian pilgrimages and pil-
grimage accounts from the fourth century through
the medieval period.56 He was interested in the
places from which the capitals were taken, not
their function or significance in the Islamic build-
ings in which they were installed. In part for this
55 Rudolf Kautzsch, Kapitellstudien. Beiträge zu einer
Geschichte des spätantiken Kapitells im Osten vom
vierten bis ins siebenten Jahrhundert, Studien zur
spätantiken Kunstgeschichte 9 (Berlin and Leipzig,
1936), pp. 98–114, has a section on Corinthian capitals
at various sites in Jerusalem, and includes a brief dis-
cussion of those in the Dome of the Rock and the Aqsa
mosque, but no illustrations, for he stated (p. 103) that
he was not permitted to make photographs in either
building, and observed that the darkness made close
observation of details impossible. He mentioned
(p. 103) that some capitals, his numbers 23, 24 and 25
(corresponding to Wilkinson’s 40, 41 and 59) must date
from the Christian era and come from Christian build-
ings, because they have the remains of the cross in a
wreath motif. His discussion was designed to show the
capitals by formal typology, not location, and thus to
suggest dates for their original production.
56 John Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades
(Warminster [Wiltshire], 2002), among other titles.
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110
reason, his work has attracted very little attention
from scholars of Islamic art. A rare exception is the
fine recent book by Rina Talgam on the stylistic
origins of Umayyad sculpture and architectural
decoration, whose title reveals that it is interested
in the style of the sculpture at such sites as the
eighth-century palace at nearby Khirbat al-Mafjar,
outside ancient Jericho, which has many connec-
tions with the Dome of the Rock.57 For other rea-
sons, Islamicists have tended to avoid the study of
the building’s capitals, which are, after all, in one
sense not Islamic.
A small number of the capitals have, or had,
Christian imagery, such as a cross in a wreath, but
at some point that imagery was removed, knocked
off, and in some cases covered with stucco.58
I shall return to these cross capitals, but my central
concern is with another group, those with eagles.
Having eagles associated with the abacus is not
57 Rina Talgam, The Stylistic Origins of Umayyad Sculpture
and Architectural Decoration (Wiesbaden, 2004), p. 32
on the early Umayyad capitals, “Almost all the marble
capitals in early Umayyad structures are in secondary
use. . . . The majority originated from Christian
churches, but some had been created in the Roman
period. Wilkinson dates the earliest ones (capitals
38–40 in the Temple Mount’s corpus of capitals) to the
second century. A wide range of capitals of various
types is also to be found in the Dome of the Chain
[Wilkinson, Column Capitals, pp. 186–219, 219–220,
223–225]. Stucco repairs are discernible on some of
them, which were possibly made in the Umayyad
period. Alongside Corinthian capitals one may find
Byzantine basket capitals characteristic of the Justinian
and post-Justinian period. Myriam Rosen-Ayalon, The
Early Islamic Monuments of al-Haram al-Sharif. An
Iconographic Study, Monographs of the Institute of
Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 28
(Jerusalem, 1989), p. 324 regarded some of them as
Coptic capitals, but a comparison with similar Coptic
capitals at Bawît and Saqqara reveals that the likeness
noted by her is only general and does not related to the
style of the details.”
58 Wilkinson, Column Capitals, for examples see pp. 104–
105 and 108, nos. 58, 59, 62; Kautzsch, Kapitellstudien.
p. 103.
chapter 5
uncommon on later Roman capitals. Eugen von
Mercklin’s 1962 book on ancient figural capitals
devotes a substantial section to them, along with
capitals with bulls, lions and other beasts as well
as human figures.59 Mercklin listed and discussed
roughly fifty examples, from sources stretching
from Rome across Germany, Africa and Greece,
and dating from the first or second century ce to
the fourth, some of which correspond closely
to the Jerusalem examples. Ernst Kitzinger pub-
lished a list, an avowedly incomplete list, of early
Christian period capitals with either beasts or
birds, noting what seemed to him a strong associa-
tion of this luxurious type with Constantinople,
datable to the later fifth and sixth century, but his
primary concern was to use these capitals to help
provide a context for the imagery on a group of
textiles associated both with Egypt and Sasanian
Persia.60 The remains from the Episcopal basilica
59 Eugen von Mercklin, Antike Figuralkapitelle (Berlin,
1962), pp. 221–235 and Figs.  1020–1098. on the eagle
capitals. There are many examples, including some
from Rome, Leptis Magna, Athens, Ephesus and
Pompeii, some with eagles at the center of the side,
some with eagles at the corners, replacing volutes.
Nothing from the southeastern Mediterranean region
is included, but many examples make excellent com-
parisons to the Jerusalem capitals. He also includes a
few eagles from cinerary urns and funerary altars as
well as on capitals. For a handsome late Roman capital
with peacocks see Brenk, “Spolien und ihre Wirkung
auf die Ästhetik der varietas,” p. 73 and Fig.  27. If
Kautzsch, Kapitellstudien, mentioned the presence of
eagles on any capitals in Jerusalem, I have missed it. He
did mention in passing (p. 122) that some of the capi-
tals in the al-Azhar mosque, which he also was unable
to photograph, contained images of birds, doves or
eagles (Vögel, Tauben oder Adler), and he also men-
tioned eagles on capitals in Constantinople (p. 124).
60 Ernst Kitzinger, “The Horse and Lion Tapestry at
Dumbarton Oaks. A Study in Coptic and Sassanian
Textile Design,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 3(1941), 1–72,
with the capitals gathered together in an appendix, pp.
60–71; reprinted in Ernst Kitzinger, Studies in Late
Antique Byzantine and Medieval Western Art (London,
2002), vol. i, no. iii, pp. 66–86, Figs. 93–109.
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
at Stobi, in Macedonia, dating most likely from
roughly the later fifth or early sixth century,
include several capitals with peacocks and other
animal forms, and a gallery barrier fragment with
an eagle having outspread wings.61
The eagle capital in the Dome of the Rock that
initially attracted my attention was Wilkinson’s
#58 (Fig.  5.11). This capital was categorized by
Wilkinson as one of a group of “full Corinthian
with double volutes” capitals produced for Roman
buildings from the second through the fifth centu-
ries.62 They are very much “high style” and stem no
doubt from impressive buildings. The eagle is in
the middle of the side that Wilkinson illustrated in
his photograph, as on the image provided here, in
the abacus, where a rosette or other decorative
motif is commonly placed, the outstretched wings
and the descending tail of the bird, which seems to
be flying upwards, clearly visible. The bird’s torso
and head have, however, been crudely hacked off,
a point to which I shall return.
Wilkinson’s discussion of this eagle capital and
its relatives was dispersed through his book. The
first discussion treated the iconography of the
eagle based on Old Testament sources, what it
would have meant in a Christian building, from
which it was presumably taken, citing passages
from 1 Kings 6.29 and Ezekiel 41.18.63 Wilkinson
also listed a group of eight Christian buildings in
the region, dating from the fourth and fifth centu-
ries, in Bethlehem and at several sites in Jerusalem,
such as St. Ann and St. Stephen that have capitals
of similar style, although without animal iconog-
raphy. He said nothing whatsoever about the pos-
sible significance of such imagery in the Dome of
the Rock. It was just not his topic. Where he did
discuss its Islamic context, prompted by the issue
61 On the church see Rudolf Egger, “Die städtische Kirche
von Stobi,” Jahreshefte des Österreichischen Archäolo­
gischen Instituts in Wien 24(1929), 42–87 at 47–58,
Figs. 29–49 on the capitals, at 59–60 and Fig. 53 for the
gallery barrier with eagle, and pp. 80–83 on the date.
62 Wilkinson, Column Capitals, pp. 78–79 and 82.
63 Wilkinson, Column Capitals, p. 82.
111
of its condition, he experienced a conflict with his
publisher.
The book’s publisher was the Awqaf, the
Administration of the Haram al-Sharif and its
monuments, and the publishers disapproved of
Wilkinson’s discussion of the condition of the cap-
itals with eagles. There is no reason to think that
any of the capitals in the Dome of the Rock have
been moved or replaced, and to the best of my
knowledge no one has ever suggested that they
have been. Thus all were installed during the origi-
nal late-seventh-century building campaign, but
this poses a problem, as these figural capitals seem
to violate a traditional avoidance of figural imag-
ery in religious contexts in the Islamic tradition, as
briefly outlined at the beginning of this chapter.
Wilkinson concluded that “representations of liv-
ing beings were apparently allowed in Mosques
during Umayyad times,” and since “there were
many Christian capitals without representations
of living beings available in Palestine when the
main building work on the Haram al-Sharif was
undertaken, it is hardly possible that Caliph ʿAbd
al Malik or Walid I should have chosen such capi-
tals only to break them. The capitals must have
remained unbroken for at least thirty years, and
are most likely to have been erased by the Abbasids,
when they restored the Haram” in the ninth centu-
ry.64 At the bottom of the page is a rebuttal
signed by the Islamic Archaeology Department,
Y. Natsheh and I. Baidun, stating that the author
“has not studied this point deeply” and is mis-
taken, since the prohibition of such images was a
constant feature of Islamic tradition from the
beginning.65 In a subsequent publication, Wilkin­
son revisited the issue, and accepted the view of
the Awqaf in part, namely that some members
of the Muslim community would have objected to
the representation of living beings when the Dome
64 Wilkinson, Column Capitals, p. 205.
65 Wilkinson, Column Capitals, p. 205, note signed
“Islamic Archaeology Dep.” Stating that living beings
were always “probohibetated [sic] in mosques during
the Umayyad times.”
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112
of the Rock was being constructed, but reiterated
his opinion that apparently the caliphs did not.66
In the face of such views, representing deeply
held religious traditions, discussion of the signifi-
cance of the eagle capitals on the Haram is diffi-
cult to pursue. Meaning no disrespect to the Awqaf,
whom I must applaud for their willingness to pub-
lish Wilkinson’s book even though they disagreed
with it, as well as for their forthright expression
of their different view, I must say that I find
Wilkinson’s view, that the capitals were installed
with intact eagles, persuasive. Indeed, the location
and connections of the capitals will, as I hope to
show, strongly buttress his view. Let us look first at
the location of the eagle capitals, in the Dome of
the Rock and elsewhere on the Haram. Is there a
meaningful arrangement, or is their appearance
haphazard?
The capital previously cited is #58 in Wilkinson’s
catalogue, and he both located it on his plan
(Fig. 5.12) and described it in the text as being on
the central column of the inner colonnade, sup-
porting the drum and dome, on the east side.
Unfortunately he did not say, for this or any of
his examples, which side of the column capital is
facing in which direction, something that would
only be of concern to one wishing to understand
its possible significance as installed in this struc-
ture, which was not his concern. Fortunately, the
wonderful “Virtual Tour of the Haram al Sharif”
prepared and published online by Saudi Aramco
World, and narrated by Oleg Grabar, offering
66 John Wilkinson, “Column Capitals in the Haram al-
Sharif,” in Raby and Johns, Bayt al-Maqdis (as in n. 16),
pp. 125–139, esp. 134–139 on animal capitals. Here
Wilkinson suggested a connection between this diver-
gence of views within Islam and the contemporary
divergence of views among Christians over icono-
clasm. He indicated that in his view all the animals on
capitals represented what he terms “angels” and were
adopted from Jewish and Christin iconography, in
which the animals had long represented heavenly
beings, and were placed “close to the imam, so that
they could witness his prayers on earth and testify to
them in heaven” (p. 138).
chapter 5
­ anoramic movable and zoom-able views from
p
many different sites on the Haram, includes a site
just inside the east door of the Dome of the Rock.67
It shows the capital in situ, in such a position that
it would be immediately visible to anyone coming
in the eastern door of the building.
There are two other eagle capitals in the Dome
of the Rock, according to Wilkinson, his nos. 37
and 59. The latter of these (Fig. 5.13) appears very
similar in form to the previous example, which is
why it stands next to it in Wilkinson’s catalogue,
although on this eagle the feet are more promi-
nent than the tail, and the wings less outstretched,
so the bird seems to be displaying or even perch-
ing rather than flying. This capital is also on the
inner colonnade, not adjacent to its close relative,
but located this time on the western column on
the north side. The importance of this location
becomes far more significant when one locates the
third eagle capital in the building, Wilkinson’s #37
(Fig. 5.14). Its decoration and location are, alas, a
bit confusing. Wilkinson’s photograph of the capi-
tal does not show the eagle, and it is not located
where it is placed on Wilkinson’s plan (Fig. 5.12),
on the northern column of the inner colonnade on
the east side. Instead it is located where Wilkinson’s
plan marked #40, on the inner colonnade on the
north side, on the easternmost column. This is
where Wilkinson described the location in his cat-
alogue, and I was able to confirm that this is indeed
its location when I visited the building.68 It thus
forms one half of a pair of eagle capitals, flanking
the central column on the north side.69 Wilkinson’s
67 http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200901/a
.virtual.walking.tour.al-haram.al-sharif.html at #11 (as
n. 33 above).
68 Wilkinson, Colum Capitals, p. 37 describes the location
of his capital #37 in the position identified as #40 on his
plan. It is easy to understand how such an error could
happen, given the large size of the data base, and the
relative unimportance of the location of the capitals in
Wilkinson’s perspective.
69 According to Wilkinson, Column Capitals, no. 42, this
central capital originally bore a wreath with inscribed
cross, now erased.
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
catalogue does not specify in which direction
the eagles are facing, but his #59 is on the north
side of the capital, facing the north door, as #58
faces the east door. His #37 in on the left side of
the capital as one looks from the north door,
thus facing east more or less, and in effect lead-
ing from the north to the eastern side. If we
now look at the locations of the three capitals
together, a pattern emerges, a pattern that
emphasizes the north and east doorways of the
building (Fig.  5.12 N.B.– the eagle capitals are
marked on the plan at locations 59, 40 [the actual
location of capital 37] and 58 leading from west to
east). The arrangement seems unlikely to have
been haphazard, and makes an analogy of sorts
with the arrangement of the colored columns
already described, which also pair outer columns
of one color with a contrasting central column
on all four sides.
The Location of Eagle Capitals in the
Dome of the Rock and Elsewhere
As it happens, we have remarkable evidence indi-
cating the special character of these two of the
four entrances to the Dome of the Rock, the north
and east doors. Still surviving today in the Islamic
Museum on the Haram al-Sharif are metal (some-
times described as copper, sometimes as bronze)
plaques that until the restoration campaigns of
the 1960s hung from the lintels over the north
(Fig.  5.15) and east doors (Fig.  5.16). They are
inscribed in Kufic script, which is raised and
gilded, the background being painted blue, and
are thus entirely analogous in script form and
color scheme to the long mosaic inscription inside
the building. No one has ever questioned that they
are part of the original decoration of the building,
from the time of ʿAbd al-Malik, although they were
altered during the Abbasid renovation of the
building; the last lines of the eastern plaque,
which carry the name of the Abbasid Caliph al-
Ma’mun, are in a smaller and more crowded script,
evidently replacing the original end of the text,
113
with the name of Caliph ʿAbd al-Malik,70 as in the
mosaic inscription, in this case however also
replacing the original date. The inscriptions
include many Qurʾanic verses and paraphrases of
Qurʾanic verses, and are too long to summarize. I
would like to call attention to one section of the
inscription on the eastern door, a quotation from
Sura 3, verse 26: “Owner of sovereignty! Thou
givest sovereignty unto whom Thou wilt, and
Thou withdrawest sovereignty from whom Thou
wilt; all sovereignty belongs to You and is from
You.”71 The words here rendered by English
“Sovereignty” are all forms of the Arabic root mlk,
from which we get mulk, Sovereignty, Power,
Dominion, Kingship, and the emphatic repetition
is even more clear in the Arabic, a transcription of
which in Latin characters I owe to the kindness of
Behnam Sadeghi: maliku l-mulki tuʾti l-mulka man
tashaʾu wa-tanziʾul-mulka mimman tashaʾu kullu
mulkin laka wa-mink rabhanā wa-ilayka masira.72
The inscription adds a fifth mulk word to the four
already present in the Qurʾanic verse. Certainly
the inscription suggests a powerful connection of
rulership in general and the royal  patron of this
building in particular in this location, and it is prob-
ably worth noting that ʿAbd al-Malik’s name is built
70 See Grabar, Dome of the Rock, pp. 94–96 for discussion
and partial translation of these texts, in both cases
translating only the original portion, not the Abbasid
addition. The only complete translation known to me,
into French, is that by Max van Berchem, in Matériaux
pour un Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum, pt. 2: Syrie
du Sud, vol. 2: Jérusalem “Haram”, Mémoires de l’Institut
français d’archéologie orientale 44(Cairo, 1927),
pp. 247–253, nos. 216–217.
71 The translation used here is from Estelle Whelan,
“Forgotten Witness: Evidence for the early codification
of the Qurʾan.” Journal of the American Oriental Society
118(1998), 1–14. An English translation is also provided
by Oleg Grabar, The Shape of the Holy. Early Islamic
Jerusalem (Princeton, 1996), pp. 186 (labelled as after
van Berchem), and for translation p. 61.
72 A transcription of the Qurʾanic verse is Quli allahumma
malika almulkitu/tee almulka man tashao watanziAAu
almulka; from quran.com http://quran.com/3 (accessed
1-14-15).
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114
from the same root, meaning “servant of the
Sovereign” usually rendered as “king”.
The mosaic inscription in the Dome of the Rock
should be considered in connection with the two
plaques. It also is long, and a mixture of Qurʾanic
verses and paraphrases of Qurʾanic verses.73 Its
location has seldom been discussed, indeed the
translation I reproduce here, by Sheila Blair, is
unusual in indicating the location of the different
phrases within the building.74 I would call atten-
tion to the text on the eastern side of the outer col-
onnade, running from northeast to southeast,
where it ends, and thus associated by location
with one of the eagle capitals (Fig. 5.11) and with
the metal plaque that most addresses the issue of
rulership or sovereignty (Figs. 5.15 and 5.16):
“NE: To Him belongs dominion [mulk] and to Him
belongs praise.
He gives life and he makes to die; He is powerful
over all things
[conflation of Qurʾan 64:1 and 57:2]…
73 For the Arabic text see Grabar, Shape of the Holy,
pp. 184–185, and for translation pp. 59–61. For complete
English translation, by Saïd Nuseibeh, along with color
photographs of the entire text, see Nuseibeh and Grabar,
Dome of the Rock, pp. 78–109. As previously noted (above
n. 16) Marcus Milwright has made a study of the inscrip-
tion that will supersede anything that I say here.
74 Blair, “What is the date of the Dome of the Rock?” (as
above, n. 16), pp. 86–87. Robert G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam
as Others Saw it. A Survey and Evaluation of Christian,
Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on early Islam, Studies
in Late Antiquity and early Islam 13 (Princeton, 1997),
pp. 695–699. Hoyland noted especially that the inscrip-
tions on the east side of the outer face repeat the
phrases from the opening on the south face, leaving out
only the one Qurʾanic quotation and ending with the
new phrase, facing directly east out the eastern door
toward the Dome of the Chair “There built this dome
the servant of God” and continues this phrase on the
(se) “ʿAb[d al-Malik [replaced by Maʼmun]. . . com-
mander of the faithful in the year seventy-two, may God
accept it from him and be pleased with him, amen, Lord
of the worlds, to God belongs praise.’”
chapter 5
E: Basmala. There is no god but God alone, without
partner.
Muhammad is God’s messenger, may God bless
him.
God’s servant,
SE: ʿAbd al-Malik, commander of believers, built
this dome in the
year seventy-two, may God accept [it] from him
and be pleased \
with him. Amen. Lord of the worlds. Praise to
God.”
Note again that the key Arabic word mulk, empha-
sized on the eastern metal plaque, recurs here, as
does the ruler’s personal name, built from the
same root.
The two metal plaques are associated with the
same two doors, on the north and east, as the eagle
capitals, and with this section of the mosaic
inscription, in other words. It is possible that there
were similar plaques at the west and or south
doors, but the only evidence for them is a twelfth-
century pilgrim record dated 1173, during the
Crusader period.75 The validity of this evidence
75 Grabar, Dome of the Rock, p. 96 mentioned this source in
passing, with the remark that since symmetry is a per-
vasive feature of the building, it is likely that the other
doorways had similar plaques. The most extended dis-
cussion remains van Berchem, Jérusalem “Haram,”
pp. 247–253, nos. 216–217. Van Berchem described the
East plaque (no. 216, pp. 246–248) as “Feuilles de cuivre
soudées ensemble et clouées sur le linteau de bois de la
porte intérieure de l’entrée est, du côté extérieur, face à
la Silsila [Dome of the Chain]: dimensions totals envi-
ron 250 × 70 [cm]. Neuf lignes en coufique simple;
petits caractères, sans points ni signes, repoussés en
relief dans le metal et peints en or sur found bleu foncé.”
Van Berchem gives a “paraphrase” in French, rendering
mulk as “possession”. Van Berchem also described and
transcribed the North plaque (no. 217, pp. 250–251),
which is slightly smaller (250 × 50 [cm]. Van Berchem
noted that although neither West nor South door has a
copper plaque, their lintels were at some point modi-
fied, and he quoted the Muslim pilgrim Harawi, who
visited Jerusalem during the 12th c. Crusader occupa-
tion, who incorrectly gives the name of the Caliph
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
has never been challenged, perhaps because little
attention has been paid to these plaques, and
because it was assumed that the building was fully
symmetrical, and ought to have had such plaques
on all of the doors if on any of them. Leaving that
problem aside,76 let us continue to examine what
written on the East plaque but correctly associates its
text with Sura 112, and goes on to say that there were
similar inscriptions on the other doors. See for this pas-
sage in full, identifying the date as 1173, the translation,
here assigned to ʿAli of Herat rather than Harawi, in
Guy Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslem.
A Description of Syria and the Holy Land from a.d. 650 to
1500 (Boston and New York, 1890), pp. 132–133 at 133:
“The Gate [of the Dome of the Rock] to the east opens
towards the Dome of the Chain. Above it is an arch, on
which is inscribed the name of the Khalif Al Kaim-bi-
Amr-Illah, and the chapter [112 of the Qurʾan] called
Ikhlas – that is, ‘Sincerity.’ To the east of the Dome of
the Rock is, as aforesaid, the Dome of the Chain; it is
here Solomon, the son of David, administered justice.”
The section translated by Le Strange says nothing of
inscriptions on other doors; presumably his translation
is only partial.
76 On the asymmetry introduced by the decoration or
inscriptions of apparently very symmetrical buildings,
see the hypothesis advanced by Finbarr Barry Flood,
Objects of Translation. Material Culture and Medieval
“Hindu-Muslim” Encounter (Princeton and Oxford,
2009), pp. 100–101, that the remarkable inscription on
the great minaret of Jam was arranged so that the reader
would have particular verses before him while facing
toward the qibla. Note also the caution expressed by
Sheila S. Blair, Text and Image in Medieval Persian Art,
Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Art (Edinburgh, 2014),
p. 72 that the inscription might have been illegible
because of its height. Blair suggested, borrowing terms
of Richard Ettinghausen, that the arrangement of the
inscription might be less about communication than
about symbolic affirmation. It seems to me that the
asymmetrical arrangement of columns and capitals and
texts in the Dome of the Rock might be understood
along these lines. Few if any viewers may have noted
these features, but they nonetheless formed an aspect of
the intention in creating the building. Reception studies
in recent decades have been helpful in many ways, but
one ought not to assume that because a message was
not received, or perhaps not even presented so that it
115
we still do have, rather than worrying about what
might have been lost. A number of important sto-
ries, dating from the Umayyad period, concern the
area to the north of the Dome of the Rock.
Traditionally it is in this area, specifically at the
site where the small Dome of the Prophet was
built in the sixteenth century and restored since,
but reflecting a tradition from an early period,
where the Prophet Muhammad prayed during his
night journey to Jerusalem.77 Probably the best
known story about the establishment of Islamic
worship in Jerusalem has Kaʿb al-Akbar, the Jewish
convert, trying to persuade Caliph ʿUmar to pray
from north of the Rock and thus unite the two qib-
las, Jerusalem and Mecca, which ʿUmar refused to
do. This story, already discussed in the previous
chapter, has a source from the early eighth cen-
tury, though no earlier, but suggests that by that
time there was some association of the area north
or the rock with prayer.78
might be received, it was not a significant expression of
the maker’s and or patron’s intention. The assumption
of symmetry in works of the early medieval period, and
the perils of reconstructing missing material on this
basis, is a general problem and not limited to Islamic art;
see Lawrence Nees, “Weaving Garnets: Thoughts about
two ‘excessively rare’ belt mounts from Sutton Hoo,” in
Rachel Moss, ed., Making and Meaning. Proceedings of
the Fifth International Conference on Insular Art (Dublin,
2007), pp. 1–17 at 11–15.
77 Amikam Elad, Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship.
Holy Places, Ceremonies, Pilgrimage (Leiden, New York
and Cologne, 1995), p. 63, citing al- Wasiti, pp. 73–74
no. 119.
78 Elad, Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship, pp. 30–
31. For a fascinating fictionalized treatment, and also
discussion of the sources, see Kanan Makiya, The Rock:
A Tale of Seventh-century Jerusalem (New York, 2001) a
historical novel focusing on the Jewish convert Kaʻb. It
is thoroughly grounded in the sources, and indeed has
a long and very judicious discussion of the sources as
an appendix. There the author says (p. 317) that the ker-
nel from which his book was conceived is the story con-
veyed in Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari’s History of the
Prophets and Kings (Taʾrikh al-Rusul waʾl Muluk) vol. 12
of Umar’s decision to locate his mosque south, not
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116
The importance of the eastern door is under-
scored by the presence of one eagle capital,
according to Wilkinson, in the Dome of the Chain,
his #151, although his illustration does not appear
to show an eagle.79 This fascinating structure
(Fig. 2.6), immediately outside the eastern door of
the Dome of the Rock,80 was discussed at length in
north, of the Rock, a rebuke to Kalb’s attempt to have
him locate it north, so that the qibla would encompass
both Jerusalem’s Rock and Mecca’s Kaʿba. This moment
is told in the novel on pp. 140–142, with Makiya intro-
ducing (as he knows without evidence) Sophronius
into the scene, who recommends building the mosque
on top of the rock, advice also rejected by Umar.
79 Wilkinson, Column Capitals, p. 214, no. 151. In this
example, instead of small birds in the middle of the
abacus, apparently there were large birds replacing
volutes at the four corners. Wilkinson links it in type
and presumably date with a better-preserved capital in
the central gate on the west side of the Haram al-Sharif,
his no. 152, which he dates to ca. 500. Wilkinson sug-
gests, p. 216, that the unusual presence on one capital
of basket sieves, pine-cones and a variety of herbs “sug-
gest the ingredients for incense.” He suggests a com-
parison for the capital in the dome of the Chain with
Kautzsch, Kapitellstudien, no. 443, from the apse of St.
Demetrios in Salonica. There is a mention of two capi-
tals, neither of them with eagles, in the Dome of the
Chain by Hans-Georg Severin, “Kapitelle mit einem
Blattkranz aus hinterlegten Ölblattzweigen,” Jahrbuch
für Antike und Christentum 32(1989), 151–160 at 153, nos.
A4–A5, pls. 4D and 4E, but the author is only interested
in the chronological development of this type in later
Roman art. He does include two photographs of the
Dome of the Rock capitals, for which he thanks Youssef
Natsheh in the Islamic Archaeology Dept.
80 I should note, but cannot endorse the view of Shemuel
Tamari, Iconotextual Studies in the Muslim Vision of
Paradise (Wiesbaden and Ramat-Gan, 1999), pp. 64–72
on Dome of the Chain as part of a single program with
the Dome of the Rock executed by ʿAbd al-Malik, which
entailed inter alia the establishment of a strong east
west axis of solar significance linking the structures
through the eastern door of the former, an axis
designed, if I understand the author correctly, which is
not easy given the extremely convoluted language of
the book, to favor the single god against the Christians
and pagans with their multiple gods or godhead. I am
chapter 5
the previous chapter of this work. Here it is only
necessary to reiterate its strong association with
judgment and with the ruler, and to recall the pas-
sage in Ezekiel 44:1–3 that specifically states that
the area to the east of the sanctuary was to be used
exclusively by the ruling prince, who would have
his seat there.81 The Dome of the Chain has one
eagle capital somewhere, according to Wilkinson,
although I confess that neither in his photograph
nor in a far superior photograph kindly provided
by Mohammad Ghosheh (Fig.  5.22) have I been
able to identify the remains of the bird. It is also
unfortunate that Wilkinson, although he noted
the location of all the other capitals on the Haram,
provided no plan indicating the location of the
capitals on the Dome of the Chain. When I visited
Jerusalem I was not able to identify it and so locate
it on a plan of the building, because the entire
structure is now hidden behind a high opaque
fence. All that can be said at present is that on the
basis of Ghosheh’s photograph, it is one of the
outer columns, the series of eleven.
There were formerly, according to Wilkinson,
two other eagle capitals on the Haram al-Sharif in
a remarkable position, in the al-Aqsa mosque,
built by ʿAbd al-Malik’s son al-Walid as the main
prayer hall, its central aisle on axis with the Dome
of the Rock (Fig. 1.2) built apparently shortly after
his accession to the caliphate after his father’s
death in 705. They were removed in recent years,
and although the location of one of them is
unknown,82 the other now sits outside the door to
the Islamic Museum on the Haram al-Sharif
(Fig. 5.18).83 One can clearly see the remains of the
eagle, recut to make it look like a fruit (Fig. 5.19).
Al-Walid I also rebuilt the mosques at Medina and
grateful to Robert Schick for bringing this volume to my
attention.
81 See above in this chapter, and the discussion in Ann
Marie Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces in the Late
Antique Mediterranean. Architecture, Cult, and
Community (Cambridge, 2009), pp. 26–29 and Fig. 1.1.
82 Wilkinson, Column Capitals, no. 16.
83 Wilkinson, Column Capitals, no. 18.
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
at Damascus, the latter still standing in large part,
but to the best of my knowledge there is no study
of its spoliated capitals,84 and I believe that if any
included eagles, or erased eagles, it has escaped
comment heretofore. Jerusalem’s Aqsa mosque
has been damaged and rebuilt much more exten-
sively than the Dome of the Rock, and there is here
at least a possibility that the capitals are not in
their original location, and indeed the two in ques-
tion were recently removed and installed else-
where, as noted. According to Wilkinson, they
were originally on either side of the main entrance
to the mosque, coming from the Dome of the
Rock,85 and this portion of the building is one of
the few areas that remains from what seems the
earliest phase or phases of construction.86 As in
84 There is no mention of any such capitals in Flood,
Great Mosque of Damascus, and Creswell, Early Muslim
Architecture, i, p. 165 simply takes over from Sir Charles
Wilson’s 1865 description that the capitals were not
uniform but varying, some Corinthian, and taken from
other buildings.
85 Wilkinson, Column Capitals, pp. 49 and 51, nos. 16 and
18. The capitals are discussed in Robert W. Hamilton,
“Some Capitals from the Aqsa Mosque,” Quarterly of
the Department of Antiquities in Palestine 13(1948),
103–120.
86 See the plan in Oleg Grabar and Benjamin Z. Kedar,
eds., Where Heaven and Earth Meet: Jerusalem’s Sacred
Esplanade (Jerusalem and Austin tx, 2009), p. 144
Fig.  74, identified as after Robert W. Hamilton, The
Structural History of the Aqsa Mosque (Jerusalem,
1949). It does not exactly correspond to anything in
Hamilton’s plan, which has a plan at p. 2, Fig.  1, that
identifies, a bit ambiguously, the piers as Abbasid and
the attached inner bases or shafts (at 2 and 3 on the
plan) as Fatimid. Hamilton said nothing here about the
date or style or iconography of the capitals, referring
instead to his 1948 article about them. He stated here
only the conclusion that of the twenty-one capitals of
the main nave arcade, all but two were made as a set,
with their capitals and bases, but were not made for
their present location in the Aqsa mosque, since two
on the western colonnade were supplied in plaster imi-
tation over a stone corner, in order to make up the nec-
essary number of supports (p. 1). The presence of two
capitals with animal imagery is mentioned by Kitzinger,
117
the case of the Dome of the Rock, they are associ-
ated with major entrances. Three important cave-
ats are appropriate here. First, according to
Wilkinson, there is or was a third eagle capital in
the Aqsa mosque, whose interpretation I will not
address; its form is different, it also included
winged lions or bulls, its condition is worse, and its
position may have been changed.87 Second, Robert
“Horse and Lion Tapestry,” no. 50 in his catalogue, refer-
ring to Kautzsch, Kapitellstudien, nos. 407 and 531.
Neither of these capitals are illustrated in Kautzsch’s
book; the description of the former, in the Mosque in
Brussa (p. 130) does not mention an eagle, but for the
second, in the al-Azhar mosque (p.165) the description
does cite an eagle, and links it with some other exam-
ples with eagles or doves or in one case, his no. 533,[see
Strzygowski, Koptische Kunst, 71 and Dalton, Byzantine
Art and Archaeology, 33) a piece in the Egyptian
Museum no. 7345, a peacock. Kautzsch discussed on
p. 30 a small group of capitals with small eagles, includ-
ing one in the prayer hall of the en-Nasir mosque in
Cairo, his no. 76, another in the al-Azhar mosque in
Cairo, his no. 77 (to be discussed below) a third in the
Mausoleum of Kalaun in Cairo, his no. 78, a fourth in
the mosque of Salih Tala’i in Cairo, his no. 80, and a fifth
now in the Liebieghaus in Frankfurt, his no. 79, illus-
trated on his pl. 6. This last has a small eagle with out-
stretched wings at the top of the capital, above the
acanthus, in a manner similar to the eagle capitals in
the Dome of the Rock.
87 Wilkinson, Column Capitals, no. 147, p. 209. According
to Wilkinson, the capital is now in the Islamic Museum,
but it was formerly one of a group of three capitals in
the first aisle colonnade to the east side of the nave, at
the point where the dome supports are found.
Wilkinson says that this capital belongs to the first
phase of construction, but because of (unspecified)
structural necessity another column and capital were
set directly beside it. This is the only place in the Aqsa
Mosque with three columns and capitals grouped
together, which is odd. According to Wilkinson’s
description, “The abacus is a wreath of two leaves set
diagonally, running between rims. The top corners
were winged lions or bulls with their feet on the leaves.
Two flowers are not thoroughly erased. One is a cornu-
copia with fruit (?) and flowers, and the other is an
eagle bearing a fledgling [sic] in its claws.” Wilkinson
refers to the discussion by Hamilton, Structural History
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118
Hamilton’s discussion of these two capitals says
nothing about eagles on them. He does take these
pilaster capitals at the north end of the nave
arcades, his numbers 2 and 3, as part of the origi-
nal set with the others in the series, and does at
several points emphasize that one or both of them
have anomalous features, but takes what Wilkinson
describes as eagles to be foliage.88 In Wilkinson’s
view the birds were recut, in the attempt to turn
them into vegetal motifs, but traces of the legs
remain at least on one of them (his no. 18, Hamilton
no. 2) along with downward-pointing wings
(Figs.  5.18 and 5.19). Hamilton’s photograph is
much more clear than is Wilkinson’s, but his draw-
ings simplify in such a way that ambiguities are
removed.89 Scholars, like anyone else, tend to see
what they expect or wish to see, and in my view it
is only the indisputable eagles in some capitals of
the Dome of the Rock, previously discussed and
unknown to Hamilton (Figs. 5.11, 5.13 and 5.14), and
the pattern of locations of these capitals – else-
where on the Haram, and as we shall see, also else-
where – that tilts the balance of probability in
favor of Wilkinson’s interpretation, that these cap-
itals had eagles on the center of their abacus. The
third caveat is that the pilaster capitals flanking
the entrance to the Aqsa mosque are not marble
but limestone, apparently local in origin, and
although pre-Islamic in date, show signs of having
been recut at least in part, the eagle on #16 having
of the Aqsa Mosque, pl. x, 1 and Fig.  30, locating the
capital on the plan. According to Hamilton’s plan, this
column and capital should be from the first period
(“Umayyad or before”), the flanking columns and capi-
tals on west and north sides added in the Abbasid and
Fatimid periods respectively. If this is the capital’s orig-
inal position, it is on the east side of the central space
before the mihrab. If it follows the pattern suggested
elsewhere on the Haram, as the relationship between
Dome of the Rock and Dome of the Chain to its east,
this might have been an area associated with the ruler.
88 Hamilton, “Some Capitals from the Aqsa Mosque,” at 111
for twice noting “except for No. 3”.
89 Hamilton, “Some Capitals from the Aqsa Mosque,”
Fig. 3 and Fig. 4c, pl. xxxviii, 2 and 3.
chapter 5
been transformed into a large fruit flanked by
leaves, and the head of the eagle on #18 (Figs. 5.18
and 5.19) having been transformed into a flower.
Wilkinson stated that the re-cutting shows what
he calls “Abbasid decoration,” but his dating is not
supported by any specific comparisons, and at the
end of this chapter the issue of the date when such
alterations are most likely to have been made will
be taken up.
The Interpretation and Function of Eagle
Capitals in Early Islamic Religious
Buildings
When the distribution of eagle capitals on the
Haram al-Sharif as a whole is considered, it seems
anything but random, identifying the northern
and eastern doors of the Dome of the Rock, the
Dome of the Chain beside it, and the northern
door of the Aqsa mosque. Associated in the Dome
of the Rock with inscriptions in two different
media connected with rulership and the current
ruler, one cannot help but hypothesize that the
capitals mark something like a processional route,
whether of the ruler or of pilgrims. We can identify
and follow the movement of the Roman Emperor
into and through his great domed church, Hagia
Sophia, and see that the route was related to
particular images.90 Established specific routes
90 On the emperor and Hagia Sophia see Thomas
F. Mathews, The early churches of Constantinople: archi-
tecture and liturgy (University Park, pa, 1971), p. 113, who is
skeptical about whether one can use (as Jean Ebersolt
and others have done) the De ceremoniis as a source for
liturgy in Constantinople, especially in early Byzantine
times. The tenth-century text may or may not reflect per-
formance in the sixth or seventh century, but it is striking
that the elaborate description in chapter one of the
imperial entry into and participation in the liturgy at
Hagia Sophia describes him as moving from the pal-
ace  through a series of other structures, the oratory
St. Theodore, the Chrysotriklinos, the Chalke Gate on
the way to the Great Church. The text is very careful to
specify which doors are used by whom, precisely where
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
were a fixture of Christian pilgrimages to the Holy
Places in Palestine from the fourth-century
onwards, as seen in detail in the various early pil-
grimage accounts collected and studied by John
Wilkinson.91 Such practices were followed also by
Muslim pilgrims, indeed the hajj pilgrimage, with
a prescribed sequence of places and actions, is a
fundamental pillar of Islam, and pilgrimages to
other sites, known as ziyara, also became impor-
tant.92 Jerusalem pilgrimage was important from
an early period, and various routes and itinerar-
ies  were collected and studied in an important
­volume by Amikam Elad published in 1995.93 Elad
various implements are placed, and so forth; see
Constantin vii Porphyrogénète, Le livre des ceremonies,
ed. Albert Vogt (Paris, 1935), vol. i, pp. 4–14. A small sec-
tion describing the imperial entrance to the Great
Church has been translated into English by Paul
Stephenson online (http://homepage.mac.com/paul
stephenson/trans/decer0.html) accessed 11/11/10, which
specifies the particular door at which the imperial
entrance occurs. See also the commentary on the text and
monuments in Jean Ebersolt, Monuments d’architecture
byzantine (Paris, 1934). I am grateful to Dale Kinney for
calling my attention to the argument by Onians, Bearers
of Meaning, pp. 62–63 on the arrangement of differing
columns and capitals in the Lateran Baptistery in connec-
tion with the liturgy performed in the building; the gen-
eral thrust of the argument was accepted, but the details
corrected, by Sible de Blaauw, Cultus et décor: liturgia e
architettura nella Roma tardoantica e medievale: Basilica
Salvatoris, Sanctae Mariae, Sancti Petri, Studi e testi
355–356 (Vatican City, 1994).
91 John Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades
(Warminster [Wiltshire], 2002), indeed the accounts
we have are typically organized as itineraries, a route
from one holy place to the next.
92 Josef W. Meri, “The etiquette of devotion in the Islamic
cult of saints,” in James Howard-Johnston and Paul
Antony Hayward, eds., The Cult of Saints in Late
Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Essays on the Contribution
of Peter Brown (Oxford, 1999), pp. 263–286.
93 Elad, Medieval Jerusalem and Islamic Worship. See also
Amikam Elad, “Pilgrims and Pilgrimage to Jerusalem
during the Early Muslim Period,” in Lee I. Levine,
Jerusalem. Its Sanctity and Centrality to Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam (New York, 1999), pp. 300–314.
119
discussed an early-eleventh-century text In Praise
of Jerusalem by al-Wasiti, who cites an isnad, a
chain of sources, stretching back to the early
eighth century, that “he who comes to Jerusalem
and prays to the right of the Rock and to its north,
and prays in the (holy) place of the Chain, and
gives a little or much charity, his prayers will be
answered.”94 An anonymous “Muslim Guide” to
worship on the Haram, datable to the eleventh
century, begins at the Dome of the Rock, exits it
through the eastern door toward the Dome of the
Chain, and then, after visiting many other sites,
comes to the al-Aqsa mosque.95 We have abun-
dant evidence for Muslim pilgrims to Jerusalem
during the Umayyad and early Abbasid periods,
but no specific itinerary concerning sites visit-
ed.96 There is, however, a good deal more that can
be said about the possible use and meaning of
the eagle capitals in Jerusalem, and not only in
Jerusalem.
How widespread may have been the practice of
installing figural capitals in early Islamic mosques
I cannot say, but I can say that Jerusalem is not
94 Elad, Medieval Jerusalem, p. 63, citing Muhammad
b. Ahmad, Abu Bakr al-Wasiti (commonly al- Wasiti) in
his In Praise of Jerusalem, pp. 73–74 no.119. Elad also
comments: “Tradition has it that the Prophet ‘prayed’ to
the right of the Rock on the night of the isra, and there
the Qubbat al-Nabi [the Dome of the Prophet] was built
at a later period. [Here Elad cites al- Wasiti] It should be
remembered that the one who prays to the north of the
Rock [i.e. from the position north of the Rock] unites
the two qiblas.” This tradition seems to contest the story
of Caliph ʿUmar and Kaʿb, in which prayer from the
north side of the Rock is explicitly rejected. In discuss-
ing the eagle capitals and their location, Behnam
Sadeghi suggested that having such capitals in the view
of those making their prayers would be problematic, in
his view. If such prayer were performed outside the
building, however, because neither is on axis with the
door, neither would be visible. That the eastern eagle
would be visible from the door poses no such problem,
as it would never be in front of a person praying. I am
grateful to him for this and many other discussions.
95 Elad, Medieval Jerusalem, pp. 70–71.
96 Elad, Medieval Jerusalem, pp. 62–68.
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120
unique.97 Wilkinson cited the mosque at Qasvin in
northern Iran, built in the Umayyad period,98 and
the great mosque at Kairouan, but in each case for
the presence of capitals with animals, not specifi-
cally eagles (although in fact they are present in
the latter, as will shortly be discussed), and the
­former, if the name “the Bull Mosque” means any-
thing, would suggest a different animal. There are
more, which have attracted relatively little atten-
tion from scholars studying early Islamic art, espe-
cially if they are spoliated Roman capitals, like
those in Jerusalem. For example, in his discussion
of the Great Mosque in Damascus, Creswell only
observed that they “are not, or were not, uniform”
before the disastrous fire of 1893, that the columns
and capitals visible today “appear to be quite new,”
while descriptions before the fire attest to the
diversity with some Ionic and some Corinthian,
“which have been taken from other buildings,”99
presumably ancient Roman buildings. Certainly
one should not infer from such summary accounts
that there were no figural capitals, and I hope that
by calling attention to these in Jerusalem, others
97 On the eagle capitals in Jerusalem added to the Dome
of the Rock and the Aqsa mosque in the Crusader
period, see the discussion at the end of this chapter.
98 Wilkinson, Column Capitals, p. 205, with reference to
Guy Le Strange, Lands of the eastern Caliphate
(Cambridge, 1905; reprint Lahore, 1977), p. 219: “Already
in the times of the Omayyad Caliphs, Muhammad, son
of Hajjaj – the latter being the celebrated governor of
Arabian ‘Irak – had been sent by his father at the head of
an army against the infidels of the Daylam mountains.
This Muhammad had halted at Kazvin, and built here
the first Friday Mosque, which Yakut describes as stand-
ing near the gate of the palace of the Bani Junayd. It was
called the Masjid-ath-Thawr, ‘the Bull Mosque’ and was
the chief mosque of the city till the days of Harun al-
Rashid.” The site is in northern Iran, 100 miles north of
Teheran, and Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, i,
pp. 21–22, simply cites Le Strange on this mosque, and
goes on to say that the “bull” name might come from the
use of Persian columns, or “perhaps even the conversion
of an apadana”, an hypothesis that he actually illustrates
with an engraving of capitals from Persepolis!
99 Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, i, p. 165.
chapter 5
might be noticed. There are certainly figural capi-
tals in Umayyad Spain, emphatically in a Caliphal
context,100 one of which is a basin with a large
spread eagle on at least one side,101 later in date to
be sure, although scholars have often suggested a
link with Umayyad works of the early period.102
Eagle capitals are not limited to the Muslim
religious structures on the Haram al-Sharif in
Jerusalem, but occur elsewhere, and in very
important mosques, and in prominent locations
within at least some of those mosques. That there
were figural capitals at Kairouan was mentioned
by Wilkinson, although not by many books
devoted to the building. Two capitals with eagles
from Kairouan were reproduced and discussed in
Ewert and Wisshak.103 The capital on pl. 40e is on
column G8m, and has eagles replacing the volutes
at all four corners.104 The capitals of the Great
100 See the example from the munya (“villa”) at al-
Rummaniya, for which see Glaire D. Anderson, The
Islamic Villa in Early Medieval Iberia. Architecture and
Court culture in Umayyad Córdoba (Farnham [Surrey],
2013), pp. 71–73, Figs.  40 and 41 and pl. 10, and most
recently Antonio Vallejo Triano, “Two Capitals from the
Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba,” in Sheila S. Blair and
Jonathan M. Bloom, eds., God is Beautiful, God loves
Beauty. The Object in Islamic Art and Culture (New
Haven and London, 2013), pp. 103–122.
101 The basin, now in Marrakesh, is from the ʿAmirid
period; see Anderson, Islamic Villa, Fig. 55, and in more
detail Mariam Rosser-Owen, “Reading the Regency:
Poems in Stone: The Iconography of ‘Amirid Poetry,
and its ‘Petrification’ on Amirid Marbles,” in Glaire
Anderson and Mariam Rosser-Owen, eds., Revisiting
Al-Andalus. Perspectives on the material culture of
Islamic Iberia and Beyond (Leiden, 2007), pp. 93–98.
102 Robert Hillenbrand, “The Syrian Connection: Archaic
Elements in Spanish Umayyad Ivories,” in Kjeld von
Folsach and Joachim Meyer, eds., The Ivories of Muslim
Spain. Papers from a Symposium held in Copenhagen from
the 18th to the 20th of November 2003 [Journal of the David
Collection 2] (Copenhagen, 2005), vol. 1, pp. 49–74.
103 Ewert and Wisshak, Forschungen zur Almohadischen
Moscheen 1, pp. 143–144 and pls. 40e and 40f.
104 Capital pl. 40f on column S7 has the eagle so badly
damaged that although the authors say it is “erkennbar”
I cannot see it. There seems no particular significance
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
Mosque at Tunis include one with four eagles
with outstretched wings making the corner
volutes, a type similar to that at Kairouan, and is
located at H3 on the plan of Ewert and Wisshak,
on the left side of the central nave looking toward
the mihrab, and in the third row away from the
mihrab, a position roughly comparable to the iso-
lated eagle capital at the left side near the dome
in front of the mihrab in the Aqsa mosque.105
Perhaps most intriguing of the eagle capitals in
other Islamic mosques are those in the caliphal
al-Azhar mosque, built by the Fatimid Caliph
shortly after establishing his new capital at old
Fustat, modern Cairo, the new name that he gave
the city, “the Victorious.”106 The building was
erected quickly, in only one year, 970–971, which
may partially explain its use of spoliated capitals
throughout. These c­ apitals were studied in detail
to the locations of these two capitals, G8m is in the
third row to the left of the central “nave” of the mosque,
in the first row entering the prayer hall from the nar-
thex, and S7 is bunched against the southwest wall of
the prayer wall, not next to an entrance of any kind.
105 Ewert and Wisshak, Forschungen zur Almohadischen
Moscheen 1, pp. 54–56, at 56 and pl. 41a. K.A.C. Creswell,
Early Muslim Architecture, vol. 2 (Oxford, 1940), pp.
321–325, described the columns of the sanctuary as all
“brought from other buildings,” and noted that they
were colorful and apparently arranged deliberately, but
says nothing about the capitals, which are discussed in
Lucien Golvin, Essai sur l’architecture religieuse musul-
mane 3: L’architecture des ‘Grands Abbasids,’ la mosquée
de Ibn T’ulun, L’architecture religieuse des Aghlabides
(Paris, 1974), pp. 150ff. Ewert and Wisshak report no
fewer than twenty eagle capitals of this type in the
Great Mosque at Tunis whose locations are not mapped
in this publication (“20 meist gut erhaltenen und ein-
wandfrei identifizierbare Stücke dieser Typengrupe
stehen im Betsaal der Hauptmoschee von Tunis an.”).
106 For the al-Azhar mosque in general, and the rapid pace
of construction, which lasted only one year from the
order to construct of 4 April 970 to the first Friday
prayer on 22 June 971 see Jonathan Bloom, Arts of the
City Victorious: Islamic Art and Architecture in Fatimid
North Africa and Egypt (New Haven and London, 2008),
pp. 59–65.
121
for the first time only in a short article of 2002
by  Marianne Barrucand.107 The capitals are of
differing types, most probably datable to the
fifth  and sixth centuries, some imported and of
finest quality, and some probably local in origin.
Barrucand recognized a distinct patterning in the
placement of the spoliated capitals of the
caliphal Fatimid mosque throughout, rather than
a random assortment. She identified six capitals
with an eagle, but did not list which capitals they
are, or locate them all.108 Two that she illustrated
are strikingly like those in the Dome of the Rock,
a small spread eagle in the center of the abacus,
(Fig.  5.20), also decapitated, although less com-
pletely erased than those in Jerusalem. One of these
capitals is at the outer side of the courtyard,109
near but not immediately adjacent to the main
entrance, and the other on the right side at the
entrance to the “nave” of the prayer hall, leading
to the mihrab.110
107 Marianne Barrucand, “Les chapiteaux de remploi de la
mosquée al-Azhar et l’émergence d’un type de chapi-
teau médiéval en Égypte,” Annales islamologiques
36(2002), 37–75. I owe this important reference to the
kindness of Barry Flood and Jonathan Bloom. The capi-
tals were referred to by the same author in a more syn-
thetic context, emphasizing the importance of column
capitals in early Islamic buildings, and the deliberate
placement of them in pairs on some occasions to mark
important places; see Marianne Barrucand, “Remarks
on the Iconography of the medieval capitals of Cairo:
Form and Emplacement,” in Bernard O’Kane, ed., The
Iconography of Islamic Art. Studies in Honour of Robert
Hillenbrand (Edinburgh, 2005), pp. 23–44, illustrating
two eagle capitals from al-Azhar as Figs.  2.5 and 2.6.
The figural capitals were mentioned by Kitzinger,
“Horse and Lion Tapestry,” nos. 52 and 54, referring to
Kautzsch, Kapitellstudien, nos. 407 and 531 and 504.
108 Barrucand, “Les chapiteaux de remploi,” (only Figs. 13,
15 [these two among the rare examples with smooth
leaves] and 33), and also 6 with crosses.
109 Barrucand, “Les chapiteaux de remploi,” (Fig.  15,
capital 41).
110 Barrucand, “Les chapiteaux de remploi,” (Fig.  13,
capital 46).
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122
This location is strikingly prominent, and
Barrucand noted this with surprise, calling it
“­étonnant,” “astonishing” to have a figural capital in
such a prominent location.111 Although in a later
study she discussed the deliberate placement of spo­
liated Roman capitals in early Islamic buildings,112
noting especially the work of Christian Ewert on
the meaningful distribution of the spoliated capi-
tals in the Umayyad mosque at Cordoba,113 she did
not note that a nearly identical location in the al-
Aqsa mosque also had an eagle capital, in this case
two eagle capitals, also at the entrance to the axial
nave. The analogy seems to me very unlikely to be
a mere coincidence. Barrucand did note, however,
that there was a textual source that could be con-
nected with the surprising eagle capitals.114 It is a
late source, from a work by al-Maqrizi, who lived
1364–1442, and Barrucand rightly points out that
without this source one might well imagine that
the “étonnant” and “surprenant” presence of an
eagle at the entrance to the nave was due to a mod-
ern restoration campaign. For al-Maqrizi the three
carved birds in al-Azhar, one of which he specifi-
cally located where it still is, at the entrance to the
nave, were “talismans” intended to prevent pigeons
from nesting in the mosque.115
In a study about the use of spolia as apotropaia
in Byzantium and Islam, Finbarr Barry Flood cited
another late text, from the fifteenth century, that
two capitals in the mosque of ʿUmar in the Holy
Sepulchre complex in Jerusalem with serpents
were interpreted as talismans, which makes al-
Maqrizi’s interpretation seem less bizarre.116 As we
111 Barrucand, “Les chapiteaux de remploi,” p. 45.
112 Barrucand, “Remarks on the Iconography,” passim.
113 Ewert and Wisshak, Forschungen zur almohadischen
Moschee.
114 Barrucand, “Les chapiteaux de remploi,” p. 50.
115 Barrucand, “Les chapiteaux de remploi,” p. 50, citing
[Taqi al-Din Ahmad] al-Maqrizi, Kitab al-mawa’iz wa’l-
i’tibar fi dhikr al-khitat wa’l-ahtar, ed. Bulaq. (1270/1853–
54), vol. ii, p. 273, 32–38.
116 Finbarr Barry Flood, “Image against Nature: Spolia as
Apotropaia in Byzantium and the dar al-Islam,” The
Medieval History Journal 9(2006), 143–166 at 145, is a
chapter 5
all know, pigeons can be a problem, their nests not
being the worst of it, and sometimes people do put
up sculpted images of birds of prey to try to deal
with the problem, and put them near a building
entrance.117 It is difficult to know just how this
­evidence, from fourteenth- and fifteenth-century
sources, might apply to the eagle capitals on the
Haram al-Sharif. An apotropaic function, whether
traceable to the time of installation in the seventh
or beginning of the eight century, or a post hoc
interpretation of these manifestly “étonnants”
­capitals, is not necessarily in conflict with other
interpretations. Recently Sheila Blair published a
twelfth-century rosewater sprinkler crowned by
a ring of birds (and with lions around the body) as
possibly apotropaic but also perhaps at the same
text from the 9th/15th c. writer al-ʿUlaymi [Al-‘Ulayii,
Al-Uns al-jalil, vol. i: 126; see Sauvaire, Histoire de
Jérusalem, 31] “that the Mosque of ʿUmar in the Holy
Sepulchre complex in Jerusalem was provided with
two stone columns whose capitals carved with the
image (sura) of serpents, which constituted a talisman
(tilsam) against these reptiles. The report is third-hand
and we are told that these carvings (Crusader capitals?)
no longer existed in the author’s day. Apart from the
obvious problems presented by evaluating the veracity
of a 500-year old report about an object that had long
vanished, it is difficult to determine whether the
ascription of talismanic value was intrinsic to the
choice of imagery or a post hoc interpretation. Even
the latter interpretaion pre-supposes the existence of a
tradition of figural apotropaia within which to locate
the image of a snake “and such a tradition certainly
exists, going back to Delphi and the Hippodrome of
Constantinople.” I am grateful to Barry Flood for pro-
viding me with a copy of the article.
117 The Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem had sides “topped
by spikes with sharp points, to prevent pollution by
resting birds”; see Joseph Patrich, “538 bce–70 ce the
Temple (Beyt Ha-Miqdash) and its Mount,” in Grabar
and Kedar, Where Heaven and Earth Meet, p. 58. A con-
temporary example, downloaded from the internet
(www.247wildlife.com/birdjob.htm, accessed 10/29/10),
shows that such practices are not likely to be effective,
which does not stop people from trying.
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
time an invocation of good fortune.118 Other pos-
sible significances may be combined with some
apotropaic function, for example that the eagles
referred to the ruler and/or indicated the close
proximity of the ruler at certain moments, or even
served to mark some kind of movement through
the space by the ruler. Certainly the eagle imagery
on military equipment of all kinds could be
thought, I think generally is thought, to have both
representative and “potent” qualities, Ernst
Kitzinger’s favorite word for such imagery which I
find useful, since it does not have quite the “primi-
tive” or “popular” baggage of talisman.119 The asso-
ciation of the eagles with crosses, the pre-eminent
potent sign in the Christian tradition, in both
Jerusalem and in Cairo would lend much support
to such an interpretation. In the Dome of the Rock
there are three capitals with wreaths which, as
suggested by Wilkinson originally contained
crosses or the xp monogram of Christ, one of them
atop the central column of the inner north colon-
nade (Fig.  5.21), flanked by two eagle capitals.
Another wreath originally containing a cross or xp
monograms marks the southern axial central
inner column (Fig.  5.22), with the wreath on the
inner, north side and thus facing the same direc-
tion as that on the other side of the rock itself.120
118 Sheila S. Blair, Text and Image in Medieval Persian Art,
Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Art (Edinburgh, 2014),
pp. 96–97 and Fig. 3.1, an object in Copenhagen’s David
Collection.
119 Ernst Kitzinger, “A Pair of Silver Book Covers in the
Sion Treasure,” in U. McCracken, L[illian]. M.C. Randall
and R[ichard] H. Randall, Jr., eds., Gatherings in Honor
of Dorothy E. Miner (Baltimore, 1974), 3–17, and Ernst
Kitzinger, “The Threshold of the Holy Shrine.
Observations on Floor Mosaics at Antioch and Beth­
lehem,” in Josef Andreas Jungmann and Patrick
Greenfield, eds., Kyriakon. Festschrift Johannes Quasten
(Münster im Westfalen, 1970), vol. 2, pp. 639–647.
120 Wilkinson, Column Capitals, p. 88, no. 42. There are
crosses on the south, north and east sides, in the cen-
tral capital of the inner arcade, therefore, but
Wilkinson’s description and photograph of the central
capital on the west side does not indicate that there
was ever one in that location. At least at the level of
123
There appear to be no other such wreath capitals
elsewhere in the building, which surely must be
thought to add support to the hypothesis that the
arrangement of the spoliated capitals in the Dome
of the Rock is deliberate rather than haphazard. If
deliberate it is likely to have been meaningful, but
what would have been the meaning?
The use of the cross as an apotropaion is
well established from the very beginnings of
Christianity,121 although the installation of such an
emblem in any mosque is even more astounding
than the presence of sculpted eagles.122 This is a
very difficult and different problem that I shall not
pursue here, but it is worth noting that also from
the very beginning, the cross was in Christian
usage associated with victory,123 and was demon-
strably encountered as a victory, indeed an impe-
rial, victory sign. Crosses are inscribed VICTORIA
AUGUSTI or VICTORIA AUGUSTORUM, (Victory of
the Emperor or Emperors), in the early Islamic
period, notably on the types of eastern Roman
imperial coins that continued to circulate in
Islamic Syria and Palestine up to the very year, 692,
the capitals, the building apparently is not entirely
symmetrical.
121 For discussion see Lawrence Nees, “Two Illuminated
Syriac Manuscripts in the Harvard College Library,”
Cahiers archéologiques, 29 (1980–1981), 123–142, at 132–142.
122 Surely it is noteworthy that, like the Dome of the Rock,
the al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo has both eagle capitals
and capitals with a cross in a wreath, in the Cairene
example the cross only partially erased and still icono-
graphically identifiable; see Barrucand, “Remarks on
the Iconography,” Fig. 2.6.
123 See André Grabar, L’empereur dans l’art byzantine.
Recherches sur l’art official de l’empire d’orient,
Publications de la Faculté des Lettres de l’Université de
Strasbourg 75 (Paris, 1936), esp. pp. 32–39. On the sign of
the cross itself as a potent sign see the classic Franz
Dölger, Sphragis: eine altchristliche Taufbezeichnung in
ihren Beziehungen zur profanen und religiosen Kultur
des Altertums (Paderborn, 1911), and Erich Dinkler,
“Bemerkungen zum Kreuz als tropaion,” in Mullus.
Festschrift Theodor Klauser, Jahrbuch für Antike und
Christentum, Ergänzungsband 1 (Münster im Westfalen,
1964), pp. 71–78.
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124
in which the Dome of the Rock was built.124 Indeed
the type was not only known, but also was imi-
tated on some Islamic “copies” of late Byzantine
types, although with the cross shape modified to
appear like an elongated T (Fig.  5.23), on a coin
assigned by Clive Foss probably to the reign of
Muʿawiya which retains the inscription referring
to VICTORIA.125 The association of the eagle with
victory is powerfully attested in Roman traditions
in Palestine, as for example in the beautiful marble
altar dated 218, with prayers to Serapis from the
6th Legion, which has on one side a spread eagle
124 On the seventh-century east Roman coinage see Philip
Grierson, Phocas to Theodosius iii 602–717, Catalogue of
the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection
and in the Whittemore Collection, 2, part 1: Phocas and
Heraclius (602–641) (Washington, d.c., 1968), for the
gold coins of Heraclius pls. viii, ix and x with many
examples, those with triple standing figures on the
obverse (Heraclius and his two sons) and the cross on
steps with VICTORIA inscription nos. 33–45, all from the
mint of Constantinople. The cross and VICTORIA was at
least in this collection limited to the gold issues, not
those in silver and bronze.
125 London, British Museum 1904,0511.320. See Clive Foss,
“Arab-Byzantine Coins: Money as Cultural Continuity,”
in Helen C. Evans with Brandie Ratliff, Byzantium and
Islam. Age of Transition 7th–9th Century (New Haven
and London, 2012), pp. 136–143, at 140 Fig.  65 for this
coin. For a recent study on the rich and fascinating
issue of the coinage up to the imperial reform issues of
692, many examples retaining the image of the cross,
see Clive Foss, Arab-Byzantine Coins. An introduction,
with a catalogue of the Dumbarton Oaks Collection
(Washington, d.c., 2008), p. 41 for the gold issue dat-
able to the reign of Muʿawiya with T-“cross” on steps,
and nos. 103–130 for the “standard type” issued at vari-
ous mints with standing figure of the caliph on the
obverse and what Foss describes as a shape like a Greek
letter Φ with elongated stem on the reverse. On the
reform coinage of ʿAbd al-Malik the bibliography is
immense. The standard work is John Walker, A
Catalogue of the Arab-Byzantine and Post-Reform
Umaiyad Coins (London, 1956) and for an overview
Michael L. Bates, “History, Geography and Numismatics
in the first century of Islamic Coinage,” Revue Suisse de
numismatique 65(1986), 231–262.
chapter 5
grasping Zeus’s thunderbolts and holding in his
beak the laurel crown of Victory (Fig. 5.24), while
next to him is a large figure of Nike, Victory, stand-
ing on a globe and also holding a crown.126
It is striking that the examples of eagle capitals
in Islamic religious buildings all seem to come
from places with strong connections with caliphs,
in Jerusalem and Cairo, or powerful regional rul-
ers, as in Kairouan. Perhaps it is worthy of mention
that the Dome of the Rock mosaics, although they
contain no human or animal figures, do contain
wings, dis-embodied wings, outspread, and deco-
rated with jewel-like patterns (Fig. 5.25).127 Some,
but not all, of these appear connected with crown-
like motifs, and Grabar and others have discussed
the possibility that they represent defeated rulers
overcome by the power of the Muslim armies, and
as it were doing tribute.128 There are a great many
of these motifs, found in fifteen of the sixteen pan-
els of the lower register of the drum that supports
the dome, so that these are in the most sacred
area, facing the rock beneath them. These wings
126 The altar is on display in the courtyard of the
Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem. The theme is suffi-
ciently common that there is another example in the
same display in the museum’s courtyard, a limestone
funerary altar dedicated by Julius Magnus of the 12th
Legion, from Caesarea, from the late first or early sec-
ond century, which has on one side an eagle crowned
by Nike, and on another a figure of Tyche, Fortune.
127 Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, i, pp. 278 and 300–
306, Figs. 284–290. Creswell pointed out (p. 300) that all
but one of the sixteen panels on the lower drum fea-
ture outspread wings, and believed that the one on the
south side without the motif is one of the best pre-
served, from the Umayyad period. The mosaics in this
area are now reproduced in color in Nuseibeh and
Grabar, Dome of the Rock, pp. 119–133. I am grateful to
Laura Cochrane for causing me to look again at these
wings. Disagreeing with Creswell’s analysis, Grabar,
Shape of the Holy, pp. 80–84 and Figs. 30–32, the irregu-
lar example was likely “entirely redone in later times.”
128 For example, in Ettinghausen, Grabar and Jenkins-
Madina, Islamic Art and Architecture 650–1250, p. 19;
Grabar, Formation of Islamic Art, pp. 55–58; Grabar,
Dome of the Rock, pp. 82 and 89.
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
attached to crowns are not, of course, eagles, and
have never to my knowledge been interpreted in
relation to eagles, but the recognition that there
are three sculpted eagles with outstretched wings
in the capitals in the building, and in the capitals
directly below the mosaic wings, on the inner col-
umns surrounding the Rock, ought to stimulate re-
consideration of these wings and their significance
in the early Islamic context, for they are not iso-
lated motifs but part of a larger thematic group.
Eagles in Secular Contexts in Early
Islamic Art
Although some scholars and readers may have
been or may be surprised by the appearance of
eagles in important early Islamic religious build-
ings, their occurrence in secular contexts, and in
different media, is perhaps less surprising,
although no one seems to have noted the surpris-
ing number of examples, and their strong associa-
tion with rulers. Crosses can also be found, and
lend support to the underlying theme of victory,
especially military victory, suggested as at least
one interpretation of the examples from the Dome
of the Rock and other religious structures. The
evocation of protection in an apotropaic sense is
another possible interpretation, especially when
examples are associated with entrances, as is the
case with most of the examples on the Haram al-
Sharif. One example is furnished by Qasr al-Burquʾ
in Jordan, portions of which appear to have been
used during the early Umayyad period, since there
is an inscription giving the date 81 ah/700 ce and
saying that it was built by al-Walid, son of the
Commander of the Faithful. A lintel over the
entrance from the central courtyard of the walled
enclosure to a circular room has a cross and Greek
inscription invoking prayer to the Christian God.
The lintel was probably created in the pre-Islamic
period, and was transferred to its new setting as a
spolium, but continued to be visible and was not
erased, so that it is at least arguable that its apotro-
paic function or triumphal meaning continued,
125
even if its religious significance did not.129 It is not
altogether weird that apotropaia should cluster
around the places where the ruler might appear;
heavens knows, it was a dangerous job, and the
development of the maqsura points pretty clearly
for the need for protection, perhaps “magical” as
well as from some loyal soldiers, as discussed in a
previous chapter on the Dome of the Chain.
Muʿawiya had good reason to worry about his
safety, since his three immediate predecessors had
all been assassinated, two of them in a mosque,
and he himself had been stabbed.130
On the whole, however, I must say that my cur-
rent understanding suggests that any apotropaic
function of the eagle capitals in the buildings on
the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem was less impor-
tant that the representational, what might be
termed the metaphoric or symbolic significance.
Eagles can have many meanings, in many cultures,
for they are a very slippery signifier, and might
sometimes mean little.131 Eagles are, after all, a
129 See Heinz Gaube, “An Examination of the Ruins of
Qasr Burqu’,” in Annual of the Department of the
Antiquities of Jordan 19(1974), 93–100 esp. 96–97 and
the plan Fig. 1 (a reference for which I am grateful to
Marcus Milwright).
130 Another source says that Muʿawiya’s governor in Kufa,
Ziyad ibn Sumayya, also had a maqsura, designed for
protection, as reported by the ninth-century writer
(d. 892) Ahmad ibn Yahya al-Baladhuri, for which see
Philip Khuri Hitti, The Origins of the Islamic State, being
a translation from the Arabic accompanied with annota-
tions geographic and historic notes of the Kitab Futuh
al-Buldan of al-Imam abu’l ‘Abbas Ahmad ibn-Jabir al-
Baladhuri, Studies in History, Economics and Public
Law lxviii, nos. 163 and 163a (New York and London,
1916), p. 278: “Ziyad took for himself in the al-Kufah
mosque a maksurah which afterwards was renewed by
Khalid ibn-ʿAbdallah al-Kasri”. The passage is cited by
Clive Foss, “Muʿawiya’s State,” in John Haldon, ed.,
Money, Power and Politics in early Islamic Syria. A review
of current debates (Farnham [Surrey] and Burlington
vt, 2010), pp. 75–96, at 79.
131 On eagle symbolism more generally see the classic
study by Rudolf Wittkower, “Eagle and Serpent. A Study
in the Migration of Symbols,” Journal of the Warburg
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126
fairly obvious and widely used symbol of rulers
and the state, even in the modern United States,
which has an eagle on its seal and often on its cur-
rency. The eagle was very strongly associated with
Rome, and indeed with the Roman army, every
legion marching behind a standard topped by an
eagle, as displayed at the center of the highly
emblematic and symbolic portrait statue of the
Emperor Augustus from Prima Porta.132 The
Flavian amphitheater, commonly known as the
Colosseum, an imperial project and place of
appearance par excellence, had eagles in the
niches in the upper stories, above statues of vari-
ous divinities, and is so represented on coins.133
The other great rival of the rising Islamic power
was the Sasanian empire, and eagles also figure
prominently in Sasanian ruler imagery, although
perhaps not as consistently or prominently as in
Rome,134 and it is after all from Roman buildings
Institute 2, no. 4(1939), 293–325, and more recently
Henry Maguire, “Profane Icons: The Significance of
Animal Violence in Byzantine Art,” res: Anthropology
and Aesthetics 38(2000), 18–33. Surprisingly, Kenneth
F. Kitchell, Jr., Animals in the Ancient World from A to Z.
(London and New York, 2014) has entries for beavers
and bed bugs, but no entry for eagles. As a warning
against over-interpretation, a recent article argued
convincingly that on the coins of Emperor Julian (361–
363), eagles that have been interpreted as a reference to
Mithraic apotheosis, military emblems, or even a pos-
sible sighting of auspicious birds at Arles, is most likely
just an unusual mint mark; James Woods, “Julian, Arles
and the Eagle,” Journal of Late Antiquity 7(2014),
49–64.
132 On the Augustus of Prima Porta statue, and in general
on  the eagle in Roman art and thought, especially as
emblem of the legion and emperor, see Ranuccio Bianchi
Bandinelli, Rome, the Center of Power 500 b.c. to a.d. 200,
trans. Peter Green (New York, 1970), pp. 194–197.
133 Martin Jessop Price and Bluma L. Trell, Coins and their
Cities. Architecture on the ancient coins of Greece, Rome,
and Palestine (London and Detroit, 1977), p. 61-Figs. 110
and 111.
134 Eagles in Sasanian art will be discussed later in this
chapter. One Sasanian seal shows an eagle-like bird
with hooking beak and spread wings carrying a figure
upward, but this is apparently not a royal image; see
chapter 5
that the eagle capitals on the Haram al-Sharif were
removed. One remarkable eagle capital suggests
one of the pathways through which the associa-
tion of military victory with eagles might have
been transmitted from Roman iconography to
Arab culture and eventually to Islam.
Just outside Resafa, the northern Syrian site dis-
cussed in the previous chapter for its great bema
church beside which Caliph Hisham built a mosque
and palace, sits a remarkable building. One of its
capitals is decorated with a spread eagle, and its
location is very prominent (Fig. 5.26). It supports
the southern springing of the apsidal arch, and in
the apse on the molding above the double win-
dows is an inscription, in Greek, reading + Nικά ή
τυκη Ἀλαμουνδάρου, which Elizabeth Key Fowden
translated literally as “the fortune of Alamandaros
triumphs” or “more loosely” as “Long live al-
Mundhir.”135 This inscription, and the building in
which it is contained, is well known to scholars,
and has been universally taken to refer to the al-
Mundhir who was the Jafnid/Ghassanid leader and
regional phylarch for the Roman empire from 570–
581. The date and the builder are thus remarkably
Prudence O. Harper, In Search of a Cultural Identity.
Monuments and Artifacts of the Sasanian near East, 3rd
to 7th Century a.d. (New York, 2006), p. 179, Fig. 97.
135 Elizabeth Key Fowden, The Barbarian Plain. Saint
Sergius between Rome and Iran (Berkeley/Los Angeles
and London, 1999), pp. 151 on for the inscription, 154–
155 on the eagle capital, and 159–173 for discussion of
the building. For the building see also Thilo Ulbert, Die
Basilika des Heiligen Kreuzes in Resafa-Sergiopolis,
Resafa 2 (Mainz, 1986), p. 122 and Fig. 69. According to
Thilo Ulbert, “50 Jahre Forschungen in Resafa/
Sergiupolis. Struktur und Kontinuität,” in Karin Bartl
and Abd al-Razzaq Moaz, eds., Residences, Castles,
Settlement. Transformation Processes from Late
Antiquity to Early Islam in Bilad al-Sham. Proceedings of
the International Conference held at Damascus, 5–9
November 2006, Orient-Archäologie 24 (Rahden im
Westfalen, 2008), pp. 19–30 at 22, the author was plan-
ning to publish a book Basilika C and al Mundirbau in
Resafa-Sergiupolis, and states that it was being pre-
pared for publication in 2007, but I can find no evi-
dence that such a volume ever appeared.
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
clear, but the function of the building and its mean-
ing far less so. Jean Sauvaget argued that it was not
a church but the ruler’s audience hall, largely
because he could cite no parallel for the cross-in-
square plan in churches of the region.136 Fowden
has contested this view, noting that after Sauvaget’s
article, the excavations at Resafa uncovered a
building just to the southeast of the bema church
Basilica A (to which the mosque of Hisham was
subsequently attached) with almost exactly the
same plan.137 Apparently that building served as
the baptistery of the imposing large church, and
thus the al-Mundhir building plan is at least consis-
tent with ecclesiastical use. Fowden makes a strong
case that al-Mundhir’s building was associated
with the early cemetery in the area, and may also
be associated with the site of Sergius’ martyrdom
and earliest burial, before translation of the great
Syrian military saint into the city and placement in
a shrine there (in fact, most likely in Basilica A,
which might explain the link between its baptis-
tery and an “extramural chapel.)” In Fowden’s view,
the structure may had had both secular and reli-
gious function and significance, and was undoubt-
edly linked with a powerful ruler.138
The eagle capital has attracted some attention.
Fowden cited several scholars, including Wilkinson,
on the possible significance of eagle capitals in a
Christian context, including in northern Syria.139
136 Jean Sauvaget, “Les Ghassanides et Sergiopolis,”
Byzantion 14(1939), 115–130.
137 Elizabeth Key Fowden, “An Arab Building at Rusafa-
Sergiupolis,” Damaszener Mitteilungen 11(2000), 303–327.
138 See in general, on the figure of al-Mundhir and on
Arab-Roman relations on the eve of the rise of Islam,
Greg Fisher, Between Empires. Arabs, Romans and
Sasanians in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2011), esp. pp. 52–
55 on the al-Mundhir building at Resafa, for which
Fisher thought Fowden’s interpretation convincing.
See also Denis Genequand, “Some thoughts on Qasr al
Hayr al-Gharbi, its dam, its monastery and the
Ghassanids,” Levant 38(2006), 63–84.
139 Fowden also cites André Grabar, “Recherches sur les
sources de l’art paléo-Chrétien,” Cahiers archéologiques
11(1960), 40-71 at 62 Figs. 15 and 19 on eagles.
127
Gunnar Brands, who like Fowden challenged
Sauvaget’s interpretation of the building as exclu-
sively secular, identified clear connections of the
eagle capital with secular ruler-iconography (espe-
cially Roman imperial) as well as with funerary and
religious iconography, so that its presence is not
decisive for a reckoning of the building’s character
and function as either secular or religious.140 In a
subsequent study of the architectural ornament at
Resafa and more broadly in the region, Brand
barely mentions the al-Mundhir building, and says
nothing about the eagle capital, apparently because
it is almost unique among the numerous capitals
that he discussed in having figures of any kind,
much less eagles.141 Such an unusual item presum-
ably held some sort of special significance to those
responsible for the building, and its users.
Possible continuity between pre-Islamic Arabic
and early Islamic architectural culture has been
suggested by Thomas Leisten in the case of the
“pavilion” or audience hall of the Umayyad qasr at
Balis, only a short distance up the Euphrates from
Resafa. The building may have originally been an
isolated structure, only subsequently enclosed
within walls, and Leisten has suggested that its
function might have been comparable to the al-
Mundhir building, combining secular and reli-
gious functions and crossing over the time of the
conversion to Islam.142 The Balis “pavilion” has no
140 Gunnar Brands, “Der sogenannte Audienzsaal des al-
Mundhir in Resafa,” Damaszener Mitteilungen 10(1998),
211–235, esp. 225–227 Figs. 2–5 on various plans of the
building, and pl. 64b on the eagle capital.
141 Gunnar Brands, Die Bauornamentik von Resafa-
Sergiopolis. Studien zur spätantiken Architektur und
Bauausstattung in Syrien und Nordmesopotamien,
Resafa 6 (Mainz, 2002). The only other figural capital is
not mentioned by Brands in this publication but in his
earlier “Sogenannte Audienzsaal,” p. 224 and pl. 63d; it
is a capital in the al-Mundhir building with what
appear to be two doves flanking a fruit. Its location in
the structure is not clear from the publication.
142 Thomas Leisten, “For Prince and Country(side) – the
Marwanid Mansion at Balis on the Euphrates,” in Karin
Bartl and Abd al-Razzaq Moaz, eds., Residences, Castles,
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128
eagle, as a capital or otherwise, but suggests that
the al-Mundhir building at nearby Resafa may
have continued in use into the early Islamic period,
especially in a secular function. There is no doubt
that eagles were used in a variety of ways during
the Umayyad period in secular contexts. An eagle
capital has been found at Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi,
datable to the Umayyad period. Animals were
very common there, including birds, of which the
“pheasant” was the most numerous, although the
prominent position and large scale of the eagle,
with outstretched wings occupying “a central posi-
tion of the internal façade of the palace on the top
floor” suggest both its importance and its connec-
tion with the ruler.143 Most closely and directly
analogous to the eagle capitals in the Dome of the
Rock from an early Islamic structure is the spoli-
ated late antique eagle capital of similar form
found in the excavation of the Umayyad complex
at Jabal Says in the eastern Syrian desert.144 The
eagle capital is badly damaged, including the body
of the eagle but not its wingtips and feet. The dam-
age could be due to deliberate defacing, as hap-
pened at some point with the capitals in the Dome
of the Rock, but in this case would need to date
Settlement. Transformation Processes from Late
Antiquity to Early Islam in Bilad al-Sham. Proceedings of
the International Conference held at Damascus, 5–9
November 2006, Orient-Archäologie 24 (Rahden im
Westfalen, 2008), pp. 377–394 at 378. For a more recent
treatment of the site at Balis (but not this structure) see
Stephennie Mulder, The Shrines of the ‘Alids in Medieval
Syria. Sunnis, Shi’is and the Architecture of Coexistence,
Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Art (Edinburgh, 2014).
143 Dina Bakour, “The Animal Sculptures at the Qasr al-
Hayr al-Gharbi,” in Karin Bartl and Bad al-Razzaq
Moaz, eds., Residences, Castles, Settlements. Transfor­
mation Processes from Late Antiquity to Early Islam in
Bilad al-Sham. Proceedings of the International
Conference held at Damascus, 5–9 November 2006,
Orient-Archäologie 24 (Rahden im Westfalen, 2008),
pp. 287–300 at 289 and Fig. 8.
144 See Klaus Brisch, “Das omayyadische Schloss in Usais
(ii),” Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts
Abteilung Kairo 20(1965), 138–177 at 176 and Fig. 47. I am
grateful to Marcus Milwright for this reference.
chapter 5
from a very early period, since coin finds included
only one Roman and the remainder Umayyad
types, and it seems that the site was not used in
post-Umayyad times.145 Since all faces of the capi-
tal are damaged, especially along the top on either
side of the eagle, the damage might have been
accidental, when the capital fell to the ground.
This capital is not the only eagle excavated at the
site that must have been in use in the early Islamic
period, for the finds also included a small eagle
in lead.146
Sites such as Balis and Jabal Says are commonly
connected with early Islamic rulers, but not neces-
sarily with the caliph. We do have one example of
a bird that may be an eagle on a work indisputably
linked with a ruler. ʿAbd al Malik had a seal that
survives in a unique example now in Istanbul,
with affronted lions on the reverse, with rinceaux
ornament around the edge, and with affronted
birds flanking a large letter A on the obverse, the
profession of faith around its edge. In his discus-
sion of the object, Oleg Grabar used this seal as an
example of the “multiplicity of themes” that could
exist simultaneously with the same ruler’s figural
and then purely epigraphic coinage.147 Indeed, we
have a few seventh-century coins, to be discussed
later in this chapter, that appear to show the ruler
145 The site, located in southeastern Syria in the basalt des-
ert, was first investigated by Jean Sauvaget, “Les ruines
omeyyades du Djebel Seis,” Syria 20(1939), 239–256, and
was subsequently discussed by K.A.C. Creswell, A Short
Account of Early Islamic Architecture, rev. ed. James Allan
(Aldershot, 1989), pp. 118–122, suggesting a likely date for
the residence late in the reign of al-Walid I and continu-
ing occupation for several decades. Creswell emphasized
the “ascetic aspect” of the site’s “monastic simplicity”
perhaps attributable to its barren surroundings.
146 Ibid., p. 159 and Fig. 12.
147 Oleg Grabar, The Formation of Islamic Art (New Haven
and London, 1973), p. 95 and Fig.  21. On this seal see
now the Islamic Awareness website (http://www
.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Inscriptions/
seal2.html, accessed 9/30/14) which points out that the
inscription Filastin on the reverse shows that the
object was made in Palestine. I am grateful to Marcus
Milwright for this reference.
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
together with a bird that is most plausibly inter-
ested as an eagle (Fig. 5.27).148 A spread eagle in a
medallion on a tapestry-weave woolen textile
assigned by Carol Bier to eighth-century Iran or
Iraq cannot be demonstrably connected with a
ruler,149 but Bier noted that there is a similar textile
with birds and floral motifs on a tiraz in wool bear-
ing the name of the Umayyad Caliph Marwan.150
Early Islam also seems to have frequently asso-
ciated eagles with the ruler, as for example the
eagles in polychromed stucco recently excavated
148 Tony Goodwin, Arab-Byzantine Coinage, Studies in the
Khalili Collection 4 (London, 2005), pp. 36–37, nos. 19,
20, 22 and 23, and see Stephen Album and Tony Goodwin,
eds., The Pre-Reform Coinage of the Early Islamic Period,
Sylloge of Islamic Coins in the Ashmolean 1 (Oxford,
2002), nos. 560–562 and 566–568. See for a study of this
particular coin type Andrew Oddy, “Arab Imagery on
Early Umayyad Coins in Syria and Palestine: Evidence
for Falconry,” Numismatic Chronicle 151(1991), 59–66 the
coin illustrated here from the American Numismatic
Society collection (Inv. No. 1972.161.15), whose mint ori-
gin is uncertain, being Pl. 19, 14. After noting that the bird
was interpreted as an eagle by John Walker, A Catalogue
of the Arab-Byzantine and Post-Reform Umaiyad Coins,
A  Catalogue of Muhammadan Coins in the British
Museum 2 (London, 1956), Oddy suggested instead that
since some of the coins appear to show the bird perch-
ing on the standing figure’s left arm instead of perched
to his right, that these and presumably all represent fal-
cons. Luke Treadwell has kindly informed me that he
has an article on this type currently in press.
149 Textile Museum, Washington dc (73.550); see Carol
Manson Bier, “Textiles,” in Prudence Oliver Harper, The
Royal Hunter. Art of the Sasanian Empire (New York,
1978), no. 62, p. 138,
150 Textile Museum, Washington dc (73.524); see Ernst
Kühnel and Louisa Bellinger, Catalogue of Dated Tiraz
(Washington, d.c., 1952), pp. 5–6, pl. 1. Kühnel and
Bellinger suggest that the Marwan is probably Marwan ii
(ibn Muhammad, reigned 744–749), rather than Marwan
I because the latter reigned for less than one year (in
64–65 ah/684–685 ce), although what they term the
“strong Sasanian tradition in the composition” would
permit an attribution to the seventh century. The textile
is inscribed “. . .[Commander of the] Faithful Ma[rwan].
This has been ordered . . .” and was found in Egypt.
129
at the tenth-century Fatimid palace site of Sabra
al-Mansuriyya, near Kairouan in Tunisia.151 One of
the best known objects of Islamic art, because
among the earliest signed and dated works, is a
bronze eagle ewer now in St. Petersburg, dating
from the early Abbasid period, 796–797,152 and
although it is bronze rather than silver or gold and
therefore might be categorized as not intended for
a ruler, it likely reflects the type of vessels used in
elaborate court feasting, concerning which we
have many sources.153 Recently excavated from an
Umayyad palace site at al-Fudayn in Jordan, and
thus geographically and chronologically even
closer to the Jerusalem monuments is a bronze
brazier with very prominent eagle, or eagle-like
birds at the four corner posts.154
151 This palace site was begun ca. 946, and declined after
1057, see Marianne Barrucand and Mourad Rammah,
“Sabra al-Mansuriyya and Her Neighbors during the
First Half of the Eleventh Century: Investigations into
Stucco Decoration,” Muqarnas 26(2009), 349–376.
152 M[ikhail].B. Piotrovsky and J.M. Rogers, Heaven on Earth.
Art from Islamic Lands. Works from the State Hermitage
Museum and the Khalili Collection (Munich, Berlin,
London and New York, 2004), no. 30, pp. 80–81, and with
fuller description and bibliography Mikhail B. Piotrovsky
and John Vrieze, Art of Islam: Heavenly Art, Earthly Beauty
(Amsterdam, De Nieuwe Kerk, 1999), n. 199, p. 226.
153 Grabar, Formation of Islamic Art, pp. 155–166, and in
general Robert Hillenbrand, “La dolce vita in Early
Islamic Syria: the Evidence of Later Umayyad Palaces,”
Art History 5(1982), 1–35.
154 Amman, Jordan Archaeological Museum, Inv. Nos. J
15700, 15701 and 15705. See Anna Ballian, “Al-Fudayn,” in
Evans, Byzantium and Islam. Age of Transition, pp. 212–
226 on the site, and no. 143 for a modern reproduction
of the object. For the original object see Jean-Baptiste
Humbert, “Le surprenant brasero omeyyade trouvé à
Mafraq,” in Jordanie. Sur les pas des archéologues.
Expostion présentée du 13 juin au 5 octobre 1997 (Paris,
1997), p. 161. Also published in Ghazi Bisheh et alia, The
Umayyads. The Rise of Islamic Art, Jordan, International
Museum with no frontiers exhibition cycles, Islamic
Art in the Mediterranean ((Vienna, Beirut and Amman,
2000), pp. 133–135 on the al-Fudayn site, and pp. 67–68
on the brazier. The historical information available sug-
gests that the creation and flourishing of the site should
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130
Eagles in Christian and Jewish Religious
Contexts
The examples of eagles in a secular context are
more numerous in the Umayyad period than are
the few examples in religious context cited previ-
ously, and one might well object that the religious
context is very different. It would be fair to say that
they are unusual, even if Barrucand’s “étonnant”
overstates their rarity, and it would be fair to say
that they appear to be without progeny in later
Islamic art, in the second millennium of the com-
mon era. It would not be fair or accurate to say that
they are without analogues in the religious art of
their time and region. Eagles were used in religious
context by both Christians and Jews in Syria and
Palestine shortly before and during the seventh
century.155 The capitals with which we are con-
cerned on the Haram al-Sharif might have come
be dated to the Umayyad period, probably the eighth
century, but that it did continue in occupation until the
early Abbasid period, making the dating of the brazier
to the period before 750 not archaeologically and his-
torically certain. See also Robert Hillenbrand, Islamic
Art and Architecture (London, 1998), pp. 17–18 and
Fig. 4. I am grateful to Dr. Ghazi Bisheh for explaining
that the three inventory numbers for the object refer to
the arcaded panels, the frame, and the four nude fig-
ures on the top, respectively, and for conveying that the
object is soon (in 2011) to be transferred to the new
Jordan Museum in Amman. He also provided me with
a reference to drawings of the object in François
Villeneuve, Contribution Française à l’archéologie
Jordanienne (Amman, 1989), p. 130.
155 I have not made an effort to investigate the religious
structures of other religions in any thorough, much less
systematic, manner. The temple of the sun god at
ancient Emisa (Homs) in Syria had as its cult image a
stone rather than an anthropomorphic figure, and is
frequently represented as such on coins. At least one
coin, dating from the reign of Caracalla in the early
third century, superimposes a spread eagle upon the
stone, and sets it atop the stairs leading to the naos, so
that it is clearly associated with both an entrance and a
point of transition between less and more sacred areas;
see Price and Trell, Coins and their Cities (as above,
n. 131), pp. 169–170 and Fig. 296.
chapter 5
from secular structures, but it is likely that many if
not most came from churches, and some of these
churches bear comparison to the Dome of the
Rock complex in many respects. Perhaps most
intriguing among these takes us farther away from
Jerusalem and to Armenia, to the huge and impres-
sive church at Zvart’noc’,156 constructed only a
few  decades before the Dome of the Rock, most
likely following a rare type of tetraconch origi-
nated in and more commonly found in Syria and
northern Mesopotamia.157 Now in ruins, the great
church had four eagle capitals (Fig.  5.28), in this
case executed new for the church, and not taken
from an earlier building, so we can be certain that
their inclusion cannot be dismissed as a merely
accidental result of the use of earlier spolia. The
church apparently was constructed to mark
Armenia’s loyalty to the Roman Empire while both
were under attack from the Muslim armies, and
the church at Zuart’noc’ may in its unique form as
156 Christina Maranci, “Byzantium through Armenian
Eyes. Cultural Appropriation and the Church of
Zuart’noc’,” Gesta 40(2001), 105–124, and further on this
period, in this case focusing on the important church
at Mren, Christina Maranci, “Building Churches in
Armenia: Art at the Borders of Europe and the Edge of
the Canon,” Art Bulletin 88(2006), 656–675.
157 See W. Eugene Kleinbauer, “Zvart’nots and the Origins
of Christian Architecture in Armenia,” Art Bulletin
54(1972), 245–262, and the critical response to it in a
review by Friedrich Wilhelm Deichmann, in
Byzantinische Zeitschrift 66(1973), 211, which is gener-
ally positive and accepts the likely origin of the plan in
Syria or Mesopotamia rather than Constantinople, but
regards the argument that such buildings in general
were not primarily martyria as not proven. See also W.
Eugene Kleinbauer, “The Origin and Functions of the
Aisled Tetraconch Churches in Syria and Northern
Mesopotamia,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 27(1973),
89–114. It is noteworthy that what appears to have been
such a building of this tetraconch type in Aleppo sur-
vived into the Islamic period and was eventually incor-
porated into the communal mosque in the city, as a
madrasa (the Madrasa Hallawiya); see Michel
Écochard, “Note sur un edifice chrétien d’Alep,” Syria
27(1950), 270–283.
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
an aisled tetraconch be related to the imperial visit
by Constans ii with his army to the area in 653;
indeed, Eugene Kleinbauer emphasized that it was
intended “as a palace church of the katholikos of
Armenia, its builder Narses.”158 The comparison to
the Dome of the Rock, also an aisled domed build-
ing, is even more striking when one considers the
eagle capitals in their original location, one at
each of the corners around the central dome.
Two of them were arranged to appear from one of
the doors, here on the western entrance side,
opposite the direction of prayer, which is here on
the east instead of on the south, as in the Jerusalem
Islamic buildings. The association of eagles with
entrances is thus the same as in our Islamic group
of structures, on a near-contemporary domed
building with powerful connections with the ruler.
Two examples of mosaic eagles deserve to be
mentioned here, not because of their association
with rulers, since there is no such association, but
because of their association with entrances, as in
the case of the Dome of the Rock capitals and many
others of those preciously discussed. One of these
eagles is in the Church of Deacon Thomas, near Mt.
Nebo (Jordan), dating from roughly the mid-sixth
century.159 The church had a nave and two wide
aisles, and an almost square sanctuary raised by
two steps. It was decorated with mosaics through-
out, including a lion springing toward a bull at the
entrance from the nave, before the altar, and with a
158 Kleinbauer, “Zvart’nots and the Origins of Christian
Architecture in Armenia,” p. 249.
159 See Michele Piccirillo, Madaba, le chiese e i mosaici
(Milan, 1989), pp. 216–222. This eagle is also reproduced
in Rina Talgam, Mosaics of Faith: Floors of Pagans, Jews,
Samaritans, Christians, and Muslims in the Holy Land
(Jerusalem and University Park pa, 2014), p. 201,
Fig.  289, with a listing of several other eagles in
Christian churches of the sixth century, including one
at Khirbat Munyah-‘Asfur near Gerasa, in which the
eagle is the central element of the floor decoration
(Fig. 290). Talgam is very reticent about attributing any
symbolic significance to the motif even here, giving a
range of possible meanings, some specifically Christian
and some not so.
131
central lamb under the altar (subsequently covered
with a reliquary container). In the two aisles are
simpler geometrical “carpet” mosaics, except that
just inside the southern door, leading to the living
quarters, the carpet pattern is interrupted by a sin-
gle large roundel having a spread eagle inscribed
with A and W and the name of the donor ΘωΜΑ
ΔΙΑΚ (Thomas Deacon). Clearly associated here
with the donor, Michele Piccirillo linked this eagle
with blessings for life and hope for resurrection, as
in many other churches in the region. The second
example is in the remarkable church at Ghina,
southeast of Byblos/Jbayl in Lebanon, which was
built into the naos and pronaos of an existing
Roman temple.160 The earliest stage of construc-
tion apparently had a screen of columns and per-
haps some other structure resting on four small
piers erected before the opisthodomos wall of the
Roman temple, which became eventually the sanc-
tuary of the church. In a second stage, the area in
front of the sanctuary entrance was covered with a
raised platform, and it is here that appeared, in a
medallion at its center as the sole subject, an eagle
with outstretched wings, the largest figural motif in
the church. The association of the prominent
eagles with entrances or zones of transition before
the most sacred area again recalls the location of
the eagle capitals in the Dome of the Rock, on the
inner colonnade adjacent to the rock, and facing
entrances. This association appears to have been
common in the region at this period, in other
words, and Pauline Donceel-Voȗte also published
an eagle mosaic from the north church at Huwirta/
Huarte, with an eagle again on the threshold
160 Pauline Donceel-Voȗte, Les pavements des églises byzan-
tines de Syrie et du Liban: Décor, archéologie et liturgie
(2  vols.; Louvain-la-neuve, 1988), pp. 347–353 and
Figs. 334–338. The eagle is discussed especially on p. 351
and Fig.  335 with photograph and Fig.  338 showing
a  plan of the church, with the eagle isolated at the
entrance to the sanctuary on a raised podium. That
eagle iconography is also discussed by Henri Stern, “Sur
Quelques pavements paléo-Chrétiens du Liban,” Cahiers
archéologiques 15(1965), 21–37 at 35, who also discusses
the related lintel and mosaic in the synagogue at Jaffa.
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132
between nave and sanctuary, which Fowden terms
a “potent threshold.”161
A strong association between eagles and
entrances is found not only in churches. A signifi-
cant number of stone eagles, indeed eagle capitals,
are associated with doorways in synagogues of late
antique Palestine.162 A catalogue numbering forty-
one items was assembled in the unpublished the-
sis by Steven H. Werlin, a few of whose findings I
draw upon here, while hoping to see a published
version of his important paper in the near future.163
161 Fowden, Barbarian Plain, p. 154.
162 Jodi Magness, “The Date of the Sardis Synagogue in
Light of the Numismatic Evidence,” American Journal
of Archaeology 109(2005), 443–475, esp. 449 and Fig. 6
on the eagle supports for the table in the nave and
p. 449 note 24 for a list of eagles (and lions) in Palestinian
synagogues. I am deeply grateful for the generous help
of Jodi Magness at a critical stage in the development of
this research. As the Sardis example shows, eagles in
synagogues were not limited to Palestine, although the
concentration is greatest there, which might be due to
different rates of survival. For an earlier study of the
Sardis eagle, suggesting a much earlier date in the later
fourth or fifth century, see George M.A. Hanfmann and
William E. Mierse, eds., Sardis from Prehistoric to Roman
Times. Results of the Archaeological Exploration of
Sardis, 1958–1975 (Cambridge, ma and London, 1983), pp.
168–190, for the eagle table p. 170 and Figs.  256–258.
Hanfmann and Mierse reported (p. 170) that the eagle
table was a relatively late addition to the complex, since
it stood atop the mosaic floor, and thus postdates the
mid-fourth century date proposed for the mosaic. Most
recently on the Sardis eagles, and lions, see Lee I.
Levine, Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity. Historical
Contexts of Jewish Art (New Haven and London, 2012),
pp. 300–305, Fig. 107, noting that the eagles had a nota-
bly “prominent location in the center of the hall. . .[in]
close proximity to the table where the sacred Torah was
read,” which he deemed “baffling.”
163 Steven H. Werlin, “Eagle Imagery in Jewish Relief
Sculpture of late ancient Palestine: Survey and
Interpretation,” (M.A. Thesis, University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2006) (http://dc.lib.unc.edu/
cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/etd&CISOPTR
=646) (accessed 3/10/2011). The thesis was written
under the direction of Professor Magness. Some of the
items are catalogued as likely but not certainly from
chapter 5
Taking the capitals first, there is a broken eagle
capital, probably part of a Corinthian capital, from
the ed-Dikkeh synagogue in the western Golan,
dating probably to the second half of the fifth-
century,164 and a particularly interesting double
column capital with a spread eagle where the two
are joined, from the Umm al-Qanatir synagogue,
in the southern Golan, dated not earlier than the
fifth century, possibly from an aedicule or Torah
shrine.165 Perhaps the best known example is a
relief with an eagle at the center of a garland, on
the underside of the lintel on the main doorway of
the southern façade in the Gush Halav synagogue,
in Upper Galilee,166 often dated to the later third
a synagogue, or Jewish, for example a lintel with two
spread eagles biting serpents, flanking a central wreath
with lion head, from Safed; see Werlin “Eagle Imagery,”
catalogue no. 41, and Nahram Avigad, “Remains of
Ancient Jewish Art in Galilee,” Eretz-Israel 7(1944),
18–23, Fig. 1, Pl. 2: 1 and 2 [in Hebrew].
164 Werlin, “Eagle Imagery,” catalogue no. 12, basalt, photo-
graphed during survey in 1968 but subsequently lost or
stolen; see Zvi U. Maʻoz, Ancient Synagogues in the
Golan: Art and Architecture (Qazrin [Israel], 1995),
pl. 13.1 [in Hebrew].
165 Werlin, “Eagle Imagery,” catalogue no. 13 (now in the
Golan Archaeological Museum), discussed in Rachel
Hachlili, “Late antique Jewish art from the Golan,” in
John H. Humphrey, ed., The Roman and Byzantine Near
East: Some Archaeological Research, Journal of Roman
Archaeology Suppl. 14 (Ann Arbor, mi, 1995), pp. 183–212,
esp. 185–186 on eagles, no. 31 (now Golan Archaeological
Museum, no. 720). This capital is also reproduced in Zvi
Maʻoz, “The Art and Architecture of the Synagogues of
the Golan,” in Lee I. Levine, ed., Ancient Synagogues
Revealed (Jerusalem and Detroit, 1982), pp. 98–115 at 106.
166 Werlin, “Eagle Imagery,” catalogue no. 17. See Eric
M. Meyers, Carol L. Meyers, and James F. Strange,
Excavations at the Ancient Synagogue of Gush Halav
(Winona Lakes, il, 1990), p. 84, Fig. 25, Photo 40, and
E[rwin] R[amsdell] Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the
Greco-Roman Period (13 vols.; New York, 1953–1965), vol.
iii, Fig.  522, and Heinrich Kohl and Carl Watzinger,
Antike Synagogen in Galilaea, Wissenschaftliche
Veröffentlichung der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 29
(Leipzig, 1916; reprint Osnabrück, 1975), p. 15 and
Fig.  210. There is a sketch in Rachel Hachlili, Ancient
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
century but recently re-dated by Magness to the
late fifth century.167 Following previous scholars,
Steven Fine suggested that its presence, along with
the lion, is due to the eagle having been given
“uniquely Jewish interpretations,” but this is not
convincing, at least to me. Fine himself elsewhere
in the same volume interprets a mosaic eagle,
golden in color, from the synagogue mosaic at
Yafia near Nazareth in the Galilee, as a representa-
tion of the sun.168
Other examples of eagles in synagogues of the
late antique period are too numerous to list or
describe in detail, although several of them are
given remarkable prominence, as at the top of the
pediment on the main façade from the synagogue
at Chorazin, in eastern Galilee, north of
Capernaum, with a spread eagle posed as if flying
up (Fig. 5.29),169 one in the spandrel of a magnifi-
cently ornamented window with shell niche,170
and another with two spread eagles flanking a
Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Land of Israel (Leiden,
1988), Fig. 201, and in Meyers and Strange, Excavations
at the Ancient Synagogue of Gush Halav, Fig. 25.
167 Jodi Magness, “The Question of the Synagogue: The
Problem of Typology,” in Jacob Neusner and Alan J.
Avery-Peck, eds., Judaism in Late Antiquity, Part Three:
Where We Stand: Issues and Debates in Ancient Judaism,
vol. 4: The Special Problem of the Synagogue, Handbuch
der Orientalistik 49 (Leiden, 2001), p. 12.
168 Steven Fine, ed., Sacred Realm. The Emergence of the
Synagogue in the Ancient World (New York and Oxford,
1996), pp. 121–122, Fig.  5.19 (Gush Halav) and pl. xli
(Yafia), citing earlier literature for the latter in no. 67, p.
171. Some of the earliest Jewish coins, issued by the
Persian province of Yehud in the fourth century bce,
have an image of a spread eagle and the inscription
Yehud; there was an example on display in the Israel
Museum in Jerusalem in January 2012.
169 The synagogue is probably not earlier than the fifth cen-
tury; see Werlin, “Eagle Imagery,” catalogue no. 20, and
Ze’ev Yeivin, The Synagogue at Korazim. The 1962–1964,
1980–1987 Excavations, iaa Reports, no. 10 (Jerusalem,
2000), illustrations pp. 38–39, drawing p. 69 [in Hebrew].
170 Werlin, “Eagle Imagery,” catalogue no. 10, from de-
Dikke; see Kohl and Watzinger, Antike Synagogen in
Galilaea, pp. 116–117 and Figs. 229 and 230.
133
wreath on a lintel inscribed in Aramaic “…made
the gate” to emphasize the connection with
­passage at an important transitional point, and
call to remembrance of the donor and/or artist.171
Another lintel, from a rabbinic academy in Merot,
in the Galilee, has a composition very similar to
that on the Chorazin lintel, with two spread
eagles flanking a wreath, the eagles having been
deliberately defaced at a later time. A date in the
seventh century has been proposed for this lime-
stone lintel, which makes it very close in date to
the Islamic works in Jerusalem.172 The lintel’s
inscription from Deuteronomy 28:6, “blessed shall
you be when you arrive and blessed shall you be
when you depart” may not relate specifically to the
eagles, but certainly underscores the importance
of the placement on or around entrances as an
important theme, and one of blessing, good for-
tune, which is not in conflict with the theme of
victory suggested previously. The proliferation of
eagles on the synagogue at Capernaum, whose
date is controversial but according to recent schol-
arship seems more likely from the fifth or sixth
century than the fourth,173 deserves special
171 Now exhibited in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem;
Werlin, “Eagle Imagery,” catalogue no. 1, Fig. 1. See also
Rachel Hachlili, “Late antique Jewish art from the
Golan,” in Humphrey, Roman and Byzantine Near East
(as above, n. 164), pp. 183–212 at 199, no. 27, and Robert
C. Gregg and Dan Urman, Jews, Pagans and Christians
in the Golan Heights. Greek and Other Inscriptions of the
Roman and Byzantine Eras, South Florida Studies in the
History of Judaism 140 (Atlanta, 1996), p. 128, no. af
63p. On the importance of imagery on and around
doorways see Kitzinger, “Threshold of the Holy Shrine”
(as above, n. 116).
172 On display in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, iaa
1987–114, in January 2012.
173 See Magness, “The Question of the Synagogue,”
pp. 18–26. For an argument that the unusual building
was never a communal synagogue but a composite
made from spolia see Zvi Uri Ma’oz, “The synagogue at
Capernaum: a radical solution,” in Humphrey, Roman
and Byzantine Near East, pp. 137–148. For a recent
review of the question of dating, see Levine, Visual
Judaism, pp. 311–314, who is not convinced by the
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134
mention. That structure has an eagle on the lintel
over the central portal on the main façade,174
which like the eagles in the Dome of the Rock was
subsequently defaced, and a keystone with two
eagles holding a wreath tied with a Hercules
knot,175 and finally a remarkable frieze of eagles on
the interior.176 Of particular interest is the fact that
the synagogue is immediately adjacent to a
Christian octagonal building, associated with the
house of St. Peter, which has been cited by Oleg
Grabar as one of the most striking possible prece-
dents for the Dome of the Rock.177
Werlin discussed the famous passage in
Josephus’ Jewish War describing a large golden
eagle erected by Herod the Great in Jerusalem, and
un-traditional and later dating proposed by Magness
on archaeological and methodological grounds.
174 Werlin, “Eagle Imagery,” catalogue no. 21. See Kohl and
Watzinger, Antike Synagogen in Galilaea, p. 13 and
Figs.  17–18; Eleazar Lipa Sukenik, Ancient Synagogues
in  Palestine and Greece, The Schweich Lecture of the
British Academy (London, 1934), pp. 9–10, pl. iia; E.R.
Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman
Period (13 vols.; New York, 1953–1965), vol. iii, Fig. 459.
The synagogue was dated by Kohl and Watzinger in the
third century, an opinion followed by inter alia Yoram
Tsafrir, “The synagogue at Meroth, the synagogue at
Capernaum and the dating of the Galilean synagogues:
a reconsideration,” in Humphrey, Roman and Byzantine
Near East, pp. 151–161.
175 Werlin, “Eagle Imagery,” catalogue no. 23; see Sukenik,
Ancient Synagogues in Palestine and Greece pl. iiia, and
E.R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman
Period, vol. iii, Fig. 465.
176 Werlin, “Eagle Imagery,” catalogue no. 22; see Sukenik,
Ancient Synagogues in Palestine and Greece p. 17, pl. vb,
and Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman
Period, vol. iii, Fig. 475.
177 Grabar, Dome of the Rock, pp. 100–112, Fig.  35. See on
this building Beat Brenk, “Die Christianisierung des
jüdischen Stadtzentrums von Kapernaum,” in
Christopher Moss and Katherine Kiefer, eds., Byzantine
East, Latin West. Art-Historical Studies in Honor of Kurt
Weitzmann (Princeton, 1995), pp. 15–26, and Stanislao
Loffreda, Recovering Capharnaum (2nd ed.; Jerusalem,
1993).
chapter 5
subsequently destroyed as a religious affront.178
The location of that eagle is specified as over the
“great gate,” but scholars differ over whether this
signified the entrance to the Temple itself, or one
of the gates leading onto the Temple Mount. The
scholarly literature was analyzed and discussed by
Werlin, who reviewed the discussion of the mean-
ing of the eagle in previous scholarship. Some
thought it derived from ancient near eastern reli-
gious conceptions, while some understood it
instead as a deliberate attempt to show Herod’s
loyalty to Rome through display of a sign com-
monly used and associated with Rome, at least by
the Romans.179 Herod the Great also produced
coins, in bronze and apparently intended for wide
circulation, with an eagle on the reverse, whose
meaning is also controversial but whose existence
is important for understanding the iconography of
eagles in later antiquity.180 Following E.R.
Goodenough and some earlier scholars, Werlin
associated the Herodian eagles, on coins and on
the Temple Mount, with Hellenistic conceptions
of the solar divinity, and believed that Herod
178 H. St. J. Thackeray, trans., Josephus, The Jewish War Book
i–ii (Cambridge, ma and London, 1927), p. 309 (Book i,
649–650). The same passage is repeated with minor
changes in the Antiquities of the Jews; see Ralph Marcus,
trans. (completed and ed. by Allen Wikgren), Josephus.
Jewish Antiquities Books xvi–xvii (Cambridge, ma and
London, 1963), p. 235 (Book xvii, 151–152).
179 Werlin, “Eagle Imagery,” pp. 90–114. For a relatively
recent published discussion with earlier literature see
Peter Richardson, Herod: King of the Jews Friend of the
Romans (Minneapolis, 1996), pp. 17–18.
180 See for a recent image and discussion Ya-akov Meshorer,
A Treasury of Jewish Coins: From the Persian Period to
Bar Kokhba (Jerusalem and Nyack, ny, 2001), pp. 66–69,
pl. 46 showing three variant types; in all of these the
eagle is in profile not spread. On these coins see also
Levine, Visual Judaism, pp. 49–51 and Fig.  21. On the
earlier “Yehud” coins that began to appear in the fourth
century bce, during the Persian period and continued
well into the Hellenistic, and which used images of
eagles along with owls, lilies, heads in profile and fron-
tal, and even a seated figure accompanied by a bird, see
Levine, Visual Judaism, pp. 32–34 and Figs. 7–9.
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
would have seen it as an appropriate religious
image on the Temple. If correct, religious content
would help explain its widespread presence in
later synagogues, where a philo-Roman reference
makes little sense. In his concluding discussion of
Jewish literary sources, Werlin concluded that the
eagles in late antique synagogues had religious
significance, and “it seems probable that the
eagle-symbol was understood as a servant of God,
i.e., a form of angel.”181
Birds as Messengers
Angels are messengers, and it is interesting that
birds can also function as messengers in early
Islam. For the religious significance of eagles in
early Islam, one must look first to the Qurʾan, of
course, where I have found no evidence that eagles
are anywhere specifically cited, as is the specific
bird (al-hudhud) usually translated as “hoopoe” in
Sura 27 (“the Ant”).182 Birds of unspecified type
appear in a number of places in the Qurʾan. In Sura
27, the context is important. This passage is the
well-known section in which Solomon calls
together his army of jinns and birds, and notes that
the hoopoe is missing. When the hoopoe returns,
it reveals that it has been far away observing the
181 Werlin, “Eagle Imagery,” p. 155. Levine, Visual Judaism,
p. 51 takes a different view, and thinks that Herod pri-
marily had Rome in mind with his eagle imagery, and
Levine makes a distinction between the image on
coins, which had been in circulation in the area before,
and which apparently were deemed acceptable, and
the large eagle in the Temple precinct, which was
noticed and found intolerable.
182 “Hoopoe” is the rendering in A.J. Arberry, trans., The
Koran Interpreted (London, 1955), p. 78 and in The Holy
Qurʾan. English translation of the meanings and
Commentary, rev and ed. by The Presidency of Islamic
Researches, (ifta al-Madinah al-Munawarah.: The
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd
Complex, 1413 ah/1992 ce), p. 1095; “lapwing” is the ren-
dering in N.J. Dawood, The Koran (5th rev. ed.:
Harmondsworth, 1990), p. 266.
135
Queen of Sheba, and the passage continues with
the miraculous transport of her throne to
Solomon’s court, and then the queen’s arrival and
conversion to the worship of Solomon’s god. So the
themes of Solomon, the throne as an attribute of
authority, and of conversion are all present here
and connected with birds, if apparently with a bird
other than an eagle. The connection of birds with
Solomon recurs in Sura 21 (“the Prophets”), specifi-
cally in the context of judgment and wisdom:
“And tell of David and Solomon: how they passed
judgment regarding the cornfield in which strayed
lambs had grazed by night. We gave Solomon
insight into the case and bore witness to their
judgement [sic]. We bestowed on both of them
wisdom and knowledge, and caused the moun-
tains and the birds to join with David in Our
praise.”183
Another intriguing passage that might be related
to the eagle capitals in the dome of the Rock is in
Sura 67 (“Sovereignty”), whose conventional
Arabic title (al-mulk) makes a connection not only
with the themes suggested here around
rulership,184 but also with the specific language of
ʿAbd al-Malik’s inscriptions in mosaic and on the
metal plaques, especially in the area around the
eastern door. The Sura begins “Blessed be He in
Whose hands is Dominion, and He over all things
hath Power,”185 then speaks of the coming judg-
ment and the men who rejected the warnings they
had been given, asking in verse 19: “Do they not
observe the birds among them, Spreading their
wings and folding them in? None can uphold them
except the Most Gracious.”186 That the birds are
above, and with wings outstretched, at least fits
183 Dawood, Koran, p. 232.
184 See the discussion and the Arabic title as given in The
Holy Qurʾan, p. 1780.
185 The Holy Qurʾan, p. 1781; Dawood, Koran, p. 399; Arberry,
Koran Interpreted, p. 290.
186 The Holy Qurʾan, p. 178; Dawood, Koran, p. 400; Arberry,
Koran Interpreted, p. 291.
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136
well with the eagle capitals in the Dome of the
Rock, even if it cannot be said to be a text illus-
trated by those birds, or that the birds are explained
entirely by the text. Perhaps most intriguing of the
Qurʾanic passages concerning birds occurs in the
very brief Sura 105 (“the Elephant”), brief enough
to be quoted here in full, in the translation by
Michael Sells:
“In the Name of God the Compassionate the Caring
Did you not see how your lord
dealt with the people of the elephant
Did he not turn their plan astray
Did he not send against them birds of prey,
in swarms
raining down stones of fire
making them like blasted fields of corn.”
Sells discusses the term that he renders as “birds of
prey, in swarms” (tayran ababil), noting that where
some other scholars have suggested “horses” for
the sense, in his view “birds of prey” is more liter-
ally accurate. Other translations do have “birds”
here, and the context is again battle, birds hurled
against an enemy, who is defeated.187 This Sura is
commonly interpreted as referring to the invasion
of the Hijaz and attack on Mecca by the king of
Ethiopia that took place in 570, around the time of
the birth of the Prophet Muhammad.188
In the few decades before the eagle capitals
were installed in the Dome of the Rock, birds
likely understood to be eagles also appeared on
the earliest “Umayyad Imperial Image Coinage.”
In his recent study of these earliest Islamic coins,
Tony Goodwin published several examples based
on the Roman imperial “standing emperor” type
187 Michael Sells, Approaching the Qurʾan. The Early
Revelations (Ashland, or, 1999), pp. 120–121. Dawood,
Koran, p. 432, has “flocks of birds” but does not term
them specifically birds of prey, and Arberry, Koran
Interpreted, p. 350 similarly has “birds in flight” without
specifying what kind of birds, and The Holy Qurʾan has
“flights of birds.”
188 Dawood, Koran, p. 432; The Holy Qur-an, p. 2012.
chapter 5
used by Emperor Constans ii (641–668), in which
the standing central figure held a cross in his right
hand and a globus cruciger in his left, a type cur-
rent in the mid-seventh century. The earliest
Arab-Byzantine coins of this type, datable roughly
to the 670s, carry a mint mark for the first time,
along with meaningful inscriptions (in Greek and/
or Arabic), and closely follow the imperial proto-
types. According to his analysis, it is only with the
appearance of coins minted at the caliphal capital
of Damascus that the birds appear, at the standing
ruler figure’s right hand (viewer’s left), apparently
on a T-shaped stand or perch (Fig.  5.25).189
Goodwin dated these coins with birds to “the 680s,
perhaps shortly after the accession of ʿAbd al-
Malik in 685, and [in his view the type] lasted for a
period of probably no longer than five years.”190
This period lasts, in other words either immedi-
ately before or during the construction of the
Dome of the Rock. The appearance of the bird is
unparalleled in earlier or later coinage. Goodwin
terms it “an entirely new symbol,” and says that its
origin is unknown, but that it has been interpreted
as an eagle or a falcon on a perch.191 Clearly in
189 Tony Godwin, Arab-Byzantine Coinage, Studies in the
Khalili Collection 4 (London, 2005), pp. 36–37, nos. 19, 20,
22 and 23. In a slightly earlier work, co-authored with
Stephen Album, these coins were listed as from the not-
precisely-located “pseudo-Damascus mint”, and the dat-
ing range is discussed more fully, including the view of
Bates that these coins may date to the early eighth cen-
tury; see Album and Goodwin, The Pre-Reform Coinage
of the Early Islamic Period (as above, n. 147), p. 87.
190 Goodwin, Arab-Byzantine Coinage, p. 19.
191 Goodwin, Arab-Byzantine Coinage, p. 20 and note 24.
Oddy, “Arab Imagery on Early Umayyad Coins” (above,
n. 148), 59-66 the coin from the American Numismatic
Society collection (Inv. No. 1972.161.15), whose mint ori-
gin is uncertain, being Pl. 19, 14. After noting that the bird
was interpreted as an eagle by John Walker, A Catalogue
of the Arab-Byzantine and Post-Reform Umaiyad Coins,
A  Catalogue of Muhammadan Coins in the British
Museum 2 (London, 1956), Oddy suggested instead that
since some of the coins appear to show the bird perching
on the standing figure’s left arm instead of perched to his
right, that these and presumably all represent falcons.
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
these coins the bird, commonly interpreted as an
eagle by previous scholars, has something to do
with the caliph’s character and power, and it seems
unlikely that its appearance at the same time and
place as the eagle capitals of the Dome of the
Rock, and with the same explicitly caliphal con-
nection, could be merely a coincidence.192
One might possibly suggest a connection
between the presence of eagle capitals in the
Dome of the Rock and the fundamental Islamic
interpretation of the building current for many
centuries. I refer to the association of the building
with the Prophet Muhammad’s Night Journey to
Jerusalem, and his ascent to heaven, the miʿraj.193
In the common accounts, and illustrations, the
Prophet Muhammad rides a miraculous winged
horse, Buraq, to heaven, not an eagle, but eagles
are in Roman traditions closely linked with the
ascent to Heaven, and even portrayed as such,
including in triumphal contexts, such as the base
of the triumphal Column of Antoninus Pius, or on
the soffit of the vault of the triumphal Arch of
Titus, best known for its reliefs showing that
emperor returning to Rome with the booty taken
from Jerusalem and its Temple.194 The late antique
192 Odd “coincidences” can never be ruled out. I am not at
all sure how to understand the appearance of similar
standing figures with cross and prominent bird (albeit
on the opposite side of the figure) in some Anglo-
Saxon sceattas, which have been compared to, and pos-
sibly derived from, the Arab-Byzantine coins; see Anna
Gannon, The Iconography of Early Anglo-Saxon
Coinage. Sixth to Eighth Centuries (Oxford, 2003), pp.
95–95 and Fig.  3.20. I am extremely grateful to Emily
Kierkegaard for having brought these remarkable coins
to my attention. Oddy, “Arab Imagery on Early Umayyad
Coins” (as above, n. 148) suggested that the bird might
represent a falcon rather than an eagle, and refer to
hunting with falcons.
193 Discussed briefly by Grabar, Dome of the Rock, pp. 7 and
140–153, who assigned the earliest sources for this
interpretation to the eleventh century.
194 Eagles associated with the apotheosis of Roman
emperors, see Penelope J.E. Davies, Death and the
Emperor. Roman Imperial Funerary Monuments from
Augustus to Marcus Aurelius (Cambridge, 2000),
137
imperial cult room installed within the ancient
Egyptian temple at Luxor has a prominent eagle,
with outstretched wings and holding a wreath, in
the apse above the standing figures of the four
Tetrarchic emperors.195 The motif of ascension to
heaven by rulers becomes common in the medi-
eval tradition, most commonly associated with
Alexander, borne by griffins.196 The beast of bur-
den varies, to be sure, and in some cases, to be
addressed in the following chapter, may be a pea-
cock rather than an eagle. In all cases the eagles
are depicted in a vertical position, as if rising, and
in the case of at least one of the capitals in the
Dome of the Rock the bird is evidently flying, while
in one case from the Aqsa mosque Wilkinson
described the eagle as carrying another creature,
which he termed a “fledgeling” [sic]. Our sources
do not permit anything here beyond the recogni-
tion of a pattern, and in any event scarcely a sur-
prising one, given the strong associations of domed
buildings with heaven and with ascension to it.
Eagles, Censers, Censing and Anointing
Another issue should be raised that may bear upon
the presence of eagle capitals in the Dome of the
Rock. The Freer Gallery of Art in Washington has a
remarkable object of uncertain date, origin, prov-
enance and function (Fig. 5.30). It is catalogued in
the museum’s holdings of Islamic metalwork as
pp. 19–24 and Fig. 13 on the Arch of Titus, and pp. 40–42
and163–164 and Fig.  33 for Antoninus Pius’ column
base.
195 See Beat Brenk, The Apse, the Image and the Icon An
Historical Perspective of the Apse as a Space for Images,
Spätantike – Frühes Christentum – Byzanz, ser. B:
Studien und Perspektiven, 26 (Wiesbaden, 2010), p. 43
and Fig. 44, with earlier bibliography. It is interesting to
note that the apse is carried on two spoliated
columns!
196 See Victor M. Schmidt, A Legend and its Image. The
Aerial Flight of Alexander the Great in Medieval Art
(Groningen, 1995).
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138
number 1, and termed a “stand with four eagles.”197
It is of solid cast and chased silver, and has four
eagles equally spaced around a circular object
with broad flat ring at the bottom, on which they
perch, and a tubular circle at the top resting on
four vertical shafts. It is thus circular above and
octagonal below, like the Dome of the Rock. It is
tentatively attributed to Iran in the museum’s cat-
alogue, largely because of the strong association of
silver with Sasanian tradition, but there are com-
parisons, none of them particularly close, also in
Egypt, Anatolia and elsewhere, including the
Roman world. A single eagle, very close indeed in
style and workmanship and scale, in the Brooklyn
Museum,198 may stem from a second object of like
design. The iconography is analogous to the four
eagle capitals around the dome at Zvart’noc’
(Fig.  5.28). What might the connection be, and
what might the function of the Freer stand have
been?
In a previous study I advanced the hypothesis
that the silver stand was made to serve as a censer,
or perhaps some part of a censer, or a stand for a
censer.199 Obviously it cannot be a complete c­ enser,
197 Esin Atil, W.T. Chase and Paul Jett, Islamic Metalwork in
the Freer Gallery of Art (Washington, d.c., 1985), no. 1,
pp. 55–57. I am very grateful to Massumeh Farhad for
permitting me to examine this object. At the Second
Biennial conference of the Historians of Islamic Art
Association, at the Freer and Sackler in October 2010,
I  conducted a workshop devoted to the object, again
with the kind permission of Dr. Farhad, and I would
also like to thank the twenty participants in the work-
shop for their suggestions. I cannot name them all
­individually, but I particularly remember the helpful
comments from Jonathan Bloom, Barry Flood and Eva
Hoffman. I am particularly grateful for the participa-
tion and comments of Paul Jett, the distinguished con-
servator at the Freer.
198 Atil et al., Islamic Metalwork, p. 57, Fig.  19. I am very
grateful to Ladan Akbarnia for making it possible for
me to examine this object.
199 Lawrence Nees, “A Silver ‘Stand’ with Eagles in the
Freer Gallery,” Ars Orientalis 42 (2012), 219–228, with
illustrations of some objects not reproduced here and
additional discussion.
chapter 5
for there is no container in which the incense
could have been placed. If it is or was a censer, it
would need to have had something set inside it,
most likely a bowl of copper or conceivably glass
or ceramic.200 The possibility that this object
might be a censer is strongly supported by analogy
with Roman Christian censers of roughly the same
time and place. Among the most magnificent of
these is the beautiful example from the Sion
Treasure (Fig.  5.31), in northwest Syria, probably
datable to the sixth century, now on display at
Dumbarton Oaks, also in Washington.201 The Sion
Treasure has supports in the form of peacocks
rather than eagles, in this case three of them rather
than four, but also arranged facing outwards, with
spread tails.
The presence of the corner birds on the Freer
stand (Fig.  5.30) is reminiscent of the already
mentioned brazier from al-Fudayn, which as it
turns out has the best available comparison for
200 One of a large class of silver censers in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York, from the Attarouthi
Treasure, part of the now dispersed Kaper Koraon
Treasure, also from northern Syria and datable to the
sixth or seventh century, from a small village church
not far from Hama (ancient Emesa) shows just such an
inner liner as the Freer example might have had, and
lost, here in copper. See Helen C. Evans, in William
D. Wixom, ed., Mirror of the Medieval World (New York,
1999), no. 46, pp. 37–38, pl. 46. The treasure contained
three such silver censers with copper interior liners.
The treasure also included a silver dove, with out-
stretched and removable wings, which hung over the
altar, as is attested in several textual sources.
201 See Susan Boyd and Marlia Mundell Mango, eds.,
Ecclesiastical Silver Plate in Sixth Century Byzantium
(Washington, d.c., 1992), no. 18, Fig. S18.1 (before resto-
ration) and S18.2 (after restoration); see for color plate
after restoration Gudrun Bühl, ed., Dumbarton Oaks,
The Collections (Washington, d.c., 2008), pp. 96–97,
and with other objects from the same hoard pp. 90–91.
More generally on sixth-seventh century Byzantine sil-
ver censers see Dora Piguet-Panayotova, “Three hexag-
onal decorated silver censers and their artistic
environment,” Münchener Jahrbuch der bildenden
Kunst, 3rd ser. 49(1998), 7–34.
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
the form of the rather ungainly and heavy-beaked
eagles, with an expression somewhere between
squawking and smirking.202 This comparison also
supports the hypothesis that the Freer item could
be related to censing, either as a censer itself or
perhaps as a stand in which a censer could be put
when not in use. We have, indeed, a significant
number of censers, in varying forms and materi-
als, if not necessarily made in the Islamic period
or for a specifically Islamic function, then appar-
ently in use during the Islamic period. A stone
censer from the citadel in Amman has four corner
columns around a domed central chamber, with
something tantalizingly unidentifiable, at least to
me, atop each of the columns.203 An eighth or
ninth-century copper alloy censer also in the
Freer Gallery has an architectural form, a dome
surrounded by four smaller domes on the top, and
atop each of the smaller dome were eagles, two of
which survive and two of which are broken off
(Fig. 5.31).204 The association of eagles with cen-
sers and domes turns out to be a very common
one in the early Islamic period.205 A bronze cen-
ser from Egypt has a single eagle on the top,206
although it is possible that this one was made for
202 Ballian, in Evans, Byzantium and Islam, no. 143 (as
above, n.124). The brazier was published by Hillenbrand,
Islamic Art and Architecture, Fig.  54, and by Garth
Fowden, Qusayr ʿAmra. Art and the Umayyad Elite in
Late Antique Syria (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London,
2004), pp. 77–78 and Fig. 27.
203 Amman, Jordan Archaeological Museum, Inv. No.
J 1663; see Bisheh, The Umayyads (as above, n. 151),
pp. 69–70 (with illustration) and 133–134 on the site.
204 Atil, Chase and Jett, Islamic Metalwork in the Freer
Gallery of Art, no. 2, pp. 58–61, and also Fig. 20, showing
a bronze incense burner attributed to ninth-century
Egypt now in the Louvre, no. E 11708.
205 Almut von Gladiss, “Der frühislamische Bronzeguss.
Tierbronzen in unterschiedlicher Funktion,” in Michael
Brandt, Bild und Bestie. Hildesheimer Bronzen der
Stauferzeit (Regensburg, 2008), pp. 29–42.
206 Paris, Musée du Louvre, E 11798, reproduced in Atil,
Chase and Jett, Islamic Metalwork in the Freer Gallery of
Art, p. 59, Fig.  20. On this censer see L’Islam dans les
collections nationales (Paris, 1977), no. 19.
139
and used in a Coptic Christian, rather than an
Islamic, context. Indeed, as one looks in detail, it
becomes increasingly difficult to assign objects
with certainty to one confessional tradition or the
other; the borders were clearly fluid, and not only
between Islamic and Christian art. A bronze tri-
partite censer now in the Brooklyn Museum,
probably from Egypt and attributed to (approxi-
mately and uncertainly!) the fifth century, has an
openwork cup atop a tall tripod stand, with a row
of small birds circling the top; their species is not
clear, and it would not be judicious to term them
eagles. The inscription in “a crude, almost unintel-
ligible Greek” appears to be a later addition to the
bowl; that this added inscription is preceded by
a seven-branched menorah, strongly suggests that
even if not originally manufactured for use in a
Jewish context, it was at some early point used in
one.207 Incense was associated with worship in
207 Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, no.
41.684. See Steven Fine, ed., Sacred Realm. The
Emergence of the Synagogue in the Ancient World (New
York and Oxford 1996), pp. 155–156, Fig. 4.18 and cat. 2,
and most recently Lawrence Nees, “L’odorat fait-il sens?
Quelques réflexions autour de l’encens de l’Antiquité
tardive au haut Moyen-Âge,” Cahiers de civilisation
médiévale 56(2013), 451–471 at 461 and Fig. 6. See on the
inscription William Horbury and David Noy, eds.,
Jewish Inscriptions of Graeco-Roman Egypt (Cambridge,
1992), pp. 225–226. Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and
Jewish Society, 200. b.c.e to 640 c.e. (Princeton and
Oxford, 2001), p. 256 and note 43, says that incense “was
apparently burned in some synagogues,” but provides
no reference other than to Fine’s discussion (which he
sharply criticizes) of the Brooklyn censer. I am very
grateful to Ann Russman and Ladan Akbarnia at the
Brooklyn Museum for providing information about
this object, and to Dr. Russman in particular for send-
ing photographs and transcriptions from the museum’s
files. One anonymous note observes that the “meno-
rah” strongly suggests a seven-branched candlestick,
although it “may be a simple ‘tree of life’.” The content
of the inscription, a dedication in fulfillment of a vow
by Auxanon invoking blessings on Kleanthes and
Chariton, is not identifiable as Jewish, but the form of
the “menorah” is so like this very common symbol dis-
played in late antique contexts that the Jewish
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140
the Jerusalem temple, and whether or not used in
the synagogue liturgy in pre-and early-Islamic
Palestine, it was at least alluded to by the exis-
tence of bronze censer shovels unearthed at sites
outside Jerusalem,208 and through cultic images
with representation not of censers but of incense
shovels in the synagogue mosaic from Beth Shean
A which also includes images of menorah, shofar,
and temple and/or Torah shrine.209
Incense was widely used in ancient and late
antique religious practices,210 but it may surprise
some readers to learn, as it certainly surprised
me,211 that we have a number of reports that
describe the ritual anointing of the Rock in
Jerusalem in the Umayyad period,212 with a special
association seems far the most likely interpretation.
For two very recently published, and closely compara-
ble examples, from Malta, see Mario Buhagiar, “The
Jewish Catacombs of Roman Melite,” The Antiquaries
Journal 91(2011), 73–100, at Figs.  7, 17–19, 22, and 26.
There is another example of a bronze censer said to
come from Beth Shean in the Israel Museum in
Jerusalem (iaa 1962–343), this one with an attachment
for a chain so that it could be swung; the nature of the
imagery, if it is imagery, on the four sides is not clear to
me, nor the basis for associating it with the synagogue.
208 Hershel Shanks, Jerusalem’s Temple Mount from
Solomon to the Golden Dome (New York, 2007).
209 Fine, Sacred Realm, pl. xxxvi.
210 See for a recent overview with earlier literature Nees,
“L’odorat fait-il sens?”.
211 On incense and censers in early Islamic religious con-
texts, including one with figural decoration, see Nina
Ergin, “The fragrance of the Divine: Ottoman Incense
Burners and their Context,” Art Bulletin 96(2014), 70–97
at 73, a very rich study focused on the Ottomans but
also reviewing early Islamic practices, especially the
hadith literature and the importance of scent. Ergin
cited one text relating that Caliph ʿUmar “brought to
Medina a censer he had acquired in Syria – probably an
object originally intended for a Syrian Christian
church, as it had figural decoration. He then had his cli-
ent ʿAbdullah carry the censer in front of him when
going to prayer during the holy month of Ramadan,
and he had him burn incense in the mosque while he
sat on the pulpit (minbar).”
212 Andreas Kaplony, “635/638–1099: The Mosque of
Jerusalem (Masjid Bayt al-Maqdis),” in Oleg Grabar and
chapter 5
guild appointed out to execute this rite, and asso-
ciated with that in the same text is the use of gold
and silver censers in the Dome of the Rock:213
“Every Monday and Thursday the gate-keepers
(al-sadan) used to melt musk (misk) ambergris
(ʿanbar), rose water (maʾward) and saffron
(zaʾfaran) and to prepare with it [a kind of per-
fume] called ghaliya, with rose water made of the
(red) roses of Jur. This mixture is left overnight [so
it will become good]. Every morning on the above
mentioned…rub the Sakhra over with the perfume
(khaluq). Then the incense is put in censers of
Benjamin Z. Kedar, eds., Where Heaven and Earth Meet:
Jerusalem’s Sacred Esplanade (Jerusalem, 2009),
pp. 100–131 at 124–125. Is it worth speculating about the
containers for the oil, from which it is poured? The
eagle form is used for both censers and pouring vessels,
and it seems plausible to imagine that they were used
in conjunction with one another, whether in secular of
religious contexts.
213 Amikam Elad, “Why did ʿAbd al-Malik build the Dome
of the Rock? A Re-examination of the Muslim Sources,”
in Raby and Johns, Bayt al-Maqdis (as in n. 16), pp. 33–58,
translates a section, and analyzes this text from two
manuscripts, (London bl Add 23,277, fols. 2v–3r and
Oxford Bodl. Ms. March 289, fols. 153v–155v), the Mir’at
al-Zaman by Sib ibn al-Jawzi (1186–1256), the Bodleian
ms alone giving the author’s sources, the earliest being
Muhammad ibn al-Sa’ib (d. 146/763). The text is rich
with information, including the statement that before
ʿAbd al-Malik built the Dome of the Rock “he built a
treasury, to the east of the Dome [of the Rock] and
filled it with money. He ordered Raja’ [ibn Haywa] and
Yazid [ibn Salam] to spend the money lavishly. The
building [of the Haram] was completed (p. 35)”.
The passage quoted here was cited by Alain George,
“Calligraphy, Colour and Light in the Blue Qurʾan,”
Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 11(2009), 75–125, p. 106 and
note 157 at length, and by Julian Raby, “In Vitro Veritas.
Glass pilgrim vessels from 7th-century Jerusalem,” in
Jeremy Johns, ed., Bayt al-Maqdis. Jerusalem and Early
Islam, Oxford Studies in Islamic Art ix, Part 2 (Oxford,
1999), pp. 113–190, who also gives another translation at
171, citing Guy Le Strange, Palestine Under the Moslems;
a Description of Syria and the Holy Land from a.d. 650 to
1500, translated from the works of the mediaeval Arab
geographers (London, 1890).
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
gold and silver, inside of which there is an Indian
odoriferous wood…”
Incense was an Arabian product and commodity,
both consumed and exported in large quantities,
as one of the bases of the wealth of Mecca. We
have references to three precious objects allegedly
hanging in the Dome of the Rock during the time
of ʿAbd al-Malik, including a crown and a fabulous
pearl, and we also have references to gifts of
swords, thrones, crowns, precious jewels and
unspecified “vessels” being regularly sent to Mecca
and the Kaʿba.214 Although to the best of my
knowledge we have no other references to such
objects in Jerusalem save for the gold and silver
censers, it seems likely that there would have been
other precious objects there as well, at least during
the early Umayyad period. I would definitely not
claim that in the Freer stand one of those silver
censers used in Jerusalem has survived, but I
would go so far as to say that we may have some-
thing that reflects their form and iconography,215
and thereby one way of understanding the instal-
lation of eagle capitals in the Dome of the Rock,
and the presence of eagles on so many early
Islamic censers. Insofar as I have been able to dis-
cover, scholars have treated the texts concerning
censing of the site without any consideration of
the extant censers from the period. We have few
texts and few images, and perhaps they should be
brought together. In such a context the appear-
ance of eagles in the Dome of the Rock and else-
where on the Haram is far less surprising. Made for
pagan Roman secular and Christian religious con-
texts from the second to the fifth century, and
installed in a great imperial Islamic monument,
the Dome of the Rock, at the end of the seventh
century, the eagle capitals, and the crosses in
214 Nasser Rabbat, “The Dome of the Rock Revisited: Some
Remarks on al-Wasiti’s Accounts,” Muqarnas 19 [Essays
in Honor of Oleg Grabar] (1993), 66–75 at 71.
215 As previously noted Ergin, “Fragrance of the Divine,” at
73 mentions a censer with figural decoration, and
assumes that it must therefore have been made for a
Syrian Christian church.
141
wreaths, became unacceptable at some point, and
at that point needed to be defaced. Also at some
point, perhaps associated with this defacement,
the rite of anointing and censing the rock also
ceased to be practiced. I have no idea when the
censing and anointing ended, but perhaps it is
possible to say something more about when the
eagles were defaced.
The Crusader period saw a transformation and
re-use of both the Dome of the Rock and the Aqsa
Mosque, which became known as the Templum
Domini and the Templum Salomonis respectively.
During this period some new capitals were created
and installed, in the Romanesque style, sharing
many features with the spoliated late Roman capi-
tals in the buildings on the Haram al-Sharif.
A significant number of these capitals contain fig-
ures, human and demonic masks, lions, rams, and
eagles.216 The figured capitals occur in both the
Dome of the Rock, on the portal to the Well of
Souls, and also in the Aqsa Mosque, on both the
Dikka and the Mihrab of Saladin. Jaroslav Folda
described the portal in the Dome of the Rock as
having “in the lintel panel of the tympanum, [in]
the upright acanthus design…the partial wings of
two birds or angels now missing.”217 In the Aqsa
mosque, one of the capitals of the dikka, the south-
west corner abacus, has the head only of an eagle,
which appears to be descending; this head is well
preserved, and shows no sign of an attempt to erase
it.218 One of the two capitals on the Mihrab of
Saladin, on the west, has a large eagle with out-
stretched wings set in the middle of one side
(Fig. 5.32),219 between the volutes, in a composition
216 See Jaroslav Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy
Land 1098–1187 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 441–456, with
extensive discussion and earlier literature.
217 Folda, Art of the Crusaders, p. 451, Figs. 10a and 10b. To
me, these wings are not visible in the photograph.
218 Folda, Art of the Crusaders, p. 451 and Fig. 10.13q.
219 Folda, Art of the Crusaders, p. 451 and Fig. 10.14c. On this
work see also Helmut Buschhausen, Die süditalienische
Bauplastik im Königreich Jerusalem von König Wilhelm
ii. bis Kaiser Friedrich ii., Österreichische Akademie der
Wissenschaften, Phil.-Hist. Klasse, Denkschriften 108
(Vienna, 1978), pls. 82, 84, 85.
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142
that compares at least in general terms with one of
the capitals formerly at the entrance to the Aqsa
mosque, Wilkinson’s no. 18 (Figs. 5.18 and 5.19)., and
two of those in the Dome of the Rock, Wilkinson’s
nos. 58 and 59 (Figs. 5.11 and 5.13). This relationship
is unlikely to be a coincidence, and strongly sug-
gests that whether or not they had already been
damaged, the eagle capitals in both great early
Islamic buildings on the Haram al-Sharif in
Jerusalem were noticed, indeed studied and emu-
lated, in the twelfth century.220 Moreover, that the
figural, and eagle, capitals, were spoliated after the
Muslim reconquest of the city, and re-used in a dif-
ferent but prestigious context, and with some of
the figural features preserved rather than effaced,
is startling confirmation that, at least in Jerusalem,
figural images in this manner could be tolerated in
an Islamic religious structure, the “iconoclasm”
occurring only in the later medieval or early
modern period. The installation of an unambigu-
ous, and not defaced, eagle capital in the mihrab
of the Aqsa mosque (Fig.  5.33) associated with
the conqueror Salah-ad-Din, who re-established
Islamic worship in Jerusalem, may even suggest
that the connection of such imagery with rulers
was still understood and maintained.221 Deter­
mining exactly when and why the capitals were
defaced is unknown, and perhaps unknowable. It
might be considered that the mid-fourteenth cen-
tury, when ʿAlaʾ al-Din Abu al-Hasan “composed a
poem (qasida) whose verses blatantly condemn a
number of the rituals held in Jerusalem which
related to the Holy Rock and other places on the
Haram,” could provide a plausible, if surprisingly
220 Folda, Art of the Crusaders, p. 596, n. 186, notes that
there were eagle capitals from the same workshop
found at Latrun, and then taken to Istanbul. He reports
that Buschhausen, Die süditalienische Bauplastik,
pp. 59–85, pls. 1–21 dated these to the thirteenth cen-
tury, but Folda himself has proposed a dating in the
period before 1187; see Burgoyne and Folda, review of
Buschhausen, in Art Bulletin 63(1981), p. 324, Fig. 3.
221 Folda, Art of the Crusaders, p. 473, for discussion and
sources.
chapter 5
late, ­context.222 Deter­mining when such damage
might have occurred is, of course, very difficult.
Wilkinson assumed,223 as did I at least initially,
that the damage was done when the more “puri-
tanical” Abbasids “restored” the Dome of the Rock
in the ninth century, and replaced the name of the
builder Caliph ʿAbd a­ l-Malik with the name of the
Abbasid Caliph al-Maʾmun. Several scholars have
suggested, during discussions with me after presen-
tation of some of this material as a lecture, that the
later medieval period, perhaps the fourteenth cen-
tury is a likely time for the destruction to have
taken place.224 One support for this idea is the text
by ­al-Maqrizi,225 which is the first recorded notice
mentioning the existence of figural imagery in
222 Discussed, and the quotation from, Amikam Elad,
“Pilgrims and Pilgrimage to Jerusalem during the Early
Muslim Period,” in Lee I. Levine, Jerusalem. Its Sanctity
and Centrality to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (New
York, 1999), pp. 300–314, at 303, and see his Medieval
Jerusalem and Islamic Worship, pp. 61–62.
223 Wilkinson, Column Capitals, p. 205. He noted at p. 134
that he believed “it is natural to assume that the dis-
guise [by which he means the defacing] took place at
the same time as the redecoration. But the date cannot
be proved and has been questioned.” He gave no refer-
ence for who has questioned the date. The redecora-
tion, to which Wilkinson here refers, he dated to the
Abbasid period, following upon the repairs necessi-
tated by a damaging earthquake in 775. He subse-
quently restated this opinion in Wilkinson, “Column
Capitals in the Haram al-Sharif,” in Raby and Johns,
Bayt al-Maqdis (as in n. 16), p. 134.
224 For an argument on different grounds that it is this
later period that saw a new strictness in drawing lines
and enforcing prohibitions see Stephennie Mulder, The
Shrines of the ‘Alids in Medieval Syria. Sunnis, Shi’is and
the Architecture of Coexistence, Edinburgh Studies in
Islamic Art (Edinburgh, 2014), which makes a case that
the “ʿAlid shrines in Syria that mostly date from the
heyday of the so-called ‘Sunni Revival’ in the eleventh-
thirteenth centuries, nonetheless should not be seen as
‘Shiʿi’ monuments, and were commonly shared in use
and patronage by both communities. Stricter separa-
tion at least in this area dates only from the Mamluk
period in the later thirteenth century.”
225 See above, note 113.
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The Columns And Eagle Capitals In The Dome Of The Rock
Islamic religious buildings, specifically the eagle
capital at al-Azhar, and seeks to justify its presence.
That text, from the late fourteenth or early fifteenth
century, suggests that at that period the imagery
had become problematic. In other words, the eagle
143
capitals in the Dome of the Rock may have remained
undamaged into the later medieval period, and it
should not be assumed that they were defaced at
the time of al-Ma’mun’s modification of the dedica-
tory inscription in the ninth century.
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 chapter 6
Conclusion: Crossing Borders
The preceding chapters address a few of the
many complex issues raised by the monuments
of early Islamic Jerusalem. They do not amount
to a synthetic study of the city during that period,
and many issues have received scant comment,
only as they bear upon the topics considered
here in detail. The architectural form of the
Dome of the Rock, and its mosaic decoration, has
previously been addressed by Oleg Grabar and
many others. Some of the material presented
here, most obviously the existence of capitals
with eagles, and crosses also, ought to be consid-
ered in future studies of the iconography and
context of the building and its decoration. Such a
comprehensive new study is far beyond my inten-
tion, which is only to offer a different perspective
on some material and some issues that have hith-
erto received little attention, or been shrouded in
scholarly consensus resting on weak foundations.
I have resolutely attempted to stay in the seventh
century, with eighth-century monuments such as
the Aqsa mosque building constructed by Caliph
al-Walid after 705, and the residences around the
southwestern end of the Haram al-Sharif now
dated to that time, are only touched upon. It is
diffi­cult to avoid the tendency to see the seventh
century and its monuments with the benefit of
hindsight, knowledge of what happened in the
eighth century, and for that matter what hap-
pened over the subsequent twelve centuries
stretching to our own day, but the effort ought to
be made. Over and over again in my research for
this project I encountered the assumption of
continuity reaching back to the past, for example
that the location of the main center of prayer on
the Haram must have been from the beginning
where it is now, or that the prohibition of fig-
ural  images in religious contexts must apply
even to the earliest Islamic buildings such as the
Dome of the Rock, assumptions that manifestly
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi 10.1163/9789004302075_007
c­ ontribute to the avoidance of certain questions,
problems and observations.
Many of the functions and meanings explored
in the preceding chapters are evidently not those
commonly expressed in the Muslim traditions of
the later medieval and modern periods, and
sometimes not even in the post-Umayyad early
Islamic sources. One must sincerely respect the
view of many believers in an unchanging tradi-
tion stretching from today back to the revela-
tions to the Prophet Muhammad, but historians
must also seek the best available evidence, and it
often suggests changes. For example, Leor Halevi
has shown in an important recent book that
views on the proper rites for burial were both
diverse and changing during the first century of
Islam, as may be discovered through analysis of
the stories told by later traditionists. Halevi also
showed that visual and material culture can and
should play a significant role in forming our his-
torical understanding, sometimes attesting to
the existence of practices altogether ignored by
the textual sources.1 Some of the change over
time amounts to forgetting, to oblivion,2 as in
1 Leor Halevi, Muhammad’s Grave. Death Rites and the
Making of Islamic Society (New York, 2007). Note especially
the evidence of inscribed grave-markers, according to
most traditionists illicit, but surviving from the seventh
and early eighth century, at least in Egypt. On the earliest
of these see Halevi, Muhammad’s Grave, pp. 14–42, Hassan
Hawary, Hussein Rached and Gaston Wiet, eds., Catalogue
general du Musée arabe du Caire: Stèles funéraires (Cairo,
1932) vol. 1, no. 1, and Hassan Mohammed El-Hawary, “The
Most Ancient Islamic Monument Known Dated A.H. 31
(A.D. 652). From the Time of the Third Calif,” Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, no.2
(April 1930), 321–333.
2 The International Congress on the History of Art held in
Amsterdam had as its theme “Memory and Oblivion.” See
Wessel Reinink and Jeroen Stumpel, eds., Memory and
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Conclusion
the case of the Dome of the Chain. Despite its
prominence at the center of the Haram al-Sharif,
it was rarely mentioned at all or discussed only
rapidly and in passing by medieval sources, and
the divergent traditions circulating about its ori-
gin and significance were isolated statements.
That few modern scholars have turned their
attention to it mirrors the scanty attention that
it received in Muslim traditions. Its function
and  meaning were scarcely addressed, in part
because it was never considered that it had
something to do with prayer, that it ever might
have formed part of the early mosque within the
Haram, since it was assumed that the early
mosque was elsewhere, on the southern edge of
the Haram where it is today, and not near its
sacred center. The evidence for the location and
form of the earliest Islamic place of prayer on
the Haram is weak, often late, often ambiguous,
and in some cases based on over-reliance on
sources of dubious value, notably Adomnán’s De
locis sanctis and its alleged eyewitness informant
“Arculf.”
The problem of the eagle capitals on the
Haram al-Sharif, and especially in the Dome of
the Rock, is different. Here the issue has not
been forgetting but ignoring, literally not seeing,
because well-established later traditions make
these figural images in so sacred a context trans-
gressive, even offensive, as noted by the admin-
istration of the Awqaf in their editorial footnote
in John Wilkinson’s study of the figural capitals
in the Dome of the Rock.3 The existence of these
capitals demands that historians reckon with
changing interpretations over time. Given the
relative youth of the field of Islamic art history
and the small number of individuals actively
engaged in it until recent years, it is not surpris-
ing that much interpretive work remains to be
Oblivion. Acts of the xxix International Congress of the
History of Art, Amsterdam 1996 (Dordrecht, 1999).
3 John Wilkinson, Column Capitals in al Haram al Sharif
( from 138 A.D. to 1118 A.D.) (Jerusalem, 1987), p. 205.
145
done, even while basic collecting and organizing
of the material continues. Imagining that change
could be deliberate and even sudden is not out
of line with recent scholarly work in other areas
of study directed to the early Islamic tradition.
To cite but one example of some relevance here,
the term al-samad in Sura 112.2 of the Qurʾan has
received sustained attention from Christos Simelidis
and other scholars reckoning with its possible mean­
ing.4 The term is important enough to appear in
the  inscription of the Dome of the Rock and on
the  earliest epigraphic coinage of ʿAbd al-Malik
(although dropped by the Abbasids),5 but occurs
nowhere else in the Qurʾan, so that its semantic
field can only be established through other contexts
and associations.6 It is not only a problem of how to
translate the Arabic term into English or for that
matter into Greek, but also of what it may have
signified in the Qurʾan itself, and in subsequent
exegesis, which might be very different matters.
Simelidis suggested that al-Tabari’s History from the
early tenth century already shows “a suppression of
the original meaning” based on changing thinking
about the text.7 It is not difficult to imagine that a
monument like the Dome of the Chain, no longer
functional and distinctly anomalous, might have
been not only ignored but similarly “suppressed” by
later traditionalists.
4 Christos Simelidis, “The Byzantine Understanding of the
Qurʾanic Term al-Samad and the Greek Translation of the
Qurʾan,” Speculum 86(2011), 887–913.
5 See Jere L. Bacharach, Islamic History through Coins: An
Analysis and Catalogue of Tenth-Century Ikhshidid Coinage
(Cairo and New York, 2006), p. 15.
6 Simelidis, “Byzantine Understanding,” citing the earlier
studies by Uri Rubin, “Al-Samad and the High God: An
Interpretation of Sura cxii,” Der Islam 61 (1984), 197–217,
and Walid Saleh, “The Etymological Fallacy and Qurʾanic
Studies: Muhammad, Paradise, and Late Antiquity,” in
Angelika Neuwirth, Nicolai Sinai and Michael Marx, The
Qurʾan in Context: Historical and Literary Investigations
into the Qurʾanic Milieu, Texts and Studies on the Qurʾan 6
(Leiden, 2010), pp. 649–698.
7 Simelidis, “Byzantine Understanding,” p. 890.
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146
One particular observation has, I think, clouded
the understanding of Islamic Jerusalem in the
seventh century, and again this involves an
assumption of continuity. The observation is
encapsulated effectively in a comparison between
the plans of the Islamic Haram al-Sharif and the
Christian Holy Sepulchre complex, noting what
Grabar called the sequence of congregation and
commemoration areas, with the large domed
Dome of the Rock aligned axially with the Aqsa
Mosque (Figs.  1.1 and 2.5) in a manner that has
seemed to scholars strikingly analogous to the
relationship between the Anastasis Rotunda and
the Constantinian Basilica.8 One can and should
wonder whether similarities in plan would have
been even noticed much less endowed with
important meaning by contemporary observers of
medieval buildings, in the manner postulated in a
famous article by Richard Krautheimer on the ico-
nography of architecture, which used “copies” of
the Holy Sepulchre as one of its key examples.9
The similarities obvious to modern scholars look-
ing at these graphic representations, plans, a genre
wholly unfamiliar in the early medieval period,
might well have escaped medieval observers,
although in this case in Jerusalem it is difficult to
imagine that some relationship would not have
been noticed by some observers, given that the
two complexes were in sight of one another.10
8 Oleg Grabar, The Dome of the Rock (Cambridge MA and
London: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2006),
pp. 24–25 and fig.  10; Robert Hillenbrand, Islamic
Architecture. Form, Function and Meaning (Edinburgh,
1994), p. 72.
9 Richard Krautheimer, “Introduction to an ‘Iconography
of Medieval Architecture’,” Journal of the Warburg and
Courtauld Institutes 5(1942), 1–33. See now the impor-
tant recent critical and historiographical review by
Catherine Carver McCurrach, “Renovatio Reconsidered:
Richard Krautheimer and the Iconography of
Architecture,” Gesta 50(2011), 41–69.
10 We have one source that says the dome of the Dome
of the Rock is higher than that of the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre, but I know of none comparing the
sequence of spaces; see Andreas Kaplony, The Haram
chapter 6
Scholars’ comparisons between the complexes
have made the Islamic buildings seem either an
imitation or a rival of the Christian buildings. That
sense of competition is greatly strengthened by
the inscription in the Dome of the Rock, which fre-
quently refers to Jesus as a prophet but warns
Christians against the error of linking him with a
divinity who “begets no son and has no associate
in power.”11 Grabar pointed out that the inscrip-
tion is significantly less anti-Christian than it
might well have been, given the availability in the
Qurʾan of much more pointedly anti-Christian
texts, for example contesting the doctrine of the
virgin birth or even the occurrence of the
Crucifixion, and he suggested that the inscription
in the Dome of the Rock might equally be seen as
an “ecumenical” statement appealing to rather
than rejecting the Christians. He also pointed out
the surprising fact that the inscription makes no
reference to Jews or to any Old Testament events,
in contrast to abundant other early Muslim
sources that do so.12 The inference is that at least
at this moment, around and after 692, a central
focus of Caliph ʿAbd al-Malik was on relations with
the Christians. Such is attested by other sources,
for example the fact that at this time the caliph
begins to issue official gold coins rather than
allowing the Roman coinage to be employed,13
and this agonistic attitude might have affected the
of Jerusalem 324–1099. Temple, Friday Mosque, Area of
Spiritual Power, Freiburger Islamstudien 22 (Stuttgart,
2002), pp. 528–9.
11 The quotation is from Oleg Grabar, The Shape of the
Holy. Early Islamic Jerusalem (Princeton, 1996), p. 59,
from the translation and discussion on pp. 58–68.
12 Grabar, Shape of the Holy, p. 67, noting the contrast
with “written accounts, like the early fada’il, [which]
constantly comment on Jews and Jewish religious
behavior and beliefs, and mention Christians and espe-
cially Christianity only incidentally.”
13 For the most recent overview see Clive Foss, “Arab-
Byzantine Coins: Money as Cultural Continuity,” in
Helen C. Evans with Brandie Ratliff, Byzantium and
Islam. Age of Transition 7th–9th Century (New Haven
and London, 2012), pp. 136–143 with bibliography.
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Conclusion
construction of the Aqsa mosque in its present
position by al-Walid I after 705, with its mihrab and
main hall aligned with the Dome of the Rock. How­
ever, even interpreted in this way, such Muslim-
Christian rivalry need not and in my view should
not be carried back to an earlier period and used as
an argument in favor of the hypothesis that the
main congregational worship center on the Haram
was already in the seventh century located where it
was established in 705 and where it is today.
After 705, when the Aqsa mosque was con-
structed on its present site, it may well be that
there was a dramatic change. The re-interpretation
and literal re-direction of the Haram al-Sharif
would not have resulted from the construction of
the Dome of the Rock under ʿAbd al-Malik, for its
magnificence would have only underscored the
importance of proximity to this holy site, and of
the structures nearby, such as the Dome of the
Chain. It is really the construction of the Aqsa
mosque in its present location, on axis with the
Dome of the Rock, a single line marking the con-
nection of the latter through the mihrab on the
qibla wall toward Mecca, work possibly begun by
ʿAbd al-Malik but certainly finished by his son and
successor al-Walid. This change put the Dome of
the Chain out of business, as it were, and with it
the great gathering space on the platform to its
east, and the axis through the center of the Haram
and the still extant “mihrab of ʿUmar” on the
southern edge of the Haram (Fig.  4.5). The great
monuments on the Haram al-Sharif may then
have been given, after 705, a new directionality,
not oriented but australated, directed not to the
east but to the south. This would have represented
a fundamental change, for the east was the direc-
tion of eschatological expectation, and of continu-
ity with the arrangement of Jewish Old Testament
traditions, especially those connected with David
and Solomon. Such a shift is hardly surprising
given the local situation, in a still overwhelmingly
Christian city, and the global political situation.
The Roman, Christian, Empire with its capital in
Constantinople was the great opponent of the
Umayyad caliphs (among non-Muslims, of course),
147
the Sasanian empire having been eliminated alto-
gether, and in 674–678 and again in 716–717 Umayyad
fleets and armies besieged Constantinople itself,
unsuccessfully. The Umayyad center in Damascus
had been primarily engaged with the Byzantine
border from the time when Muʿawiya was gover-
nor of Syria, long before his assumption of the
caliphate. The primary concerns of the later sev-
enth and early eighth century need not be read
back into the period before 661, however. There is
no reason to think that the first mosque was erected
with any ideological address to the Christians in
Jerusalem. It seems at least possible that the pres-
ence of a wider and higher central “nave” leading
to the mihrab in al-Walid’s mosques in Jerusalem
and Damascus reflects Christian precedents, but
all of this takes us again into the eighth century,
there being no evidence for any such phenome-
non in the seventh.
It seems to me that much more could be learned
by considering the relationship between early
Islamic art in Jerusalem and Jewish traditions and
materials than has been the case in the past.
Patricia Crone and Michael Cook cited several
texts, drawn from Jewish and Islamic traditions,
which linked ʿUmar and his entry into Jerusalem
with messianic ideas, extending even to the appli-
cation to ʿUmar of the word al-faruq, which might
be understood as “the redeemer,”14 but they did
not consider such a claim as it might relate to the
early Islamic structures in Jerusalem. The possible
connection between the Dome of the Chain as
a  setting for reading from scripture in Islamic
Jerusalem and the use of the bema for scriptural
readings in both contemporary Christian and
Jewish places of worship is one example. The
­prevalence of the imagery of eagles in both the
Dome of the Rock’s capitals and in mosaics in
Christian churches, and mosaics and sculptures in
Palestinian synagogues, is another. Textual sources
support this possibility of close ties between the
Muslims, Christians and Jews. A poem composed
14 Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, Hagarism. The
Making of the Islamic World (Cambridge, 1977), p. 5.
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148
in the wake of the murder of Caliph ʿUthman in
656 mentioned one Ibn Dhakwan al-Safuri, who
“seems to have been a son of ʿUthman’s half-
brother al-Walid b. ‘Uqbah by a Jewish woman
from Sepphoris (al-Saffuriyyah), a village near
Nazareth.” Stephen Humphreys observed that
“a man of such dubious descent could hardly
claim to be the avenger of his lineage,” yet it is
surely noteworthy that the Caliph ʿUthman’s
half-brother had an acknowledged son with a
Jewish woman.15
A rabbinic Midrash of the late Antique period
says that “Jerusalem is the center of the land of
Israel, the Temple is at the center of Jerusalem, the
Holy of Holies is at the center of the Temple, the
Ark is at the center of the Holy of Holies, and the
foundation Stone is in front of the Ark, which spot
is the foundation of the world.”16 Jews were not
alone in making Jerusalem the center of the world,
for so did Christians, and the emphasis on the
stone at the center of the world in this Jewish text
must be related to early Islamic focus on the Rock
as a cosmic center and omphalos.17 Nasser Rabbat’s
important article on the meaning of the Dome of
the Rock emphasized that the sacrality of this spot
to early Islam was likely connected at least in part
with the royal political tradition of David and
Solomon, and also underscored the evidence for
the importance of Jewish traditions preserved
especially in Jerusalem. Rabbat referred to the
central role of the Jewish convert Kaʿb al-Akbar,
not only for the famous story of his failing to
15 R. Stephen Humphreys, The Crisis of the Early Caliphate:
The Reign of ʿUthman, A.D. 644–656/A.H. 24–35, The
History of al-Tabari (Taʾrikh al-rusul waʾl-muluk), 15
(Albany, ny, 1990), p. 261 and n. 471, whence the
quotation.
16 Midrash Tanhuma, Kedoshim 10, quoted in Jonathan
Z. Smith, Map is Not Territory. Studies in the History of
Religions (Chicago, 1978), p. 112, and in Ann Marie Yasin,
Saints and Church Spaces in the Late Antique
Mediterranean. Architecture, Cult, and Community
(Cambridge, 2009), p. 29.
17 See in general most recently, Persis Berlekamp, Wonder,
Image and Cosmos in Medieval Islam (New Haven, 2011).
chapter 6
persuade Caliph ʿUmar to pray in a way that aligned
the rock with Mecca, uniting the two qiblas, but
also noting that fully twenty-seven reports in al-
Wasiti’s book on Jerusalem have an isnad going
back to Kaʿb as the originator of the tradition.18
Hostility between Christians and Muslims is
by  no means the only story found in sources
­bearing upon the seventh century. The generally
positive view of Muʿawiya in Syriac Christian
sources was sketched by Andrew Palmer, who
called attention to one text including a discussion
of how the caliph brought some feuding Christians
together  for discussion, and protected the anti-
Chalcedonians, in exchange for annual pay-
ments.19 Surprisingly, a similar positive view can
be found in Adomnán of Iona, whose treatment of
the Islamic place of prayer in Jerusalem was so dis-
tinctly pejorative, as discussed in Chapter 3.
Adomnán relates elsewhere in his De Locis Sanctis
the story of a dispute between believing and unbe-
lieving Jews concerning a cloth “shroud” associ-
ated with Christ’s resurrection that was resolved
by Muʿawiya (in the text identified as Saracinorum
rex nomine Mauias) in favor of the believers. The
caliph threw the cloth onto a fire built “in the
court” (in platea – somewhere on the Haram? at
least in the view of Adomnán), whence it “arose
from the pyre, and began to flutter on high like a
bird with outstretched wings” (surgens quasi auis
expansis alis coepit in sublimae uolare).20 The story
may strain the credulity of most readers today, but
it indicates that shifting alliances and common
18 Nasser Rabbat, “The Meaning of the Umayyad Dome of
the Rock,” Muqarnas 6(1989), 12–21 at 19 note 25, with
references.
19 Andrew Palmer, “Les chroniques brèves Syriaques,” in
Muriel Debié, ed., L’historiographie syriaque, Études
syriaques 6 (Paris, 2009), pp. 57–87 at 62.
20 Denis Meehan, ed., Adamnan’s De Locis Sanctis (Dublin
1983), Book i, ch. 9, pp. 53–55. The text is cited in Robert
G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others saw it. A survey and
evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian writings
on early Islam, Studies in Late Antiquity and early
Islam 13 (Princeton, 1997), p. 223.
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Conclusion
cause could be found among followers of different
traditions in the seventh century.21
I prefer to speak of Muslim, Jewish and Christian
“traditions” rather than communities advisedly,
and have sought to avoid talking about the influ-
ence of one upon another. It seems to me unwar-
ranted and misleading to read back into the sev-
enth century the strict divisions among these
three great Abrahamic religions generally observed
today and for that matter in the later medieval
period. Much of the work that I have presented
was developed before I read Fred Donner’s 2010
book Muhammad and the Believers, which empha-
sized the fluidity of confessional boundaries in the
seventh century, but it seems to me that some of
the visual and material evidence tells a similar
story to what he has told, including the beginnings
of an important shift and hardening of boundaries
in the latter part of ʿAbd al-Malik’s reign, at the end
of the seventh and into the eighth century.22 In the
preceding period, during the seventh century, it
may be better to think of Muslims and Jews and
21 I resist the temptation to speculate about the image of
birds with outstretched wings in connection with the
eagle capitals of the Dome of the Rock. There are sev-
eral Latin manuscripts suggesting that the presence of
capitals with eagles on the site of the former Temple
was known, and reacted to, in the West in the first half
of the eighth century. These will be discussed in a
future study, tentatively entitled “‘Merovingian’
Illuminated Manuscripts and their links with the east-
ern Mediterranean world,” to appear in Stefan Esders
and Yitzhak Hen, eds., East and West in the Early Middle
Ages: The Merovingian Kingdoms in Mediterranean
Perspective.
22 Fred M. Donner, Muhammad and the Believers. At the
Origins of Islam (Cambridge MA and London, 2010), see
on the change ca. 700 Chapter 5, “The Emergence of
Islam.” Halevi, Muhammad’s Grave, p. 15 on different
grounds also posits a significant change in the last
decade of the seventh century and the first decades of
the eighth. Donner’s approach has not been without its
critics; see Patricia Crone, “Among the Believers,”
Tablet: A New Read on Jewish Life, 10 Aug. 2010, avail-
able  at http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and
-politics/42023/among-the-believers. (accessed 12/12/14).
149
Christians drawing upon common traditions
found in the ancient scriptures that they all hon-
ored rather than influencing one another, and thus
positing dependent relationships. The rich
exchange of ideas evidently extended beyond the
three Abrahamic religions to include the heritage
of the great Roman and Persian traditions that
were predecessors, and in the case of the former,
neighbors and rivals of the early caliphate. Nasser
Rabbat has presented architecture during the
Umayyad period as an “Intra-Cultural Synthesis.”23
In my view, such intra-cultural encounter is
evinced by the visual appearance of the long
inscription running around the outer colonnade
in the Dome of the Rock. The inscription has been
studied many times in terms of its textual content
and context without, however, addressing a strik-
ing feature of its form, namely that it was in golden
letters against a blue background.24 In a previous
23 Nasser Rabbat, “Umayyad Architecture: A Spectacular
Intra-Cultural Synthesis in Bilad al-Sham,” in Karin
Bartl and Abd al-Razzaq Moaz, eds., Residences, Castles,
Settlement. Transformation Processes from Late
Antiquity to Early Islam in Bilad al-Sham. Proceedings of
the International Conference held at Damascus, 5–9
November 2006, Orient-Archäologie 24 (Rahden im
Westfalen, 2008), pp. 13–18. See its bibliography for
some recent items, including Lara Thome, “A
Re-evaluation of Umayyad Art and Architecture (Ph.D.
dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
2005). Seeing intense interactions is not at all the same
as seeing early Islamic traditions in art and architec-
ture such as the Dome of the Rock in terms that make
them wholly non-Islamic. For an extreme statement of
the “non-Islamic” character of the early Islamic tradi-
tion in art, see Johannes Thomas, “Hellenistische
Traditionen im frühen Islam,” in Markus Gross and
Karl-Heinz Ohlig, eds., Die Entstehung einer Weltreligion
ii. Von der koranischen Bewegung zum Frühislam
(Berlin and Tübingen, 2012), pp. 96–163, esp. 104–111
“Der Felsendom als Monument eines heterodox-
christlichen Islam.”
24 Janine Sourdel-Thomine and Bertold Spuler, Die Kunst
des Islam, Propyläen Kunstgeschichte 4 (Berlin, 1973),
pp. 195–196, pl. xviii, mentions only the “kufic” script
of the inscription, not the background color. Richard
Ettinghausen, Oleg Grabar and Marilyn Jenkins-Madina,
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150
study I sought to elucidate the origins and mean-
ing of this manner of presentation.25 No prior tra-
dition for monumental inscriptions in mosaic
existed within the Islamic or the pre-Islamic
Arabic world, and it is not surprising that the rele-
vant prototypes and parallels are to be found in
Roman art, and especially in several great monu-
ments in Rome and Constantinople, such as
Juliana Anicia’s great early-sixth-century church
of St. Polyeuktos. Such a relationship could be pre-
sented as a dependent one, with the new imperial
power of Islam cleaving to traditions of visual cul-
ture associated with its predecessor and rival,
Rome. As I understand the situation, such a read-
ing would be simplistic and would miss the com-
monalities underlying the relationship. Chief of
these is a shared reference to Solomon and his
Temple. The St. Polyeuktos inscription, which like
that in the Dome of the Rock ran around the inside
of the building, making a complete circle, explic-
itly evoked Solomon’s temple, indeed claimed to
have surpassed it.26
Standing on what was evidently regarded by all
the faith traditions as the site of Solomon’s temple,
the Dome of the Rock draws on this earlier Roman
and imperial tradition in a meaningful way. It can
be both imperial and religious, its religious import
according well with the many references to David
and Solomon and the Temple already evident in
the building of the Dome of the Chain beside it on
the Haram, as developed in the chapter devoted to
Islamic Art and Architecture 650–1250 (New Haven and
London, 2001), p. 89 and fig. 125 mention the numerous
inscriptions and their contents, but not the color. Some
inscriptions, over the smaller openings at either side,
have gold inscriptions against both blue and red
backgrounds.
25 Lawrence Nees, “Blue behind Gold: the inscription of
the Dome of the Rock and its relatives,” in Jonathan
Bloom and Sheila Blair, eds., “And Diverse are Their
Hues”: Color in Islamic Art and Culture (New Haven and
London, 2011), pp. 152–173.
26 Nees, “Blue behind Gold,” p. 165 with references.
chapter 6
that “orphan” of a building.27 The inscription in
the Dome of the Rock also seems with its colors to
reflect cosmological ideas shared by the different
faith traditions, at least during the Umayyad
period, before the Islamic tradition shifted to mak-
ing Mecca as the center, about the earth being
encircled by the blue ocean, and having Jerusalem
at its center,28 The lush vine rinceaux against a
green background that make up the largest subject
of the Dome of the Rock’s mosaic evoke a garden,
a paradise, and are often associated with an encir-
cling blue oceanic border in Roman mosaics and
manuscripts, and indeed the inscription of
St. Polyeuktos has lush fruit-bearing vines immedi-
ately above it.29 One need not go to Constantinople
27 That the imperial implication of such an inscription
was not lost and indeed may have intensified is shown
by the gold against blue mosaic inscriptions found in
the eighth century markets at Beth Shean/Baysan/
Scythopolis, in the northern Jordan Valley, which name
Caliph Hisham ii, and give a date corresponding to
737–738; The panels are now on display in the Israel
Museum in Jerusalem (iaa 1977.4093). See Elias
Khamis, “Two Wall Mosaic Inscriptions from the
Umayyad Market Place in Bet Shean/Baysān,” Bulletin
of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University
of London 64(2001), 159–176. For this important site see
also Yoram Tsafrir and Gideon Foerster, “Urbanism at
Scythopolis. Bet Shean in the Fourth to Seventh
Centuries,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 51(1997), 85–146.
28 Nees, “Blue behind Gold,” p. 164. See Gülru Necipoğlu,
“The Dome of the Rock as Palimpsest: ʿAbd al-Malik’s
Grand Narrative and Sultan Süleyman’s Glosses,”
Muqarnas 25(2008), 17–105, at 41, and Nadia Jamil,
“Caliph and Qutb. Poetry as a Source for Interpreting
the Transformation of the Byzantine Cross on Steps
on  Umayyad Coinage,” in Jeremy Johns, ed., Bayt al-
Maqdis. Jerusalem and Early Islam, Oxford Studies in
Islamic Art ix, Part 2 (Oxford, 1999), pp. 11–58.
29 Nees, “Blue behind gold,” fig. 105. A salient example is
provided by a sixth-century mosaic from Nikopolis in
the Balkans, for which see now Katherine M.D.
Dunbabin, Mosaics of the Greek and Roman World
(Cambridge, 1999), pp. 219–220, fig.  232. Dunbabin
rejected (because of absence of parallels) the interpre-
tation by Ernst Kitzinger that that mosaic presents
Enoch and Elijah, the two prophets that ascended
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Conclusion
to find such compositions, for the conception was
present on the ground in the surrounding area,
notably in the wonderful early eighth-century
mosaic floors of the church of St. Stephen discov-
ered at Umm al-Rasas (Kastron Mefa’a) now in
Jordan, and only a short journey from Jerusalem.30
How to explain the common currency of such
ideas? One possibility is that the artists who cre-
ated these works, whatever their own personal
religious beliefs, worked across religious borders.
The style of the Umm al-Rasas mosaics are star-
tlingly like those in the near-contemporary Islamic
palace at Khirbat al-Mafjar, and may have been
created by the same group of mosaicists.31
Recent research has suggested that in envisag-
ing separate communities of Christians, Jews, and
Muslims living in Syria and Palestine we may be
oversimplifying the situation, and may indeed be
reading modern sectarian divisions back into the
late antique period. I confess to having wrestled
long with the subtitle of this concluding chapter,
“crossing borders,” wondering whether it might
not be better to say something like “whose b­ orders,”
or “what borders,” perhaps including i­ nterrogatory
bodily to heaven as forerunners of Christ (and the
Prophet Muhammad’s night journey too?); see his
“Studies on Late Antique and Byzantine Floor Mosaics,
I. Mosaics at Nicopolis,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers
6(1951), 83–122. The Nikopolis mosaic and the general
theme is explored in a wider sense in Henry Maguire,
Earth and Ocean. The Terrestrial World in Early
Byzantine Art (University Park, pa 1987), pp. 21–24,
figs. 11 and 12. Maguire provided (p. 22) this translation
of the inscription, taken from Kitzinger: “Here you see
the famous and boundless ocean/Containing in its
midst the earth/Bearing round about in the skilful
images of art everything/that breathes and creeps/
The foundation of Dumetios, the great-hearted
archpriest.”
30 Nees, “Blue behind Gold,” p.161 and fig. 102; see for more
detail Michele Piccirillo and Eugenio Alliata, Umm al-
Rasas Mayfa’ah I: gli scavi del complesso di Santo Stefano,
Studium Biblicum Franciscanum 28 (Jerusalem, 1994),
pp. 121–164, pl. 23.
31 Michele Piccirillo, L’Arabia cristiana: dalla provincia
imperiale al primo periodo Islamico (Milan, 2002), p. 235.
151
punctuation for good measure, to indicate my
uncertainty.32 A study of settlements in the Golan
published by Robert C. Gregg and Dan Urman
used a new data set, in this case inscriptions in
Greek, to suggest that earlier works offered inter-
pretations “much too tight and tidy” by claiming
sharp separation between Christian and Jewish
communities. Gregg and Urman found evidence
not only for both communities spread throughout
the area, but also for the presence of both commu-
nities together in some settlements.33 Robert
Hoyland showed that the inscription in a mosaic
in a sixth-century church at Mt. Nebo that had
been identified as Arabic is actually Christian
Palestinian Aramaic. That we can have difficulty
separating the languages of the different groups
reflects the reality that differences even on the
level of script and language were not so great
as to inhibit communication within a common
­culture.34 It is probably impossible to quantify the
32 There is a splendid exhibition catalogue using this title,
Piet van Boxel and Sabine Arndt, eds., Crossing Borders.
Hebrew Manuscripts as a Meeting-place of Cultures
(Oxford, 2009), but since there are no Hebrew manu-
scripts from the period under examination in this
book, focused on the seventh century, there is no mate-
rial of direct relevance, and the great bulk of what is
covered is centuries later in date.
33 Robert C. Gregg and Dan Urman, Jews, Pagans and
Christians in the Golan Heights. Greek and Other
Inscriptions of the Roman and Byzantine Eras, South
Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 140 (Atlanta,
1996), pp. 289–304 and 298, Map  6. The authors con-
trast their work with Zvi Ma’oz, “The Art and
Architecture of the Synagogues of the Golan,” in Lee
Levine, ed., Ancient Synagogues Revealed (Jerusalem,
1981), pp. 98–115, which included the map reproduced
by Gregg and Urman as their Map 3 on p. 293.
34 Robert Hoyland, “Mount Nebo, Jabal Ramm, and the
status of Christian Palestinian Aramaic and Old Arabic
in Late Roman Palestine and Arabia,” in M.C.A.
Macdonald, ed., The Development of Arabic as a Written
Language. Papers from the Special Session of the
Seminar for Arabian Studies held on 24 July, 2009,
Supplement to the Proceedings of the Seminar for
Arabian Studies 40 (Oxford, 2010), pp. 29–45.
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152
amount of multi-lingualism in and around Syria-
Palestine during the seventh century, but recent
scholarship suggests that it was greater than for-
merly believed. For example, Hikmat Kachouh has
surveyed Arabic versions of the Gospels and per-
suasively argued that translations were made
much before the later eighth and ninth-century,
formerly the common view, and may have begun
as early as the sixth century.35 However, one should
also be wary of treating what I have termed “tradi-
tions” or on occasion “communities” as if they
were monolithic, so that one could speak of a
Christian, Jewish, or Muslim belief or attitude in
the singular. The Christian communities were mul­
tiple, divided by theology and liturgies, early
Muslims were divided by tribe, allegiance to differ-
ing leaders and indeed sometimes engaged in civil
wars, and Jews were divided in terms of their atti-
tudes to rabbinical, Talmudic, authority. The wide-
spread presence of figural images in synagogues,
noted here especially in regard to images of eagles,
but also including elaborate figural program, was
contrary to contemporary Talmudic preaching
and evidently supported by congregations that
“either ignored or violated rabbinic rulings.”36 Lee
Levine recently reviewed attempts to develop
“metatheories” for the interpretation of Jewish art
in this period as a whole, and concluded that “local
needs and tastes were crucial factors in determin-
ing synagogue policies, including decisions about
how to decorate the building,” and emphasized
35 Hikmat Kachou, The Arabic Versions of the Gospels: The
Manuscripts and their Families (Berlin and New York,
2012). This work is based on the author’s 2008 doctoral
dissertation at the University of Birmingham, as
reported by Sidney H. Griffith, The Bible in Arabic. The
Scriptures of the “People of the Book” in the Language of
Islam, Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient
to the Modern World (Princeton and Oxford, 2013),
pp. 49–50.
36 Grey, Matthew J. and Jodi Magness, “Finding Samson in
Byzantine Galilee: the 2011–2012 Archaeological
Excavations at Huqoq,” Studies in the Bible and Antiquity
5(2013), 1–30 at 19.
chapter 6
the variety among Jewish communities, in differ-
ent locales and at different times.37
These studies by Hoyland and by Gregg and
Urman only deal with the pre-Islamic world, but
perhaps can shed light on the earliest Islamic
period also. Why assume that all these inscriptions
were necessarily created before the coming of
Islam, and Muslims, to the area? Archaeological
evidence suggests significant continuity and over-
lap, across a Late Antique/Early Muslim border
that may be more a feature of modern scholarly
divisions than of the situation on the ground in
the past. Jodi Magness pointed out the presence of
“an intact oil lamp with a molded Kufic Arabic
inscription [that] was found in the upper layer of
debris in the western corridor of the synagogue” of
Gush Halav, an inscription which contains the bas-
mala and is clearly Muslim, and datable to the
seventh-eighth centuries. To Magness, this sug-
gested some form of “Muslim presence at Gush
Halav” at that time, and she gives other archaeo-
logical indications of overlap.38 One of the modest
pink-ware oil lamps excavated at Gerasa (Jerash)
and datable to the sixth-eighth century has a
Christian inscription in Greek on the top, and the
basmala written in Arabic on the bottom.39
Interpretation of this archaeological material is
controversial, and the same volume in which
Magness’s study appears contains several articles
rebutting her interpretation of the evidence, as
well as her response to the rebuttal. At the very
least it is fair to say that the issue of continuity and
37 Lee I. Levine, Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity. Historical
Contexts of Jewish Art (New Haven and London, 2012),
pp. 363–384.
38 See Jodi Magness, “The Question of the Synagogue: The
Problem of Typology,” in Jacob Neusner and Alan
J. Avery-Peck, eds., Judaism in Late Antiquity, Part
Three: Where We Stand: Issues and Debates in Ancient
Judaism, vol. 4: The Special Problem of the Synagogue,
Handbuch der Orientalistik 49 (Leiden, 2001), pp. 1–48,
esp. pp. 35–36.
39 Robert Schick, “Inscribed Objects,” in Evans, Byzantium
and Islam. Age of Transition (as above, n. 13), pp. 186–
189, this lamp 186–187, no. 126c.
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Conclusion
interaction between different religious groups in
this period is debatable, and new evidence as well
as new interpretations may continue to shed fur-
ther light.40
Within the last few years, Leah Di Segni
reviewed the inscriptions from Syria and Palestine,
and argued that this data set suggests that if one
needs to consider any sort of major “decline” in the
area, it should be associated with the Persian war
and plague of the mid-sixth-century, rather than
with the coming of Islam. The inscriptions show
significant continuity and indeed expansion of
church building and other activities in the early
Islamic period.41 One intriguing example in Greek,
datable to 662, commemorates the restoration of
hot water to the bathhouse of Hammath Gader,
the interpretation of which suggests not only that
construction and some manner of normal every-
day life continued but also that such conditions
were expected to stretch into the future.42 Indeed
the notion of “transition” may be helpful here, a
term used by Di Segni and recently in the title of
the marvelous exhibition organized by Helen
Evans at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
“Byzantium and Islam. Age of Transition,” which
showed in the most striking way the material
40 Intense contact does not imply agreement, or even
good relations. Evidence of tense relations between
Christians and Muslims in the seventh and eighth cen-
turies includes a discussion of the theological work
On the Triune Nature of God, probably written in Arabic
by a monk in one of the Judaean monasteries ca. 755,
which not only shows an intimate knowledge of the
Qurʾan but explicitly quotes from it. See Sidney
H. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque.
Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (Princeton
and Oxford, 2008), pp. 54–57, with earlier literature.
The work in question dates from the mid-eighth cen-
tury, however, not the seventh.
41 Leah Di Segni, “Greek inscriptions in transition from
the Byzantine to the early Islamic period,” in in Hannah
M. Cotton, Robert G. Hoyland, Jonathan J. Price and
David J. Wasserstein, eds., From Hellenism to Islam.
Cultural and Linguistic Change in the Roman Near East
(Cambridge, 2009), pp. 352–373.
42 Di Segni, “Greek inscriptions in transition,” p. 365.
153
wealth of the area that formed the basis for major
artistic production in a wide range of media
including luxury textiles, floor mosaics, ivory carv-
ing, and luxury metalwork.43 No one can question
that it was a period of change, of “transition,” but
we need not reduce it to confessional rivalries or
antagonism. Caliph ʿAbd al-Malik, among his
many reforms, of which only the construction of
the Dome of the Rock figured prominently in this
study, made Arabic the language of administration
in the caliphate, in place of Greek, Greek or bilin-
gual texts giving way to Arabic only in the latter
part of his reign.44 Yet the increasingly central role
of the Arabic language may not have been due to
religious motivations, at least in the time of ʿUmar,
Muʿawiya, and ʿAbd al-Malik.45 Monuments in
Arabic such as the milestone inscriptions with the
name of ʿAbd al-Malik did open with the basmala
but the purpose of the monuments was not to
make “a convenient sign for weary travelers” or pri-
marily to make a religious statement, but to serve
“as a sign of his [the caliph’s] presence and
power.”46 One should certainly note, however, that
Greek inscriptions continue to appear in major
Islamic monuments well into the eighth century,
alongside Arabic, as the inscriptions at Khirbat
al-Mafjar testify. Some recent restorations and
studies suggest that there may be important icono­
graphic links between what we see as separate
traditions, for example a prominent role for the
image of Jonah.47
43 Evans, Byzantium and Islam. Age of Transition (as
above, n. 13). See the accompanying volume of essays
Helen Evans, ed., Age of Transition: Byzantine Culture in
the Islamic World (New York, 2015) – in press.
44 Chase F. Robinson, ʿAbd al-Malik (Oxford, 2005), p. 72.
45 See Suliman Bashear, Arabs and Others in Early Islam,
Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam 8 (Princeton,
1997), pp. 119–120.
46 Sheila S. Blair, Islamic Inscriptions (New York, 1998),
p. 41 and fig. 3.16.
47 Maria Vittoria Fontana, “Su una possibile raffigura-
zione della storia di Giona a Qusayr ʿAmra,” Rivista degli
studi orientali 85(2012), 279–304, and Beatrice Leal,
“The symbolic display of water at Qusayr ʻAmra, an
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154
Geographical boundaries seem fluid at this
period, in terms of objects such as the metalwork
discussed in the previous chapter, including cen-
sers and certainly also including aquamanile and
ewers. The bronze ewer often connected with the
flight, death and burial of the last ruler of the
Umayyad dynasty in the Syrian capital of
Damascus, Marwan ii, now in Cairo, is generally
thought to have been made in Iran, but was found
in Egypt.48 Most metal objects have no firm
early Islamic bathhouse in Jordan,” in Alexei Lidov, ed.,
The life-giving source: water in the hierotopy and iconog-
raphy of the Christian world (Moscow, 2015 – forthcom-
ing). I am very grateful to Beatrice Leal for sharing her
article with me prior to its publication, and for bringing
Fontana’s work to my attention.
48 In 1987, Richard Ettinghausen and Oleg Grabar com-
pared the Berlin eagle censer or aquamanile acquired
by Friedrich Sarre and published as Sasanian to the
massive ewer with rooster spout now in Cairo, associ-
ated rightly or wrongly with the last Umayyad Caliph,
Marwan ii, who was buried near its supposed find-spot
in the Fayum, and also to a simpler bronze ewer in the
Hermitage with an inscription of 67 or 69 (ca. 688–689)
and the name of the city of Basra. See on the eagle ves-
sel (Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst, Inv. Nr. i.
5623) Friedrich Sarre, “Bronzeplastik in Vogelform. Ein
Sasanidisch-Frühislamisches Räuchergefasz,” Jahrbuch
der Preuszischen Kunstsammlungen 51 (1930), 159–164,
the object as Taf. 1. Recently Anna Ballian has argued
that the vessel was not a censer but a ewer, and later in
date, in Evans, Byzantium and Islam. Age of Transition
(as above, n. 13), no. 38, pp. 64–66. On the Cairo ewer
and its relationship to the vessel in Berlin see Richard
Ettinghausen and Oleg Grabar, The art and architecture
of Islam, 650–1250 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987),
p. 71 and fig. 47, illustrating the Berlin eagle; the dated
ewer is not illustrated. For the Cairo ewer see also
Friedrich Sarre, “Die Bronzekanne des Kalifen Marwan
ii im Arabischen Museum in Kairo,” Ars Islamica
1(1934), 9–15, and more recently Bernard O’Kane, The
Treasures of Islamic art in the Museum of Cairo (Cairo,
2006), p. 21, fig. 11. Most recently, the Berlin eagle vessel
was published as a censer, and dated ca. 800, in [Ulrike
al-Khamis and Stefan Weber, eds.], Early Capitals of
Islamic Culture. The Artistic Legacy of Umayyad
Damascus and Abbasid Baghdad (650–950) (Berlin,
n.d. [2014], pp. 50–51.
chapter 6
e­ vidence for either origin or early provenance,49
having come from the art market without such
information, and throughout the medieval period
are an important category of prestige gift or booty,
with sometimes remarkable travels.50 The same
might be said for other luxury goods in various
media, a fortiori with regard to textiles.51 Image
types moved across boundaries not only geograph-
ical but confessional, as can also be demonstrated
in other media, for example in stamped glass
­vessels.52 Paul Balog published a group of these,
49 The al-Fudayn brazier is an important exception, hav-
ing been excavated in greater Syria (modern Jordan),
but there is no reason to say that it must have been
made there or even in that region; see Amman, Jordan
Archaeological Museum, Inv. Nos. J 15700, 15701 and
15705. See Anna Ballian, “Al-Fudayn,” in Evans,
Byzantium and Islam. Age of Transition, pp. 212–216 on
the site, and no. 143 for a modern reproduction of the
object. For the original object see Jean-Baptiste
Humbert, “Le surprenant brasero omeyyade trouvé à
Mafraq,” in Jordanie. Sur les pas des archéologues.
Expostion présentée du 13 juin au 5 octobre 1997 (Paris,
1997), p. 161.
50 See for example the especially intriguing perhaps
ninth-century bronze aquamanile which wound its
way to S. Frediano in Lucca, for which see Lucca e
l’Europa. Un idea di medioevo v–xi secolo (Lucca, 2010),
nos. 90–91, pp. 196–201, where in the thirteenth century
it was given a rooster’s tail and comb, and gilded, and
given a cone over the mouth, and apparently used as
some kind of sound-maker, perhaps analogous to the
Pisa Griffin, also perhaps a sound-maker, set atop the
church building. I am grateful to Lamia Balafrej for
bringing this work to my attention, and providing
material from the just-published exhibition and
catalogue.
51 See Lawrence Nees, “What’s In the Box? Remarks on
some early medieval and early Islamic precious con-
tainers,” Source. Notes in the History of Art [Carla Lord
and Carol Lewine, eds., Special Issue on Secular Art in
the Middle Ages] 33(2014), pp. 67–77 with references.
52 Paul Balog, “Sasanian and Early Islamic Ornamental
Glass Vessel-Stamps,” in Dickran K. Kouymjian, ed.,
Near Eastern Numismatics, Iconography, Epigraphy and
History, Studies in Honor of George C. Miles (Beirut,
1974), pp. 131–140.
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Conclusion
from his own collection, in which iconography
likely to have been Sasanian in origin, and pre-
Islamic in date, was continued into the Islamic
period but with added inscriptions in Arabic let-
ters and at least in some instances with explicitly
Islamic content. For example, an image of a small
peacock in profile, of a type commonly associated
with Sasanian art, at least in Balog’s view, was
engraved by “a Persian brought up in the traditions
of Sasanian art, but with the words bismi and allah,
for ‘in the name of god’ along the edge.”53 If Julian
Raby is correct, a class of objects associated specifi-
cally, although not exclusively, with Jerusalem and
datable to the sixth and seventh century, crosses
geographic as well as confessional borders. Small
glass vessels were then used in connection with pil-
grimages to Jerusalem, probably souvenirs of the
holy places venerated by Christians, and also Jews,
and possibly also by Muslims.54 In a case like this,
53 Balog, “Sasanian and Early Islamic Ornamental Glass
Vessel-Stamps,” no. 5, p. 137. I am grateful to Behnam
Sadeghi for translating these inscriptions, which Balog
published in Arabic without transliteration or transla-
tion. Several of the stamps (nos. 8a, 8b, 8c, 8d and 9)
show a winged horse, which Karl Erdmann [“Zur
Datierung der Berliner Pegasus-Schale,” Archäolo­
gischer Anzeiger 65–66(1952), cols. 115–132] termed
“Pegasus” but here those with Arabic inscriptions are
termed al-Buraq. Several of these also have the bas-
mala inscription, but one has something like ʿamara
llah (according to Behnam Sadeghi renderable as “may
God make flourish/prosper” or “God made flourish/
prosper”).
54 Julian Raby, “In Vitro Veritas. Glass pilgrim vessels from
7th-century Jerusalem,” in Jeremy Johns, ed., Bayt al-
Maqdis. Jerusalem and Early Islam, Oxford Studies in
Islamic Art ix, Part 2 (Oxford, 1999), pp. 113–190. The
most comprehensive discussion of vessels of this type
is E. Marianne Stern, The Toledo Museum of Art Roman
Hold-blown Glass. The First through Sixth Centuries
(Rome, 1995), with descriptions, photographs (some in
color) and drawings of 193 examples. In Stern’s view,
and that of other scholars, the objects should mostly be
dated earlier, but on iconographic grounds Raby sug-
gests that an example in Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum,
acc. no. 1949.144, has among its stamped panels one
that depends upon the so-called “standing Caliph” coin
155
material c­ ulture can lend insight into a kind of con-
tact, and a locus of intersection of the sort that is
generally so difficult to identify.55 Indeed in such
cases it is impossible to categorize the religious
beliefs of the makers or of the patrons or users, as is
true even in some cases of monumental structures;
the building at Misis (Mopsuestia), with a Samson
mosaic, was initially identified as a church, but a
good case has also been made for it having been a
synagogue.56
Another example of the complex interactions
among traditions may be seen in the so-called
Kathisma church, on the route between Jerusalem
and Bethlehem. The church is octagonal in form,
and has therefore sometimes been cited in con-
nection with the nearby octagonal Dome of the
Rock, for example in the recent book by Oleg
Grabar.57 The Kathisma church memorializes the
place where the Virgin stopped on the way to
Bethlehem before the Nativity, kathisma meaning
set down, or sent down, also perhaps “seat.” At the
center of the central octagon, measuring roughly
13 meters (roughly the diameter of the Dome of
series, and thus cannot be dated before the later
­seventh century. The object was most recently included
in Evans, Byzantium and Islam. Age of Transition, p. 264,
no. 186.
55 Jacob Lassner, Jews, Christians and the Abode of Islam.
Modern Scholarship, Medieval Realities (Chicago and
London, 2012), pp. 52–53.
56 The initial publications identified it as a church; see
Ludwig Budde, Antike Mosaiken in Kilikien (Reckling­
hausen, 1969) and Ernst Kitzinger, “Observations on
the Samson Floor in Mopsuestia,” Dumbarton Oaks
Papers 27(1973), 133–144, but this identification was
later challenged, and the building identified as more
likely a synagogue, by Michael Avi-Yonah, “The Mosaics
of Mopsuestia – Church or Synagogue?” in Lee I.
Levine, ed., Ancient Synagogues Revealed (Jerusalem,
1981), pp. 186–190.
57 Grabar, Dome of the Rock, pp. 104–106. This approach
was further developed by Rina Avner, “The Dome of
the Rock in Light of the Development of Concentric
Martyria in Jerusalem: Architecture and Architectural
Iconography,” Muqarnas 27(2010), 31–49, but I do not
find the comparisons persuasive.
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156
the Chain, whether coincidentally or not), is an
irregular rocky outcrop, which determined its
location. The church was recently excavated and
it was found to have had three layers of mosaics,
datable to roughly the fifth, the sixth and probably
the eighth centuries. The latter program included
a fine large palm tree, somewhat analogous to
palm trees that appear in the mosaics of the Dome
of the Rock, which have been connected to the
passage in the Qurʾan (19, verses 23–26) describing
Mary having labor pains and thirst under a palm
tree, from which God caused her to receive
refreshment.58 The iconography would be intelli-
gible to both Christians and Muslims using their
scriptures, and the Qurʾan gives a specific expla-
nation for the palm, which is not mentioned in
the Gospel accounts. The excavation of the
Kathisma church also uncovered a niche inserted
into the south-facing wall of the church, which
might be interpreted and indeed has by some
been interpreted as a mihrab. Although this inter-
pretation is uncertain, it is intriguing, but difficult
to explain, as it could be taken as evidence that
the church was converted for use as a mosque at
an early date, or that the building was shared
by  Muslim and Christian pilgrims.59 It may be
­relevant to note that a small glass bottle of the
type just discussed, used commonly by Christians
and Jews and possibly also by Muslims, was found
58 Rina Avner, “The Kathisma: A Christian and Muslim
Pilgrimage Site,” ARAM Periodical 18–19(2006–2007),
541–557. I am grateful to Mattia Guidetti for first calling
this article to my attention, and for providing me with
a copy. There is a popular article, but with some color
illustrations, notably of the palm-tree mosaic, in
H.S. [only initials given, not a full name], “Rediscovering
the Kathisma. Where Mary Rested,” Biblical Archaeology
Review (Nov.–Dec. 2006), 44–51. There is also a good
color photograph of the mosaic, compared directly to a
photograph of the Dome of the Rock mosaic, in Finbarr
B. Flood, “Faith, Religion, and the Material Culture of
Early Islam,” in Evans, Byzantium and Islam. Age of
Transition (as above, n. 13), pp. 244–257 at 248, figs. 97
and 98.
59 Avner, “The Kathisma,” at 547.
chapter 6
in the church in an unsealed seventh-century
layer.60
As already noted in the previous chapter, in
the period up to the seventh century Jews also
could at least in some places and times have
eagles in their synagogues. Expensive and presti-
gious marble Roman eagles were installed intact
in the Sardis synagogue, but in this case, unlike
the capitals in the Dome of the Rock, they were
never effaced, and provide further proof that
Jewish aniconism even in religious buildings was
not total, and did not extend to eagles, or in the
case of the Sardis synagogue, to lions, for a pair of
sculptured lions flanked the eagle table there.61
Naftali Cohn has called attention to an eagle in a
synagogue in Katsyon in the Golan, associated
with an inscription identifying those who dedi-
cated the building to Septimius Severus in the
early third century as Judaeans (ιουδαιοι). As he
interprets the evidence, it suggests that already
at this early date some Judaeans/Jews “seem to
60 For the most recent discussion and bibliography see
Evans, Byzantium and Islam. Age of Transition, nos. 60,
62 A-C, 72 and 186. The last of these was interpreted by
Julian Raby in an important long article as reflecting
the “Standing Caliph” coins of the later seventh-
century, suggesting that it was made for and used by a
Muslim, likely in some pilgrimage context. See Raby,
“In Vitro Veritas.”
61 Jodi Magness, “The Date of the Sardis Synagogue in
Light of the Numismatic Evidence,” American Journal
of Archaeology 109(2005), 443–475, esp. 449 and fig. 6
on the eagle supports for the table in the nave and
p.  449 note 24 for a list of eagles (and lions) in
Palestinian synagogues. For some of the numerous
studies on iconoclasm in the period see Rina Talgam,
Mosaics of Faith. Floors of Pagans, Jews, Samaritans,
Christians, and Muslims in the Holy Land (Jerusalem
and University Park pa, 2014), pp. 405–30 with abun-
dant references to earlier literature, including on the
relationship of Jewish iconoclasm to Christian and
Muslim phenomena Charles Barber, “The Truth in
Painting: Iconoclasm and Identity in Early-Medieval
Art,” Speculum 72(1997), 1019–1036, reprinted in
Lawrence Nees, ed., Approaches to Early-Medieval
Art (Cambridge MA, 1998), pp. 61–78.
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Conclusion
have embraced Roman culture.”62 The shared
imagery, and likely also iconography, across con-
fessional lines is astounding, and it is an indict-
ment of the compartmentalization of scholarship
that it has heretofore been unremarked, apparently
not noticed.63
Objects can often surprise us. They moved, as
did ideas, and may have changed in function and/
or meaning as they moved, whether or not they
crossed borders.64 Indeed the remarkable brazier
from al-Fudayn was designed to be disassembled
into three parts (hence the three accession num-
bers for the object!), presumably so that it would
be portable.65 The stone incense burner from the
Umayyad Governor’s Palace in Amman, domical
in form, is made from basalt, a stone not found in
the region. It must either have been made else-
where and imported to Amman, or the stone itself
62 See Naftali S. Cohn, The Memory of the Temple and the
Making of the Rabbis (Philadelphia, 2013), p. 30, with
reference to the publication, “with images” by Zvi Ilan,
Synagogues in Ancient Israel [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem,
1991), p. 30.
63 It is not my intent to contribute to the growing body of
literature devoted to the history of modern studies on
the “Middle East,” the effects of “orientalism,” or the
disciplinary divides in modern universities, and thence
in scholarship. I should mention here only Lassner,
Jews, Christians and the Abode of Islam (as above, n. 51),
and Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing. The Orientalists
and the Enemies (London, 2006).
64 On this phenomenon for a slightly later period, see Eva
R. Hoffman, “Pathways of Portability: Islamic and
Christian interchange from the tenth to the twelfth
century,” Art History 24(2001), 17–50.
65 See the drawings in Jean-Baptiste Humbert, “El-Fedein/
Mafraq. École biblique et Archéologique Française,” in
Contribution Française à l’archéologie Jordanienne
(Amman,1989), 125–131, with an important series of
drawings p. 131, including details of the four nude fig-
ures, and detailed views of one of the corner eagles,
including a view from the back showing the hollow
casting. I am grateful to Ghazi Bisheh for bringing this
publication to my attention. Note here also, p. 130, a
small bronze censer from the site with open-work
frieze around the perimeter.
157
was imported and then carved locally.66 Its origin
and date can probably never be determined
exactly, all we can say is that it was used in this
early Islamic context. Nina Ergin cited a text per-
haps documenting an appropriation of an object
made for use in a Christian church by early Islam
and re-employed in a religious context. The text
relates that Caliph ʿUmar “brought to Medina a
censer he had acquired in Syria – probably an
object originally intended for a Syrian Christian
church, as it had figural decoration. He then had
his client ʿAbdullah carry the censer in front of him
when going to prayer during the holy month of
Ramadan, and he had him burn incense in the
mosque while he sat on the pulpit (minbar).”67 We
cannot, it seems to me, assume that a figural cen-
ser was not made with Muslim usage in mind, for
we have abundant evidence of figural censers at
least some of which must surely have been
intended for use by, whether or not made by,
Muslims.68 Such luxury objects may also have
remained in use for a long period, before being dis-
carded, or altered, as seems to have been the case
with the eagle capitals of the Dome of the Rock, if
indeed they remained intact until the late medi-
eval period, as suggested at the end of the previous
chapter.
The theme of “judgment” is probably critical in
assessing the monuments considered in this study,
in general terms but especially with reference to
the Dome of the Chain, as discussed in Chapter 4.
Eschatological judgment, the Last Judgment, is a
66 Amman, Jordan Archaeological Museum, Inv. No. J
1663; see Ghazi Bisheh et alia, The Umayyads. The Rise
of Islamic Art, Jordan, International Museum with no
frontiers exhibition cycles, Islamic Art in the
Mediterranean (Vienna, Beirut and Amman, 2000),
pp. 69–70 (with illustration).
67 Nina Ergin, “The fragrance of the Divine: Ottoman
Incense Burners and their Context,” Art Bulletin
96(2014), 70–97 at 73.
68 See Lawrence Nees, “L’odorat fait-il sens? Quelques
réflexions autour de l’encens de l’Antiquité tardive au
haut Moyen-Âge,” Cahiers de civilisation médiévale
56(2013), 451–471 for more examples.
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158
major focus of the earliest Islamic tradition, and
also a theme uniting Muslims, Christians, and Jews,
as explored by Fred Donner in Muhammad and the
Believers.69 Jewish traditions in the immediately
pre- and early Islamic period also attempted to
locate the “precise seat of the Judge during the Last
Judgment,”70 and several important texts can be set
in the early seventh century that place the eschato-
logical climax in Jerusalem, especially around the
Temple Mount.71 Perhaps most striking among the
Jewish texts is Sefer Zerubbabel, written in the first
half of the seventh century, probably just before or
at the time of the Islamic conquest, in which the
Messiah journeys from the gates of Rome (i.e. the
imperial capital at Constantinople) to Jerusalem,
effecting a translatio imperii back to the kingdom
of David.72 From the same period, around the rise
69 Donner, Muhammad and the Believers, pp. 78–82 for
the eschatological orientation of the earliest Islamic
tradition, pp. 183–184 on the emergence about 684 of
Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya, a son of ʿAli ibn Abi
Talib, as the first Muslim to claim the status of Mahdi,
the eschatological redeemer, and p. 202 on the com-
mon belief among Jews, Christian and Muslims that
Jerusalem and especially the Temple Mount/Haram al-
Sharif will be the focus of the Last Days.
70 Ora Limor, “The Place of the End of Days: Eschatological
Geography in Jerusalem,” in Bianca Kühnel, ed., The Real
and Ideal Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Art.
Studies in Honor of Bezalel Narkiss on the Occasion of his
Seventieth Birthday (Jerusalem, 1998), pp. 13–22 at 18.
71 Günter Stemberger, “Jerusalem in the Early Seventh
Century: Hopes and Aspirations of Christian and Jews,”
in Lee I. Levine, ed., Jerusalem. Its Sanctity and
Centrality to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (New York,
1999), pp. 260–272.
72 For discussions, see Avraham Grossman, “Jerusalem in
Jewish Apocalyptic Literature,” in Joshua Prawer and
Haggai Ben-Shammai, eds., The History of Jerusalem.
The Early Muslim Period 638–1099 (Jerusalem and New
York, 1996), pp. 295–310 and Alexei Sivertsev, Judaism
and Imperial Ideology in Late Antiquity (Cambridge,
2011), pp. 39 and esp. 148–171. For information on edi-
tions and translations and scholarly literature see now
Eyal Ben-Eliyahu, Yehudah Cohn and Fergus Millar,
Handbook of Jewish Literature from Late Antiquity 135–
700 ce (Oxford, 2012), pp. 151–153; here also a concise
chapter 6
of Islam in the 620s and 630s, Christian texts are
marked by what Yuri Stoyanov has termed “religio-
political propaganda of Heraclius’ imperial govern-
ment with its marked eschatologizing dimension,”
much of which focused on Jerusalem as the setting
for the eschaton, the last days, immediately on the
eve of the Muslim conquest of the city.73 Among
Christian texts the outstanding example of escha-
tological texts, with the widest dissemination and
long-term impact, is the Apocalypse by the author
known as pseudo-Methodius, whose composition
has been set by recent scholarship in the years
685–692, coinciding with the beginning of ʿAbd al-
Malik’s caliphate and exactly contemporary with
the building of the Dome of the Rock.74 Written
originally in Syriac, it was soon translated into
Greek and thence into Latin; a Latin manuscript
from Francia datable before 727 survives,75 and this
presentation of some other late antique apocalyptic
texts in Hebrew. See also Matthew J. Grey, “The
‘Redeemer to Arise from the House of Dan’: Samson,
Apocalypticism, and Messianic Hopes in Late Antique
Galilee,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 44(2013), 553–
589, and Grey and Magness, “Finding Samson in
Byzantine Galilee” (as above, n. 36), at 22–29.
73 Yuri Stoyanov, Defenders and Enemies of the True Cross.
The Sasanian Conquest of Jerusalem in 614 and Byzantine
Ideology of Anti-Persian Warfare, Öster­reichische Akad­
emie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische
Klasse, Sitzungsberichte 819, Veröffentlichungen zur
Iranistik 61 (Vienna, 2011), quotation at p. 74.
74 See for the text and discussion Benjamin Garstad, ed.
and trans., Apocalypse Pseudo-Methodius.[and] An
Alexandrian World Chronicle, Dumbarton Oaks
Medieval Library (Cambridge, MA and London, 2012),
basing this date on Gerrit Reinink, “Pseudo-Methodius:
A Concept of History in Response the Rise of Islam,” in
Averil Cameron and Lawrence Conrad, eds., The
Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East, 1: Problems in the
Literary Source Material (Princeton, 1992), 178–186.
75 Bern, Burgerbibliothek, cod. 611, for which see Marc
Laureys and Daniel Verhelst, “Pseudo-Methodius,
Revelationes: Textgeschichte und kritische Edition. Ein
Leuven-Groninger Forschungsprojekt,” in Werner
Verbeke, Daniel Verhelst and Andries Welkenhuysen,
eds., The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle
Ages (Leuven, 1988), pp. 112–136 at 114, #4.
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Conclusion
translation history itself testifies to the rapid move-
ment of texts and ideas across wide geographic and
linguistic boundaries. The text envisages the “king
of the Romans” defeating the “Ishmaelites” and re-
establishing universal rule in Jerusalem, immedi-
ately followed by the end times.
Eschatological ideas, the resurrection and judg-
ment at the last days were fundamental to the
Islamic tradition from the beginning, being a major
reiterated theme throughout the Qurʾan,76 Sura 75
“The Resurrection” saying that
“Upon that day faces shall be radiant,
Gazing upon their Lord;
And upon that day faces shall be scowling,
Thou mightiest think the Calamity has been
wreaked on them.”77
Grabar, who had previously tended to downplay
eschatological beliefs, in his 2006 book on the
Dome of the Rock gave significant discussion to
eschatological factors, noting what he termed “a
massive accumulation of facts and myths” focused
on the mostly empty space of the Haram even
“before a significant building was erected on it in
the seventh century.”78
The focus on judgment and justice was not lim-
ited to eschatology, however, for justice in this
world was a constant and leading issue, ultimately
dependent on the single divine law revealed in the
Qurʾan but also involving pre-Islamic traditions
76 Daniel A. Madigan, “Themes and Topics,” in Jan
Dammen McAuliffe, ed., The Cambridge Companion to
the Qurʾan (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 79–95 at 90–91.
77 A.J. Arberry, trans., The Koran Interpreted (New York,
1996, after the 1955 edition), p. 313.
78 Grabar, Dome of the Rock, pp. 53–57, the quotations at 57
and 53 respectively. For some of the stories and beliefs
that accumulated, such as the Kaʻba and its black stone
coming to Jerusalem, and the angel blowing the trum-
pet of resurrection from the Rock, see Andreas Kaplony,
“635/638–1099: The Mosque of Jerusalem (Masjid Bayt
al-Maqdis),” in Oleg Grabar and Benjamin Z. Kedar,
eds., Where Heaven and Earth Meet: Jerusalem’s Sacred
Esplanade (Jerusalem, 2009), pp. 100–131 at 124.
159
and played out in the administration of justice
even by the Prophet Muhammad himself.79 The
early caliphs were recognized as authors as well as
administrators of law by their contemporaries,
and not only the first four Rashidun caliphs, recog-
nized as law-makers even in the later Islamic
legal  tradition.80 The Umayyad caliphs were also
recognized as law-makers, certainly through the
seventh century, although this status was later
contested and often rejected.81 It is interesting to
note that as rightly-guided rulers who were able to
understand and implement divine laws, the
caliphs were often linked with David and Solomon,
who represented this elevated position in the
Qurʾan and other sources.82 Law was always a cen-
tral subject, from the moment of the death of the
prophet and the problem of choosing a successor.
The first great schism in the Islamic tradition is
not that between the adherents of ʿAli and
Muʿawiya, origin of the divide between Shia and
Sunni, but the literal “going out” of the Kharijites,
who rejected the authority of both sides at the
time of their negotiated agreement in 657,83 and
made as their fundamental principle and motto
that “judgment belongs to God alone” (la hukma
illa bi-Allah), which might be the correct reading
of a series of coins by the governor in Kerman, al-
Hakam ibn Abu al-ʿAs, in 675–678.84
79 Fred M. Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton,
1981), esp. 39–40 on the pre-Islamic inheritance and
72–75 on administration by the Prophet Muhammad.
80 See Tayeb El-Hibri, Parable and Politics in Early Islamic
History. The Rashidun Caliphs (New York, 2010),
pp. 48–51 with earlier bibliography.
81 Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds, God’s Caliph. Religious
authority in the first centuries of Islam (Cambridge,
1986), pp. 43–57, with quotations from various
Umayyad caliphs themselves and also from other
sources, for example poetry.
82 Crone and Hinds, God’s Caliph, pp. 44–54, at 56.
83 R. Stephen Humphreys, Muʿawiya ibn Abi Sufyan. From
Arabia to Empire (Oxford, 2006), pp. 82–83, and Donner,
Muhammad and the Believers, pp. 162–167.
84 Clive Foss, “Muʿawiya’s State,” in John Haldon, ed.,
Money, Power and Politics in early Islamic Syria. A review
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160
Although the focus in this study has been on
Jerusalem and its environs, such complex and
shifting interactions need not be seen as a special
case. For example, in Aleppo, the remarkable
object that might have originated as a bema in a
synagogue and later incorporated for use in a
mosque as a minbar (Figs.  4.18 and 4.19) has
already been discussed.85 In the same city a
roughly analogous phenomenon of survival and
transition to a new function may be provided by
the preservation of a portion of the great domed
cathedral, probably dating from the sixth century.
Built at some point in the early eighth century
beside it was a great mosque, but the cathedral
continued in Christian use until the time of the
of current debates (Farnham [Surrey] and Burlington
vt, 2010), pp. 75–96 at 93 discusses these intriguing
coins, noting that other scholars read and interpret
them differently. Michael Morony, Iraq after the Muslim
Conquest (Princeton, 1984; 2nd [unchanged, but with
author’s index] ed.; Piscataway, nj, 2005), p. 34 dis-
cusses the inscription in the four corners of a public
audience hall built at Kufa ca. 670, which seems to
paraphrase Qurʾan 10:26–27 on good and evil being
rewarded in the king. I would like to know more about
these inscriptions; they are not mentioned in Creswell’s
discussion of the Dar al-Imara at Kufa (K.A.C. Creswell,
Early Muslim Architecture [2nd ed., Oxford, 1969], i,
Part i, pp. 48–58).
85 The quotation is from Sukenik, Ancient Synagogues in
Palestine and Greece, p. 57, with drawing on p. 58, fig. 17.
Jean Sauvaget, Alep, essai sur le développement d’une
grande ville syrienne, des origines au milieu du xixe siè-
cle (Paris, 1941), p. 60, mentioned this “chaire,” which he
dated to the sixth century, but did not discuss it, refer-
ring only to reproductions in Encyclopedia Judaica ii,
372, which I have not been able to confirm, and Georges
Ploix de Rotrou, “La chaise Hébraique de la Mosquée
‘des Serpents’ d’Alep,” Revue Archéologique Syrienne
1(1931), 61–62 (and Sauvaget says that the interpreta-
tion and the date in the latter [pre-Christian era] are
both erroneous). Ploix de Rotrou’s article says that the
object is in the National Museum in Aleppo, and mea-
sures approximately 57(H) × 71(L) × 51(W) cm; I have
not been able to see Georges Ploix de Rotrou, Le musée
national d’Alep. Catalogue sommaire (Aleppo, 1932).
chapter 6
Crusades,86 subsequently being converted for use
as a madrasa, the Madrasa Hallawiya.87 This conti-
nuity is only one example of a larger phenomenon
recently discussed by Mattia Guidetti.88
In enumerating a few of the languages spoken
or otherwise used in the southeastern Med­i­ter­
ranean world in the seventh-ninth century, and
evident on objects in her great exhibition, Helen
Evans recently enumerated Greek, Coptic,
Aramaic, Syriac and Arabic, but noted that “miss-
ing from this list is Latin, then the official language
of the Byzantine state.”89 This statement is not
strictly true, for Latin inscriptions continued to be
visible, notably on imperial Roman coinage, com-
monly bearing on the reverse the inscription
VICTORIA AUG[usti or – orum], in Latin, which cir-
culated in the eastern Mediterranean, including
the newly Islamic territories during the seventh
century.90 There is important evidence that Latin
might have been more than just a relic on coins,
for the great collection of “new finds” at St.
Catherine’s monastery at Mount Sinai includes
Latin items, best known being the small Psalter
with distinctive “Merovingian” style initials, which
E.A. Lowe thought likely to have been not an
import but a work written by a Latinate scribe in
the East, perhaps at Sinai itself or perhaps in
Jerusalem.91 In another study I hope to suggest
86 See in general Yasser Tabbaa, Constructions of Power
and Piety in Medieval Aleppo (University Park pa, 1997),
p. 16 on the cathedral.
87 Sauvaget, Alep, essai sur le développement d’une grande
ville syrienne, pp. 59–60 and pl. ix, 1. See also Michel
Écochard, “Note sur un edifice chrétien d’Alep,” Syria
27(1950), 270–283.
88 Mattia Guidetti, “The Byzantine Heritage in the Dar al-
Islam: Churches and Mosques in al-Ruha between the
sixth and twelfth centuries,” Muqarnas 26(2009), 1–36.
89 Evans, Byzantium and Islam. Age of Transition, p. 4.
90 Evans, Byzantium and Islam. Age of Transition, nos. 86A
and 86C, erroneously described as being inscribed in
Greek.
91 Mount Sinai, Holy Monastery of St. Catherine, Latin
New Finds ms 1 + Slavonic ms 5. See E[lias] A[very]
Lowe, “An Unknown Latin Psalter on Mount Sinai,”
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Conclusion
that the layout and decoration of early Qurʾan
manuscripts have some striking features in com-
mon with those of Latin books of the seventh and
early eighth century, which may best be under-
stood not as the product of direct influence one
way or the other but of shared problems and com-
mon methods.92 The lengthy discussion of the
holy sites in the Christian East by Adomnán of
Iona written before 704, discussed at length in
Chapter 3 above in connection with “Arculf’s” tes-
timony about the earliest Islamic place of prayer
in Jerusalem, is not an isolated example of Western
European interest in Jerusalem. David Jenkins has
argued that the layout of early ecclesiastical sites
in Ireland was modeled on the understanding
transmitted through scriptural sources of the lay-
out of Jerusalem,93 and interest was by no means
Scriptorium 9(1955), 177–199, pls. 18–23; Moshé
Altbauer, Psalterium latinum hierosolymitanum. Eine
frühmittelalterliche lateinische Handschrift Sin. Ms. No.
5 (Jerusalem, 1977, also Vienna, 1978), and Michelle
P. Brown, ed., In the Beginning. Bibles before the year
1000 (Washington, D.C., 2006), no. 48 (with color plate
fols. 19v–20r). It is not the only such Latin manuscript
in the collection; see E.A. Lowe, “Two New Latin
Liturgical Fragments on Mount Sinai,” Revue bénédic-
tine 74(1964), 252–283 at 252; E.A. Lowe, “Two other
unknown Latin liturgical fragments on Mount Sinai,”
Scriptorium 19(1965), 3–29, pls. 1–7. Father Justin, the
librarian at the Holy Monastery of St. Catherine, kindly
permitted me to examine the manuscript at the end of
the Washington exhibition, and he and Michelle Brown
have both told me that she is working on a full cata-
logue of the items.
92 Lawrence Nees, “Merovingian’ Illuminated Manuscripts
and their links with the eastern Mediterranean world,”
to appear in Stefan Esders and Yitzhak Hen, eds., East
and West in the Early Middle Ages: The Merovingian
Kingdoms in Mediterranean Perspective”.
93 David Jenkins, ‘Holy, Holier, Holiest’. The Sacred
Topography of the Early Medieval Irish Church, Studia
Traditionis Theologiae (Turnhout, 2010), drawing
extensively upon the earlier study by Jennifer O’Reilly,
“Reading the Scriptures in the Life of Columba,” in
Cormac Bourke, ed., Studies in the Cult of Saint Columba
(Dublin, 1997), pp. 80–106.
161
limited to the early medieval Insular world, Britain
and Ireland. A remarkable ninth-century parch-
ment roll in Basel preserves an inventory of the
ecclesiastical institutions of Jerusalem and their
clergy, made for Charlemagne.94
Much remains to be learned about the fascinat-
ing place and time addressed in this book,
Jerusalem in the seventh century. Here was beyond
doubt a critical locus for the three Abrahamic reli-
gions that would play a significant role in their
development and interactions in subsequent cen-
turies stretching down to our own time, when the
Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount continues to be at
the center of pilgrimage, politics and controversy.
Perhaps it would be salutary to change the point of
view from which we approach this period and its
material. We start, perhaps inevitably, from our
own world, in which we assume separate commu-
nities with what in recent decades have come to
be called separate “identities.” The disciplinary
structures of our academic world exacerbate this
process of division, since we tend to separate
Jewish from Islamic and from Christian studies,
universities commonly having a department or
program in one or more of these areas. Academic
journals tend often to follow this pattern as well, as
do conferences. Therefore seeing separate places
of worship, separate texts, separate liturgical prac-
tices, seems to us “normal,” and instances of evi-
dent blurring of boundaries, or crossing over, need
to be explained, because they violate our expecta-
tions. Finbarr Barry Flood has argued in an impor-
tant recent book that we might better be address-
ing “Routes not Roots,”95 emphasizing interactions,
not separation whether by ancient religious differ-
ences or modern scholarly disciplines. It ought to
94 Basel, Öffentliche Bibliothek der Universität N I 2,
Bls. 12 and 13. See Michael McCormick, Charlemagne’s
Survey of the Holy Land. Wealth, Personnel and Buildings
of a Mediterranean Church between Antiquity and the
Middle Ages, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Humanities
(Washington, D.C., 2011).
95 Finbarr Barry Flood, Objects of Translation. Material
Culture and Medieval “Hindu-Muslim” Encounter
(Princeton, 2009).
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162
be possible through an effort of imagination and
will to reverse this perspective, and accept that the
blurring of boundaries that seems aberrant to the
late twentieth and advancing twenty-first centu-
ries may have been “normal” in the seventh.
chapter 6
Borders are not natural and essential and inevita-
ble. What needs to be explained is the manner in
which borders developed, and are reflected in
works of art and architecture, and more broadly in
material and visual culture.
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before Islam, BAR International series 1699 (Oxford,
2007).
Aist, Rodney, “Adomnán, Arculf and the Source Material of
De locis sanctis,” in Jonathan M. Wooding with Rodney
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A Reinterpretation,” International Journal of Middle
East Studies 17(1986), 205–223, reprinted in Jonathan
M. Bloom, ed., Early Islamic Art and Architecture,
The Formation of the Classical Islamic World 23
(Aldershot, 2002), no. 13, pp. 373–391.
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York, 1989).
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Migration of Symbols,” Journal of the Warburg
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Wixom, William D., ed., Mirror of the Medieval World
(New York, 1999).
Wooding, Jonathan M. with Rodney Aist, Thomas Owen
Clancy, and Thomas O’Loughlin, Adomnán of Iona:
Theologian, Lawmaker, Peacemaker (Dublin and
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185
Woods, David, “Arculf’s luggage: the sources for
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Woods, David, “On the circumstances of Adomnán’s
composition of De locis sanctis,” in Jonathan M.
Wooding, with Rodney Aist, Thomas Owen Clancy,
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Late Antiquity 7(2014), 49–64.
Wright, N. “Bede and Vergil,” Romanobarbarica 6
(1981–1982), 361–379.
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Index

abacuses Alexander the Great 137

eagle imagery on 110, 111, 117 n87, 118, 121, 141 ʿAli ibn Abi Talib, Caliph 86, 87, 90, 96
large bird imagery on 116 n79 ʿAli of Herat (al-Harawi, ʿAli ibn Abi Bakr) 
ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAmir 89 113–114 n75
ʿAbd Allah ibn Saʾd ibn Abi Sarh 92 alignment, on Haram al-Sharif 29, 30, 32, 58 n2, 62, 63, 82,
ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Habib 63 146, 147
ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwan, Umayyad Caliph Allen, H.R. 60
constructions by Allen, Terry 60
Aqsa mosque 16, 17, 147 ambos 75–76
Dome of the Chain 97 Amman, Governor’s Palace in 157
Dome of the Rock 3, 9, 62, 102 ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAs 25–26
“grand narrative” of Haram al-Sharif 62–63 Anastasis Rotunda 146
and Jerusalem 21 Anastasius of Sinai 13
reforms of 153 Anglo-Saxons 137
relations with Christians 146 Apocalypse (pseudo-Methodius) 158–159
root of name of 113–114 Apostles, eleven 73–75, 83
seal of 128 apotropaia 122–123, 125–126
ablution fountains 58 n2 Aqsa mosque
Abraham 74, 81 alignment of 146, 147
Abrahamic traditions architectural design/decorations of
continuity/interaction between  capitals of
83–84, 146–160 dating of 14 n61, 65
and continuity/interaction with other traditions 149, with eagle imagery 116–118, 121, 122, 137, 141–142
155, 156–157 with figural imagery 141
eschatological thinking in 157–159 building stages of
judgement in 84 earliest levels of 3, 16, 17, 35
Abu Harithah 6 later levels 33, 72
Abu ʿUthman 6 constructions of
Adomnán, Abbot of Iona by ʿAbd al-Malik 16, 147
and Easter controversy 39, 42 by al-Walid i 3, 10, 14, 15, 16, 116, 147
knowledge of Jerusalem 43 dikka in 87
knowledge of the Bible 52 mihrabs in 27, 31
views of seen as second mosque 15
on “Arculf,” 37–38 transformation/re-use of 141
on earliest mosque 34–35 views on
on holy sites in Christian East 161 of Creswell 34–35
views on of Grabar 16, 19 n88
of Bede 38 of Hamilton 14, 16, 72, 117–118
of Creswell 35 of Johns 14, 35
visits to Northumbria 39–40 See also earliest mosque
See also De locis sanctis (Adomnán) Arabic language
Aeneid (Vergil), knowledge of 41–42 inscriptions in 70, 84, 152, 153, 155
Aethicus Ister 45–46 as language of administration 153
Agnellus of Ravenna 76 n89 mulk in 113–114, 135
Aist, Rodney 46–47, 48 word caliph in 97
ʿAlaʾ al-Din Abu al-Hasan 142 Arabic sources xiii
Aldfrith, King of Northumbria 39–40 Aramco World 112
Aldhelm of Malmesbury 42 Arch of Titus 137
Aleppo arches
domed cathedral at 160 of Dome of the Chain 68–69
al-Hayyat mosque in 84, 160 of Dome of the Rock 60

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“Arculf” De Templo 39
as composite 44–45 and Easter controversy 39, 42
and date of earliest mosque 56 Ecclesiastical History
historicity of calming of storm in 41
acceptance of 36–37 discussion of “Arculf” in 38, 39
defenders 44, 46–47, 48–49 subject matter of 38–39
sceptics 43–44, 46, 47–48, 49–50 knowledge of Jerusalem 42–43
as literary fiction 45, 56 views of, on “Arculf,” 38
reliability of 16, 56 bema churches 81–83
as source on bema/bemata 75–78
earliest mosque 15, 26, 28 central position of 79
Haram al-Sharif 3, 12, 13, 14 in Christian tradition 81–83, 90–91,
as textual source instead of Adomnán 35 92, 147
views on continuity in, between Abrahamic traditions 83–84
of Adomnán 37–38 dating of 81–82, 83
of Beckett 37 domed 83
of Bede 38 embellishments of 83
of Creswell 35 in Islamic tradition 84, 85, 160
of Grabar 36 in Jewish tradition 77–81, 90–91, 92, 147
of Hoyland & Waidler 37, 44–45, 49–50 and judgement 76–77, 84
of Rosen-Ayalon 36 minbars as successor of 84, 85, 160
of Rotter 37 Benawi, lectern from 82
visit to Iona 38, 40 Ben-Dov, Meir 107
Arnulf 48 n74 Berchem, Max van 113–114 n75
Asbat (Gate of Tribes) 30 Beth Alpha, synagogue at 80–81
assassinations 86, 87–89, 148 Beth Shean, synagogue at 140
asymmetry, in architectural design 115 n76 Bible (Jewish & Christian)
ʿAtm (Gate of Darkness) 30 passages from
Augustus of Prima Porta 126 describing, the future temple 90–91
al-Azhar mosque (Cairo) 121–122, mentioning
123 n122, 143 bema 78–79, 83
eleven columns 79
Bab al-Nabi (Prophet’s Gate) 29 three thousand people 52–53
Bab al-Silsila (Gate of the Chain) 30 Bier, Carol 129
Baer, Eva 70–71 bimot/bimah
Baidun, I. 111 See bema/bemata
al-Baladhuri, Ahmad Ibn Yahya 19, 94, 97 bird imagery
Balis 127–128 associations with, judgement 135
Balog, Paul 154–155 on coins 136
baptisteries 77 in the Quʾran 135–136
Barrucand, Marianne 121–122 See also eagle imagery; figural imagery
basalt 157 Blair, Sheila 114, 115 n76, 122
Basilica of the Holy Cross Bloom, Jonathan 18, 30, 95
(Resafa/Sergiopolis) 82 Boktor of Dendera 92
Basra, mosques in 19, 94 Bolman, Elizabeth 105
Beckett, Katherine Scarfe 37 Brands, Gunar 127
Bede braziers 129, 154 n49, 157
Commentary on Revelation, calming of storm in 42 Brisch, Klaus 70
De locis sanctis 33 Brooklyn Museum (New York) 138, 139
allusions to Vergil’s Aeneid 41–42 Bull Mosque (Qasvin) 120
context of 57 Buraq 137
oddities in 40–41 Burgoyne, Michael
place of “Arculf” in 38–43 views of
use of Arcuulfus in 41, 42 on Dome of the Chain 66
De Tabernaculo 39 on First Mosque 15–16

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burial rites 144 Cassiodorus 45

Busse, Heribert 7, 9, 59 censers 138–139, 140–141, 154, 157
Butrint (Albania) 60 chains
“Byzantium and Islam. Age of Transition” (Metropolitan of judgement 63, 85
Museum of Art) 153, 160 of stone 84–85
Charlemagne 161
Caetani, Leone 8, 9 Chatillon, François 43
Cairo, mosques in 121–122, 123 n122, 143 Chi-Rho symbol 123
caliphs Chorazin, synagogue at 133
as imam 98 Christian traditions
prerogatives of, maqsura as 93 bema in 81–83, 90–91, 92, 147
residences of 21, 25, 84–85, 89, 93, 95, 110, 151 and continuity/interaction between Abrahamic
Capernaum, synagogue at 133–134 traditions 32, 146–160
capitals eagle imagery in 127, 130–132, 147
arrangement of 109 eschatological thinking in 157–159
with cross imagery 123–124 Jerusalem in 148
with eagle imagery use of incense in 139–140
Aqsa mosque 116–118, 121, 122, 137, 141–142 See also churches/cathedrals
al-Azhar mosque 121–122, 123 n122, 143 Church of Deacon Thomas 131
defacing of 128, 133, 134, 141, 142–143 churches/cathedrals
Dome of the Chain 116, 137 in Aleppo 160
Dome of the Rock 101, 111–113, 114, 116, 125, 142 Church of Deacon Thomas 131
arrangement of 113 in Edessa 72–75, 79, 95
Christian context of 111 in Ghina 131
defacing of 143 Holy Sepulchre (Jerusalem) 8, 26, 27, 30, 32, 47
ignoring of 101, 145 in Huwirta/Huarte 131–132
and inscriptions 114 in Istanbul/Constantinople 72, 73, 74 n78, 76, 118–119,
and prohibition of imagery 111 150
and silver “stand,” 141 Kathisma church 60 n12, 155–156
and xp monograms 123 in Khirbat Munyah-ʿAsfur 131 n159
functions of at Mt. Nesbo 151
apotropaic 122–123 Nea Ekklesia (Jerusalem) 107–108
marking processional route 118–119 in Pistoia 76
geographical distribution of 120–121 in Ravenna 76
Great Mosque (Kairouan) 120 in Resafa/Sergiopolis 81, 82–83
Great Mosque (Tunis) 121 in Stobi 110–111
Haram al-Sharif in Ummer-Rasas 151
in central gate of Temple 116 n79 in Zvartʾnocʾ 130–131
distribution of 118 “Cistern Five” 58 n2
Jabal Says 128 Cohen, Naftali 156
outside door to Islamic Museum 116 coinage
Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi 128 with bird imagery 136
recutting of 116, 118 with eagle imagery 128–129, 130 n155, 133 n168, 136–137
in synagogues 132–133, 152, 156 with mihrab imagery 69, 70
Zvartʾnocʾ church 130–131 minted at Jerusalem 22–23
with figural imagery 116 n79, 122 minted by al-Hakam ibn Abu al-ʿAs 159
in Aqsa mosque 141 Roman 160
in Dome of the Rock 141 al-samad on 145
of Episcopal basilica (Stobi) 110–111 colonettes 83, 84
geographical distribution of 119–120 color, use of 105, 106
Haram al-Sharif, origins of 130 Colosseum (Rome) 126
spoliated 104, 109–110, 117, 121, 122, 130 Column of Antonius Pius 137
stone used in 109, 118 columns
views on, of Wilkinson 109–113, 116, 117–118, 120 arrangement of
See also columns in Dome of the Rock 103–104, 106, 108

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Great Mosque (Kairouan) 104 of buildings at Sichem 47, 82

of Dome of the Chain 65, 68, 71–72, of Church of the Holy Sepulchre 47
79, 92 “dung” theme in 51
of Nea Ekklesia 107–108 on Muʿawiya i 148–149
spoliated 103, 105 oddities in 40–41
as sura dividers 104–105 purpose of 46, 48 n74, 52
See also capitals “Saracen’s Prayer House” in
Commentary on Revelation (Bede), calming capacity of 51–53
of storm in 42 context of 50–53
Constans ii, Emperor of the Roman Empire 131, 136 description of
Constantine i, Emperor of the Roman Empire 1, 27 as diatribe 53–57
Constantinian Basilica 146 pejorative nature of 44, 46–47, 50, 51, 53, 54
Constantinople plausibility of 54–55
See Istanbul/Constantinople reliability of 48–49
“convincing detail” argument 49 textual sources on 50
Cook, Michael 7, 147 translations of 33–34
Cosmography of Aethicus Ister (pseudo-Jerome) 45–46 views on, of Hoyland & Waidler 43, 46
Crassus, Marcus Licinius 1 De locis sanctis (Bede) 33
Creswell, K.A.C. allusions to Vergil’s Aeneid 41–42
translations of Adomnán’s text 34 context of 57
views of oddities in 40–41
on “Arculf” 35 place of “Arculf” in 38–43
on Dome of the Chain 59, 61 n18 use of Arcuulfus in 41, 42
on first Aqsa mosque 34–35 De Tabernaculo (Bede) 39
on Great Mosque (Damascus) 120 De Templo (Bede) 39
on Haram al-Sharif in Mecca 20 defacement, of capitals 116, 117, 128, 133, 134, 141, 142–143
on Haram al-Sharif (Jerusalem) 12 Delierneux, Nathalie 44
on mosques 18 Déroche, François 104
on Qubbat al-Khadra 95 Di Segni, Leah 153
on Wasit mosque 93 dikkas 87
Crone, Patricia 7, 99, 147 Dionysius i Telmaharoyo 6
cross imagery Dome of the Chain
associations with architectural design/decorations of
apotropaia 123, 125 arches of 68–69
victory 123–124 capitals 116, 137
elongated T 124 columns 65, 68, 71–72, 79, 92
crowns dome 66
hanging 85 “eleven-ness” 71–72
motives with 124 geometry in 65, 67–68, 71–72, 92
Ctesiphon, throne hall at 85 associations with
judgement 61, 62, 63–64, 85, 95, 99
Damascus 20, 25, 90 rulers 85
See also Great Mosque (Damascus) central position of 29, 62, 63, 79, 82
Dar al-Imara (Kufa) 18 compared to
David, King of Israel 1, 8, 9, 61, 63–64, 95, 97 cathedral in Edessa 72–73
David’s Gate 30 Dome of the Rock 60, 66
De ceremoniis 118–119 n90 Kathisma church 155–156
De locis sanctis (Adomnán) 33 Zvartʾnocʾ church 131
“Arculf” in 37–38, 43–46 construction of
authorship of 47 by ʿAbd al-Malik 97
“baptism of Jerusalem” in 50–51 by Muʿawiya i 96, 97–99
citations of 36–37 dating of 3, 13, 14, 59, 61, 63, 65
context of 56–57 functions of 60–61, 145
dating of 39–40 n31, 56 n110 as ablution fountain 58 n2
drawings in ceremonial 99

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Dome of the Chain (cont.) on mosaics 102–103, 104, 113–114, 150

diversity in 62–63 on plaques 113–114
Islamic sources on 61 referring to Jesus 146
loss of relevance of 99 al-samad in 145
memorial 87 visual appearance of 149–150
as minbars 91–92, 147 interior of 103
as model for Dome of the Rock  in Islamic tradition 100
61, 66, 97, 99 mihrabs in 70–71
as part of “grand narrative” 62–63 precedents for, at Capernaum 134
as treasury 61, 99 and prohibition of imagery 111–112
mihrab in 64–65, 66, 68–71 qibla in 103
plan of 59–60, 65–66, 71–72 renovations/restaurations of 101–102, 113
restauration work on 65 as site of contention 100
studies of 58–59 transformation/re-use of 141
views on use of cencers in 140–141
of Burgoyne 66 views on
of Creswell 59, 61 n18 of Grabar 60, 66–67, 102, 134
of Grabar 58, 63, 64–65, 71–72 of Kaplony 11
of Pringle 59, 65–66 of Rabbat 16 n71, 24, 148
of Rosen-Ayalon 29, 59, 61, 64, 65 of al-Tabari 97–98
Dome of the Rock domes
alignment of 146, 147 of cathedral of Edessa 95
architectural design/decorations of construction by, Muʿawiya i 96–97
arches 60 of Dome of the Chain 66
asymmetry 115 n76 of Dome of the Rock 66, 102
capitals 103 of Great Mosque (Damascus) 95
with Christian imagery 110 Islamic royal complexes 95
with eagle imagery 101, 111–113, 114, 116, 123, 125, status of 95–96
141, 142, 145 See also Dome of the Chain; Dome of the Rock
stone used in 109, 118 Donceel-Voûte, Pauline 131
capitals of, with figural imagery 141 Donner, Fred xiv, 149, 158
columns, arrangement of 103–104, 106, 108 Dumbarton Oakes (Washington) 138
dome 66, 102 “dung” theme, in Adomnán’s De locis sanctis 51
doors 113–116
entrances to 113 eagle imagery
geometry 66–67 on abacuses See under abacuses
metal plaques 113 associations with
shafts angels/messengers 134–135
arrangement of 103 apotropaia 122–123, 125
colors used on 105, 106 ascension to heaven 137
stone used in 106–108 blessings for life and hope for resurrection 131
associations with, Muhammad’s Night Journey to entrances 131–132
Jerusalem 137 rulers 126, 127, 128–129, 131, 136–137
central importance 17–18, 28 victory 124, 125
compared to on braziers 129
church at Ghila 131 on capitals See under capitals
Dome of the Chain 60, 66 on censers 139, 154 n48
Kathisma church 155–156 in Christian traditions 127, 130–132, 147
construction of on coinage 128–129, 130 n155, 133 n168, 136–137
by ʿAbd al-Malik 3, 9, 62, 102 defacing of 128, 133, 134, 141, 142–143
by Muʿawiya i 97–98 on ewers 129
dating of 102 Herod’s use of 134–135
Dome of the Chain as model for 61, 66, 97, 99 in Islamic traditions 118–130, 135, 142, 147
inscriptions in from Jabal Says 128
and eagle capitals 114 in Jewish traditions 132–133, 152, 156

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on lintels 133–134
on military equipment 123
in mosaics 131–132, 133
of Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi 128
recutting of 116, 118
from Sabra al-Mansuriyya 129
on seals 128
on silver “stand” 137–139, 141
in synagogues 132–133, 152, 156
on textiles 129
and xp monograms 123
earliest mosque
dating of, “Arculf’s” testimony and 56
Haram al-Sharif as 10–11, 16–20, 62
physical evidence for 13–16, 33, 145
textual sources on 8–13, 33
earliest mosque (cont.)
views on
of Adomnán 34–35
of “Arculf” 15
of Burgoyne 15–16
of Creswell 34–35
of Grabar 48
of Grafman & Rosen-Ayalon 15, 23
of Hoyland 12–13
of Johns 48 n79
of Marsham 8–9, 14, 15
of Milwright 15
of al-Muqaddasi 17
of Sauvaget 20
of al-Tabari 7 n16
See also “Saracen’s Prayer House”
Easter controversy 39
Ecclesiastical History (Bede)
calming of storm in 41
discussion of “Arculf” in 38, 39
subject matter of 38–39
Edessa
and Abrahamic associations 74
cathedral at 72–75, 79, 95
Edessa hymn
“eleven-ness” in 72–74
references to Jerusalem in 73–75
Elad, Amikan 11–12, 36, 119
“eleven-ness”
in Biblical texts 78–79
of Dome of the Chain 71–72
in Edessa hymn 72–74
in other textual sources 74–75
Emisa Temple (Homs) 130 n155
empty throne 76–77
Episcopal basilica (Stobi) 110–111
Ergin, Nina 157
eschatological thinking
in Abrahamic traditions 157–159
191
bema and 76–77
Dome of the Chain and 61, 62–64
Haram al-Sharif and 26, 29
Jerusalem and 21 n100
views on, of Grabar 159
Ettinghausen, Richard 84–85, 104,
154 n48
Eucherius 50
Eutychius (Saʿid Ibn Batriq) 6, 8
Evans, Helen 153, 160
ewers 129, 154
Ewert, Christian 104, 120–121, 122
al-Farzdaq 22 n112
figural imagery 116 n79, 122
in Aqsa mosque 141
on censers 157
in Church of Deacon Thomas 131
defacing of 142
in Episcopal basilica (Stobi) 110–111
geographical distribution of 119–120
in Islamic tradition 100–101, 111, 142
of Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi 128
in synagogues 152
filthiness 6–7, 8
Fine, Steven 78, 133
Fischer, Andreas 42
Flavius Josephus 34
Flood, Finbarr Barry 122, 161
Flusin, Bernard 13
Folda, Jaroslav 141
Foss, Clive 97, 124
fountains
See ablution fountains
Fowden, Elizabeth Key 126, 127, 132
Fredegar Chronicles 42
Freer Gallery of Art (Washington) 137, 139
Friedman, Yohanan 10
al-Fudayn 129, 157
Gate of Darkness (ʿAtm) 30
Gate of Remission (Hitta) 30
Gate of the Chain (Bab al-Silsila) 30
Gate of Tribes (Asbat) 30
gazelles 89
geometry
in Dome of the Chain 65, 67–68,
71–72, 92
in Dome of the Rock 66–67
George, Alain 105
Gerasa (Jerash) 152
Ghina, church at 131
Ghorid Station (Maqam-e Ghori) 31
glass vessels 154–155, 156
Gnoli, Raniero 106
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Golden Gate 26, 29 buildings adjacent to 23–24

Goodenough, E.R. 134 capitals on See under capitals
Goodwin, Tony 136 cisterns on 58 n2
Goussen, Heinrich 72–73 compared to, Holy Sepulchre, Church of 32, 146
Governor’s Palace 157 Dome of the Chain See Dome of the Chain
Grabar, André 73 Dome of the Prophet 31
Grabar, Oleg ix Dome of the Rock See Dome of the Rock
views of as earliest mosque 10–11, 16–20, 62
on ʿAbd al-Malik’s seal 128 earliest mosque See earliest mosque
on Aqsa mosque 16, 19 n88 “emptiness” of 26, 27
on “Arculf” 36 gates of 26, 29–30
on column arrangement 104 hanging items in monuments on 85
on Dome of the Chain 58, 63, 64–65, 71–72 Jerusalem Temple 3
on Dome of the Rock 60, 66–67, 102, 134, 146 literature on 2–3
on eagle censer 154 n48 Muslim prayer on 10, 26–28, 31, 32, 115, 148
on earliest mosque 34, 48 Muslim presence on 26–29
on eschatological thinking 159 qibla in 9, 18, 21, 31–32, 68–70
on Golden Gate 29 re-arrangement of 32
on Haram al-Sharif 13–14, 31 Roman remains on 26
as source for others 48 Royal Stoa 15, 16
on term mihrab 70 site of Temples of Solomon 26
on ʿUmar i’s visit to Jerusalem 7 staircases 30–31
on wing imagery 124 as trash dump 26
virtual tour of Haram al-Sharif 112 two-layered construction of 29
Grafman, Rafi 15, 23, 36 Umayyad palace at 108
Great Mosque (Damascus) views on
ablution fountain at 58 n2 of Creswell 12
dome of 95 of Grabar 13–14
maqsura in 93, 94 of Marsham 29
mosaic decorations in 101 of Rabbat 62
treasury at 61 walls of 9
Great Mosque (Kairouan) 85–86, 104, 120 See also Holy Sepulchre, Church of
Great Mosque (Tunis) 121 Haram al-Sharif (Mecca) 20–21
Greek language 125, 126, 153 Kaʿba 9, 22 n111, 85, 141
Greenhalgh, Michael 103 al-Harawi, ʿAli ibn Abi Bakr (ʿAli of Herat) 
Gregg, Robert C. 151 113–114 n75
griffins 137 al-Hayyat mosque (Aleppo) 84, 160
grouse 89 heaven, ascension to 137
Guagnano, Maria 44 hendecagon 67–68
Guidetti, Mattia 160 Heraclius, Emperor of the Roman Empire 
Gulfrith 41 1–2
Gush Halav/Jish, synagogue at  Herod the Great 1, 134–135
132–133, 152 Herod’s Stoa 15, 34, 107
Herren, Michael W. 45–46
Hagia Sophia (Istanbul) 72, 74 n78, 76, 86, 118–119 Herzfield, Ernst 84
Hajjaj ibn Yusuf 93 Hieron of Alexandria 67
al-Hakam ibn Abu al-ʿAs 159 Hillenbrand, Robert 86, 104
Halevi, Leor 144 Hinds, Martin 99
Hamilton, Robert 14, 16, 72, 117–118 Hisham’s Palace 84–85, 89
Handley, Mark 45 History of the Prophets and Kings (al-Tabari) 
Haram al-Sharif (Jerusalem) 5, 7, 145
and Abrahamic associations 81 Hitta (Gate of Remission) 30
alignment on 29, 30–31, 32, 58 n2, 62, 63, 82, 146, 147 Holy Sepulchre, Church of
Aqsa mosque See Aqsa mosque as center of Christian presence 26, 30
Awqaf of 111–112, 145 compared to, Haram al-Sharif 32, 146

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Index 193

construction of 27 legal traditions within 159

drawings of 47 Mecca in 21–22
and ʿUmar i 8 prohibition of use of imagery 100–101, 111
Homs 130 n155 sinful corruption in 54–55
hoopoes 135 use of incense in 140–141
horses, winged 137 virtuous simplicity in 54–55
Howard-Johnston, James 6, 25, 96 Istanbul/Constantinople
Hoyland, Robert churches in 72, 74 n78, 76, 118–119
views of mosques in 86
on Adomnán’s De locis sanctis 43, 46
on “Arculf” 37, 44–45, 49–50 Jabal Says 128
on church at Mt. Nesbo 151 Jacob of Edessa 49
on context “Saracen’s Prayer House” 50–51 Jacob’s Well (Sichem) 47, 82
on earliest mosque 12–13 Jahjah al-Ghifari 88
on Jerusalem 23 Jenkins, David 161
on Theophilus of Edessa 8 Jenkins-Madina, Marilyn 104
Hugeburc 75 Jerusalem
Humphreys, R. Stephen xiv, 25, 87–88, 96, 148 ʿAbd al-Malik and 21
Huwirta/Huarte, church at 131–132 Aqsa mosque See Aqsa mosque
baptism of, in Adomnán’s De locis sanctis 50–51
Ibn ʿAbd al-Rabbihi 63 Christian population of 23–24
Ibn al-Faqih 72, 93–94 in Christian tradition 22
Ibn al-Murrajja 63 Church of the Holy Sepulchre 8, 26, 27, 30, 32
Ibn al-Zubayr, ʿAbd Allah 21 coins minted at 22–23
Ibn Dhakwan al-Safuri 148 compartementalized thinking about 161–162
Ibn Hawqual, Abu al-Kasmin ibn ʿAli al-Nasibi 10–11 earliest mosque See earliest mosque
Ibn Hisham, Abu Muhammad ʿAbd al-Malik 20 and Edessa hymn 73–75
Ibn Ishaq ibn Yasar, Muhammad 85 Haram al-Sharif See Haram al-Sharif
Ibn Khaldun 87, 93 Islamic occupation of 2, 5–8
imagery, prohibition of use of 100–101, 111 in Islamic tradition 21–23
In Praise of Jerusalem (al-Wasiti) 119 in Jewish traditions 148
incense, use of 139–141 minbars in 90
inscriptions Muʿawiya i and 21 n100, 23, 24–26, 96
in Arabic 70, 84, 152, 153, 155 Muhammad and 9, 31, 115, 119 n94, 137
in Dome of the Rock Muslim pilgrimages to 119
and eagle capitals 114 Muslim population of 23–26
on mosaics 102–103, 104, 113–114, 150 Nea Ekklesia 107–108
on plaques 113, 114 Old City 2
in Greek 125, 126, 153 Persians and 1–2, 5
in Latin 160 as royal city 97
in synagogues 156–157 as setting of eschaton 158
from Syria and Palestine 153 as site of contention 1–2, 5
Ireland, ecclesiastical sites in 57 and ʿUmar i 6–8, 10, 26–28, 32, 115, 148
Islamic traditions views on
bema in 84 of Hoyland 23
burial rites in 144 of Rabbat 23
and continuity/interaction between Abrahamic Jesus of Nazareth 146
traditions 32, 146–160 Jewish traditions
divide between Shia and Sunni 159 bema in 77–81, 90–91, 92, 147
Dome of the Rock in 100 and continuity/interaction between Abrahamic
eagle imagery in 118–130, 135, 142, 147 traditions 147–160
eschatological thinking in 157–159 eagle imagery in 132–133, 152, 156
figural imagery in 142 eschatological thinking in 157–159
inclusiveness of early 25 Jerusalem in 148
Jerusalem in 21–23 use of incense in 140

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194 Index

Jewish War (Josephus) 134 limestone 109, 118

Johns, Jeremy Limor, Ora 44
views of lintels 113, 133–134
on Aqsa mosque 14, 35 Loosey, Emma 76 n93, 78, 81
on earliest mosque 48 n79 Lowden, John 53 n99
on mosque building 18, 21 Lowe, E.A. 160
on Wasit mosque 93 Luxor, cult room 137
Josephus, Titus Flavius 134 Madrasa Hallawiya 160
Judd, Stephen C. xiii, 21, 55 Magness, Jodi 25, 78, 132 n162, 133, 152
judgement Makiya, Kanan 7 n16
in Abrahamic traditions 84 al-Maʾmun, Abbasid Caliph 102, 104, 113
associations with, birds 135 Mango, Cyril 5, 26, 75
David’s 9, 61, 63–64, 95, 99, 159 Maqam al-Nabi (Prophet’s Station) 31
eschatological 61, 63–64, 76–77, 157–159 Maqam-e Ghori (Ghorid Station) 31
Solomon’s 97, 99, 115 n75, 135, 159 al-Maqdisi 8, 17, 22 n111
justice al-Maqrizi, Taqi al-Din Abu al-ʿAbas 
See judgement 122, 142–143
Justinian i, Emperor of the Roman Empire 72, 107 maqsuras
as caliphal prerogative 93
Kaʿb al-Akbar 12, 27–28, 32, 115, 148 constructions of 93–94
Kaʿba 9, 22 n111, 85, 141 functions of 69, 86
Kachouh, Hikmat 152 in Great Mosque (Damascus) 93, 94
al-Kahdhami 97 in Great Mosque (Kairouan) 86
Kairouan 85–86, 104, 120 physical evidence of 93
Kaplony, Andreas 10–11 textual evidence of 93–94
Kathisma church 60 n12, 155–156 marble
Katsyon, synagogue at 156 “pavonazetto” 106, 108
Kharijites 159 Phrygian 107
Khirbat Munyah-ʿAsfur, church at  Maronite Chronicler 25
131 n159 Marsham, Andrew
Khirbat-al-Mafjar, Umayyad palace at  poem presented by 89
84–85, 89, 95, 110, 151 views of
Khosraw i, Shah 85 on earliest mosque 8–9, 14, 15
khutba 94–95 on Haram al-Sharif 29
Kinney, Dale 119 n90 on Muʿawiya i 25
Kitab al-Aghani (Book of Songs) 88–89 martyrium of St. Babylas (Qausiyeh) 81–82
Kitzinger, Ernst 53 n99, 110, 123 Marwan i, Umayyad Caliph 21, 89, 93, 94
Kleinbauer, Eugene 131 Marwan ii, Umayyad Caliph 128, 154
Krautheimer, Richard 146 al-masjid 10
Kretschmar, Georg 59 al-Masjid an-Nabawi (Medina) 69, 116
Kufa, mosque in 18–19, 94 masjid al-aqsa 10
Mathews, Thomas F. 118–119 n90
Lammens, Henri 10, 36 McCormick, Michael 40 n33
languages McVey, Kathleen 74
Arabic See Arabic language Mecca
Greek language 125, 126, 153 Haram al-Sharif in See Haram al-Sharif (Mecca)
Latin 160 in Islamic tradition 21–22
of the southern Mediterranean world 160 qibla in 9, 21
Lateran Babtistery (Rome) 119 n90 Medina
Latin language 160 minbars in 86, 90
Le Strange, Guy 7, 114 n75 mosques in 17, 18, 69, 95, 116–117
lecterns 82 Meehan, Denis 34
Leisten, Thomas 127 memor 84
Levine, Lee 152 Mercklin, Eugen von 110
Life of Willibald (Hugeburc) 75 Merot, rabbinic academy at 133

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Mihrab of Saladin 141–142 Fustat 69

mihrabs in Istanbul/Constantinople 86
in Aqsa mosque 27, 31 in Kairouan 85–86, 104, 120
of David 9, 91 in Kufa 18–19, 94
in Dome of the Chain 64–65, 66, 68–71 in Medina 17, 18, 69, 95, 116–117
in Dome of the Rock 70–71 in Qasvin 120
earliest forms of 69 in Ramla 20
in Kathisma church 156 Sidi Uqba 104
niche-less 70–71 in Tunis 121
origin of word 69 Umayyad 20
of ʿUmar 31, 147 in Wasit 19–20, 93
use of term 70 See also Aqsa mosque; earliest mosque
See also minbars Muʿawiya i, Umayyad Caliph
Miles, George 69 and assassination of ʿUthman ibn Affan 87–89
Milwright, Marcus 15 Christian view of 148
minbars constructions by
accessible to general public 88 Dome of the Chain 96, 97–99
association with, rulers 87–91 Dome of the Rock 97–98
in Damascus 90 domes 96–97
Dome of the Chain as 91–92, 147 maqsuras 93–94
in Great Mosque (Kairouan) 85–86 walls of Haram al-Sharif 9
in Jerusalem 90 and Jerusalem 21 n100, 23, 24–26, 96
materials used in 91–92 “King of the Holy Land” 25–26
in Medina 86, 90 succession to 98
as successor of bema 84, 85, 160 use of maqsura by 93
translated as pulpit 88 views on
ʿUmar i’s opposition to 89 of Marsham 25
use of term 86 of Rabbat 25–26
See also mihrabs of al-Tabari 89, 96
Misis (Mopsuestia) 155 Muhammad, the Prophet
mlk (Arabic root) 113 and Jerusalem 9, 31, 115, 119 n94, 137
Morony, Michael 97 and justice 159
mosaic decorations and Medina 86
in Beth Alpha 80–81 portraits of 101
in Dome of the Rock See under Dome of the Rock successors of 25
with eagle imagery 131–132, 133 values of 54
in Great Mosque (Damascus) 101 Muhammad and the Believers (Donner) 149, 158
inscriptions on 102–103, 104, 113–114, 150 mulk (sovereignty, power) 113–114, 135
in Kathisma church 156 multi-lingualism 151–152
in martyrium of St. Babylas 81–82 al-Mundhir building (Resafa) 126–127
in palace at Khirbat al-Mafjar 84–85, 89, 151 al-Mundhir iii, King of the Ghassanids 126
in Ramla 70 al-Muqaddasi, Shams al-Din Abu ʿAbd Allah Muhammad 8,
of Samson 155 17, 22 n111
in St. Stephen church 151
Moschus, John 12–13 Nahr Maʾkil (canal) 97
Mosque of ʿAmr ibn alʿAs 69 Nasir-i Khosraw 10, 30, 31, 62, 63, 72
Mosque of the Prophet (Medina) 18, 69, 95, 116–117 Natsheh, Y. 111
mosques Nea Ekklesia (Jerusalem) 107–108
in Aleppo 84, 160 Nebuchadnezzar ii, King of Babylon 1, 8
in Basra 19, 94 Necipoğlu, Gülru 62
constructions of, by ʿUmar i 7 n16, 8–9, 11, | Nuseibeh, Saïd 70, 106
12, 14, 18
in Damascus 58 n2, 61, 93, 94, 101 The Octateuchs 52–53 n99
as designated places 18–19 Oethelwald 41
earliest textual references to 12, 48–49 oil lamps 152

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196 Index

O’Loughlin, Thomas 46, 49–50 rabbinic academy, at Merot 133

omphalos 22, 81 rabbis, and bema 80 n111
Onians, John 109 Raby, Julian 3 n7, 14, 35, 48 n79, 155
Ó Caraagáin, Tomás 47 Rajaʾ ibn Haywah al-Kindi 27
Ramla 20, 70
palaces, Umayyad 84–85, 89, 95, 110 Ravenna 76, 77
Palmer, Andrew 148 Red Monastery (Sohag) 105
“pavonazetto” marble 106, 108 Religious Scholars and the Umayyads. Piety-minded support-
Persian traditions, and continuity/interaction with ers of the Marwanid Caliphate (Judd) xiii
Abrahamic traditions 149, 155 Renhart, Erich 74, 77
Persians 1–2, 5 Resafa/Sergiopolis
Peters, Francis Edward 21 n100 basilicas at 81, 82–83
Phrygian marble 107 al-Mundhir building at 126–127
Piccirillo, Michele 131 Robinson’s Arch 29
pilgrimages, and established itineraries 118–119 The Rock: A Tale of Seventh-century Jerusalem (Makiya) 7
Pisano, Giovanni 76 n16
plaques, metal 113, 114–115 Roman altar 124
poems, from Kitab al-Aghani 88–89 Roman traditions
Pompey the Great (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus) 1 and continuity/interaction with Abrahamic tradi-
Pratum spirituale (Moschus) 12–13 tions 149, 156–157
priests, and bema 80 n111 eagle imagery and 126
Pringle, Denys 59, 65–66 Rome 126
processional routes 118–119 Rosen-Ayalon, Myriam
Procopius 107–108 views of
Prophet’s Gate (Bab al-Nabi) 29 on “Arculf” 36
Prophet’s Mosque (Medina) 18, 69, 95, 116–117 on Dome of the Chain 29, 59, 61,
Prophet’s Station (Maqam al-Nabi) 31 64, 65
pulpit, minbars translated as 88 earliest mosque 15, 23
pyrgus 76 n89 Rosenthal, Franz xii–xiv
Qasr al-Burkuʾ 125 Rotter, Ekkehart 37, 44
Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi 128 Royal Stoa 15, 16
qibla
in Dome of the Rock 103 S. Stefano Rotondo (Rome) 60
in Haram al-Sharif 9, 18, 21, 31–32, 68–70 Sabra al-Mansuriyya 129
qubba 97 Sadeghi, Behnam 113, 119 n94
Qubbat al-Khadra (palace; Damascus) 93, 95 Safar, Fuad 93
Qurʾan Saʿid ibn al-ʿAs 89
birds in 135–136 Saʿid Ibn Batriq (Eutychius) 6, 8
manuscripts 161 Salah ad-Din, Yusuf ibn Ayyub 142
passages from al-samad 145
on David 64, 97 Samson 53
on Jerusalem 10 Sant’ Andrea church (Pistoia) 76
on the Resurrection 159 “Saracen’s Prayer House”
on Solomon 97 in Adomnán’s De locis sanctis
on sovereignty 113 capacity of 51–53
al-samad in 145 context of 50–53
Qusayr ʿAmra (palace/castle) 95 description of
as diatribe 53–57
Rabbat, Nasser pejorative nature of 44, 46–47, 50, 51, 53, 54
views of plausibility of 54–55
on Dome of the Rock 16 n71, 24, 148 reliability of 48–49
on Haram al-Sharif 62 textual sources on 50
on Jerusalem 23 See also earliest mosque
on Muʿawiya i 25–26, 97–98 Sardis, synagogue at 79, 132 n162, 156
on Umayyad architecture 149 Sarre, Friedrich 154 n48

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Sasanian traditions usage of bema in 78–80

and continuity/interaction with Abrahamic at Yafia 133
traditions 155
eagle imagery and 126 al-Tabari, Aby Jaʿfar Muhammad Ibn Jarir
Saudi Aramco World 112 History of the Prophets and Kings 5, 7, 145
Sauvaget, Jean 20, 86, 127 isnad of 57
sceattas, Anglo-Saxon 137 and meaning of al-samad 145
Scott, Roger 5 and traditional picture of the Umayyads 55
sculpture, Umayyad 110 views of
Seager, Andrew R. 80 n111 on ʿAli ibn Abi Talib 90
seals, with eagle imagery 128 on assassination of ʿUthman ibn Affan 87–88
Sefer Zerubbabel 158 on conquest of Jerusalem 5–6
Seleucia, tetraconch at 82 on Dome of the Rock 97–98
Septimius Severus 156 on earliest mosque 7 n16
Sergius, Saint 127 on Kufa 19
shafts 103–108 on maqsuras 94
Sichem, Jacob’s Well at 47 on Muʿawiya i 89, 96
Sidi Uqba mosque 104 on the Prophet’s successors 25
silver “stand,” with four eagles 137–139, 141 on throne hall at Ctesiphon 85
Simelidis, Christos 145 on ʿUmar i 6, 7, 10, 11, 24, 55
Simeon Maccabeus 1 on Yazid’s succession 98, 99
Sion Treasure 138 on Ziyad’s khutba 94–95
Solomon, King of Israel 1, 8, 79, 97, 99, 115 n75, tabulae 35
135, 159 Taft, Robert 81
Solomon’s Temple 1, 3, 6, 8, 26 Talgam, Rina 110, 131 n159
Sophronius of Jerusalem 6–8, 13, 53 Tamari, Shemuel 60–61 n16, 116 n80
sovereignty 113–114, 135 Tchalenko, Georges 81, 82, 83
spolia temple, use of word 73–74
apotropaic functions of 122–123, 125–126 Temple Mount
use of See Haram al-Sharif
in capitals 104, 109–110, 117, 121, 122, 130 Templum Domini 141
in columns 103, 105 Templum Salomonis 141
St. Catherine’s monastery (Mount Sinai) 160 tetraconches, at Seleucia 82
St. Polyeuktos church (Istanbul) 73, 150 textiles, with eagle imagery 129
St. Sergius 82, 83 Theophanes the Confessor 5, 6, 54
St. Stephen church (Umm er-Rasas) 151 Theophiles of Edessa 8, 54
Stoa of Herod 34 three thousand 52
Stobi 110–111 throne hall (Ctesiphon) 85
storm, calming of 41–42 Tiberias 20
Stoyanov, Yuri 158 tiraz, with eagle imagery 129
Strabo, Walafrid 52 n98 Tohme, Lara 82
Strategios 53 travel, long-distance 45
Sukenik, Eleazar 84 tria hominum milia 52
synagogues True Cross 1–2, 5
at Beth Alpha 80–81 Tsafrir, Yoram 107–108
at Beth Shean 140 Tunis 121
at Capernaum 133–134 Turtledove, Harry 5
at Chorazin 133
dating of 80 ʿUmar i, Rashidun Caliph
eagle imagery in 132–133, 152, 156 assassination of 86, 87
figural imagery in 152 censer of 157
at Gush Halav/Jish 132–133, 152 and Christians in Jerusalem 24
at Katsyon 156 constructions of, mosques 7 n16, 8–9,
at Sardis 79, 132 n162, 156 11, 12, 14, 18
at Umm al-Qanatir 132 entry into Jerusalem 6–8, 54, 147

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198 Index

ʿUmar i, Rashidun Caliph (cont.) constructions by

first prayer in Jerusalem 10, 26–28, 32, 115, 148 Aqsa mosque 3, 10, 14, 15, 16, 116, 147
opposition to minbars 89 Great Mosque (Damascus) 101, 117
views on, of al-Tabari 6, 7, 10, 11, 24, 55 Prophet’s Mosque (Medina) 69, 116–117
virtuous simplicity of 55 Qasr al-Burkuʾ 125
Umayyad period al-Walid ibn-Hisham ibn-Kahdham 94
architecture of 149 Wallace-Hadrill, Michael 41
palaces of 84–85, 89, 95, 110 Wasit, mosques in 19–20, 93
sculpture of 110 al-Wasiti, Abu Bakr 9, 61, 63, 85, 91, 119, 148
Umayyad qasr (Balis) 127–128 Weitzmann, Kurt 52–53 n99
Umayyads, traditional picture of 55 Werlin, Steven, H. 132, 134
Umm al-Qanatir, synagogue at 132 Whelan, Estelle 69
Urman, Dan 151 Wilkinson, John
ʿUthman ibn Affan, Rashidun Caliph 21, 86, 87, 148 views of
on capitals 109–113, 116, 117–118, 120
Vergil, knowledge of work of 41–42 on defacing of figural imagery 142
Vespasianus, Titus Flavius 1, 8 on pilgrimages 119
vessels, glass 154–155, 156 Wilson, Charlie 58 n2
victory, eagle imagery and 124, 125 wings 124–125
Vitae Columbae (Adomnán) 56 Wisshak, Jens-Peter 104, 120–121
Vulgate 52–53 Woods, David 39, 47–48
writing, descriptive 49
Waidler, Sarah
views of xp monograms 123
on Adomnán’s De locis sanctis 43, 46
on “Arculf” 37, 44–45, 49–50 Yafia, synagogue at 133
on context “Saracen’s Prayer House” 50–51 Yazid i, Umayyad Caliph 26, 98
on Jerusalem 23
Walid b. Hammad al-Ramli al-Zayyat 91 Ziyad ibn Sumayya 18–19, 94–95, 97
al-Walid b. ʿUqbah 148 Zvartʾnocʾ 130–131
al-Walid i, Umayyad Caliph

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Figures

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 Lawrence Nees - 978-90-04-30207-5
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Figure 1.1 Jerusalem, aerial view
Photograph ©www.BibleLandPictures.com/Alamy

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 Due to rights restrictions,
this illustration is not available
in the digital edition of the book.

Figure 1.2 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, site plan

© Saïd Nuseibeh

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Figure 1.3 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock and Dome of the Chain, exterior view
Photograph Lawrence Nees

Figure 1.4 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, al-Aqsa mosque, north entrance facade exterior view
Photograph Lawrence Nees

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 Figure 2.1
Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, aerial view early 20th c.
Bayerische Hauptstaatsarchiv, Abteilung iv, with
permission

Figure 2.2 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, R.W. Hamilton’s plan al-Aqsa mosque

After R[obert] W. Hamilton, The Structural History of the Aqsa Mosque. A Record of Archaeological Gleanings from the Repairs of 1938–1942
[Jerusalem: Published for the Government of Palestine by Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press, 1949], foldout opposite p. 53
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Figure 2.3 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, plan of southwestern corner
After Rafi Grafman and Myriam Rosen-Ayalon, “The Two Great Syrian Umayyad Mosques: Jerusalem and Damascus,”
Muqarnas 16 [1999], Figure 2, with permission

Figure 2.4 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, reconstruction plan of the earliest al-Aqsa mosque
After Rafi Grafman and Myriam Rosen-Ayalon, “The Two Great Syrian Umayyad
Mosques: Jerusalem and Damascus,” Muqarnas 16 [1999], Figure 5, with permission

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Figure 2.5 Jerusalem, plan of the city at the time of the Muslim conquest
After Yoram Tsafrir, “70–638: The Temple-less Mountain,” in Oleg Grabar and Benjamin Z. Kedar, eds., Where Heaven and Earth
Meet: Jerusalem’s Sacred Esplanade [Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press and Austin, tx: University of Texas Press, 2009], Figure 57,
with the author’s permission

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Figure 2.6 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, general view of the Dome of the Chain from the north
Photograph Lawrence Nees

Figure 2.7 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, view of the upper platform of the Haram, from north to
south, in 1999
Photograph Lawrence Nees

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 Figure 2.8 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, view of the upper platform of the Haram, the eastern side, from south to north, in 2012
Photograph Lawrence Nees

via University of Oxford - Bodleian Libraries

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Figure 3.1 Jerusalem, Holy Sepulchre complex, from manuscript of Adomnán De locis sanctis
Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. 458, fol. 4v, photograph by permission

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Figure 3.2 Sichem, martyrium at Jacob’s well, from manuscript of Adomnán De locis sanctis
Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. 458, fol. 17v, photograph by permission

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 Figure 3.3 Jerusalem, plan of Holy Sepulchre complex in 7th c.
Plan by courtesy of Robert Ousterhout

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Figure 3.4 Samson destroying the Temple at Gaza, from the “Old Testament Picture Book,” Paris, mid-13th c.
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, cod. 638, fol.15v, photographic credit:
The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York

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Figure 4.1
Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Chain, plan and
elevation
Drawing by Peter E. Leach, in Denys Pringle, The Churches
of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. A Corpus, vol. iii: The City
of Jerusalem [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007],
Figure 32, with permission

Figure 4.2
Butrint, view of baptistery
Photograph courtesy of John Mitchell

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Figure 4.3 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Chain, view of columns
Photograph Lawrence Nees

Figure 4.4 Damascus, Great Mosque, courtyard with Treasury

Photograph courtesy of Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom

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Figure 4.5 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, plan showing axes with the Dome of the Chain
at the center
After Myriam Rosen-Ayalon, The Early Islamic Monuments of al-Haram al-Sharif.
An Iconographic Study, Monographs of the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem 28 (Jerusalem: qedem, 1989), ill. 15, with permission

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Figure 4.6 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Chain, capital
Photograph courtesy of Mohammad Ghosheh

Figure 4.7 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Chain, view from south, showing the
mihrab
Photograph Lawrence Nees

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Figure 4.8 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Chain, plan of with columns numbered
Based on drawing by Peter E. Leach, in Denys Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom
of Jerusalem. A Corpus, vol. iii: The City of Jerusalem [Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2007], Figure 32, with permission

Figure 4.9
Coin of ‘Abd al-Malik, reverse, with “mihrab”
New York, American Numismatic Society, acc. 1944.100.612; photograph courtesy of the
American Numismatic Society

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Figure 4.10 Ramla, floor mosaic from a house, with mihrab and inscription
Collection the Israel Antiquities Authority, Photo © The Israel Museum,
Jerusalem / by Meidad Suchowolski

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Figure 4.11 Sardis, synagogue, plan
After George M.A. Hanfmann and William E. Mierse, Sardis from Prehistoric to Roman times. Results of the Archaeological
Exploration of Sardis 1958–1975 [Cambridge, ma and London: Harvard University Press, 1983], Figure 252, © Archaeological
Exploration of Sardis / President and Fellows of Harvard College

Figure 4.12 Beth Alpha, synagogue, floor mosaic with bema base

After Eleazar Lipa Sukenik, The Ancient Synagogue of Beth Alpha. An Account of the
Excavations Conducted on Behalf of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem [Jerusalem: University
Press and London: Oxford University Press, 1932], pl. viii; with permission from the Magnes
Press, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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Figure 4.13 Beth Alpha, synagogue, plan
After Eleazar Lipa Sukenik, The Ancient Synagogue of Beth Alpha. An Account of the Excavations Conducted on
Behalf of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem [Jerusalem: University Press and London: Oxford University Press,
1932], pl. viii; with permission from the Magnes Press, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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 Figure 4.14
Resafa, Basilica A, interior of nave with bema
Photograph courtesy of John Mitchell

Figure 4.15 Resafa, Basilica A and mosque of Caliph Hisham, plan

After Thilo Ulbert, Die Basilika des Heiligen Kreuzes in Resafa-Sergiupolis, Resafa 2 [Mainz, 1986], pl. 79,2

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 Figure 4.16
Bennawi, lectern from the bema
After Edgar Baccache, Églises de village de la Syrie du Nord, Documents
d’archéologie: La Syrie à l’époque de l’Empire Romain d’Orient 1; Institut
français d’archéologie du Proche-Orient, Bibliothèque archéologique et
historique 105 [Paris, 1980], Album, Figure 390, with permission

Figure 4.17 Resafa, Basilica A, colonettes from the bema

After Edgar Baccache, Églises de village de la Syrie du Nord, Documents d’archéologie:
La Syrie à l’époque de l’Empire Romain d’Orient 1; Institut français d’archéologie du
Proche-Orient, Bibliothèque archéologique et historique 105 [Paris, 1980], Album,
Figure 387; with permission

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Figure 4.18 Aleppo, al-Hayyat mosque, plan and drawing of bema and/or minbar found
there
After E.L. Sukenik, Ancient Synagogues in Palestine and Greece [London, Published
for the British Academy by Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1934], p. 58,
Figure 17; with permission of the British Academy

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 Figure 4.19
Aleppo, al-Hayyat mosque, photograph of
bema and/or minbar found there
After Ernst Herzfeld, Inscriptions et Monuments
d’Alep, Matériaux pour un Corpus Inscriptionum
Arabicarum, 2me partie: Syrie du Nord, a (Cairo:
Imprimerie de l’Institut français d’archéologie
orientale, 1956), Figure 96 and pl. cxv f, with
permission

Figure 4.20 Khirbat al-Mafjar, stone chain

Jerusalem, Rockefeller Museum; photograph Lawrence Nees

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Figure 4.21 Khirbat al-Mafjar, reconstruction of stone chain in original location
After R[obert] W. Hamilton, Khirbat al Mafjar; an Arabian mansion in the Jordan Valley
[Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959], p. 91 and Figure 49a; with permission from
The Department of Antiquities of Jordan

Figure 4.22 Kairouan, Great Mosque, mihrab, minbar and maqsura

Photograph Lessingimages.com

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 Due to rights restrictions,
this illustration is not available
in the digital edition of the book.

Figure 5.1 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock, general interior view from south side
© 1992 Saïd Nuseibeh Photography

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 Figure 5.2
Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif,
Dome of the Rock.
Plan after K.A.C. Creswell, Early
Muslim Architecture, i, part i:
Umayyads A.D. 622–750 [2nd ed.,
Oxford, 1969], Figure 21; with
permission of the Israel
Antiquities Authority)

Figure 5.3
Sohag, Red Monastery, interior of the
triconch
Photograph by Arnaldo Vescovo,
courtesy of the American Research
Center in Egypt

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Figure 5.4 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock, inner ambulatory, columns on north side
Photograph Lawrence Nees

Figure 5.5 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock, inner ambulatory, columns on east side
Photograph Lawrence Nees

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Figure 5.6 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock, inner ambulatory, columns on south side
Photograph Lawrence Nees

Figure 5.7 “pavonazetto” marble (after Raniero Gnoli, Marmora Romana [Rome:

Edizioni dell-Elefante, 1971], Figure 126)

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Figure 5.8
Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock,
exterior north porch with “pavonazetto” columns
Photograph Lawrence Nees

Figure 5.9
Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of
the Rock, exterior south porch, columns
on east side
Photograph Lawrence Nees

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Figure 5.10
Jerusalem, Nea Ekklesia, lintel, re-used in the wall of the
Umayyad Palace at the southwest corner of the Haram
(after Meir Ben-Dov, In the Shadow of the Temple. The
Discovery of Ancient Jerusalem [New York: Harper and Row,
1982] , p. 241 and Figure p. 237)

Figure 5.11
Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock, eagle capital,
Wilkinson #58
Photograph Lawrence Nees

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Figure 5.12 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock, Wilkinson’s plan of the capitals in
the Dome of the Rock (after John Wilkinson, Column Capitals in al Haram al
Sharif ( from 138 A.D. to 1118 A.D.) [Jerusalem, 1987])

Figure 5.13 
Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock, eagle capital
Wilkinson #59
Photograph Lawrence Nees

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 Figure 5.14
Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock, eagle capital
Wilkinson #37
Photograph Lawrence Nees

Due to rights restrictions,

this illustration is not available
in the digital edition of the book.

Figure 5.15 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock, metal inscribed plaque formerly on the north door
© 2006 Saïd Nuseibeh Photography

Due to rights restrictions,

this illustration is not available
in the digital edition of the book.

Figure 5.16 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock, metal inscribed plaque formerly on the east door
© 2006 Saïd Nuseibeh Photography

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Figure 5.17 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Chain, eagle capital Wilkinson #151
Photograph courtesy of Mohammad Ghosheh

Figure 5.18 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, eagle capital formerly in the Aqsa mosque, now
outside the Islamic Museum on the Haram, Wilkinson #18
Photograph Lawrence Nees

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 Figure 5.19
Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, eagle capital
formerly in the Aqsa mosque, now outside
the Islamic Museum on the Haram,
Wilkinson #18, detail of recut eagle
Photograph Lawrence Nees

Figure 5.20
Cairo al-Azhar mosque, eagle capital (after Marianne Barrucand,
“Les chapiteaux de remploi de la mosquée al-Azhar et l’émergence
d’un type de chapiteau médiéval en Egypte,” Annales isla-
mologiques 36 [2002], Figure 13 [capital #46]; with permission of
the Institut français d’archéologie orientale)

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 Figure 5.21 
Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock,
capital with wreath and erased cross or
monogram, Wilkinson #41
Photograph Lawrence Nees

Figure 5.22
Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock, capital with wreath and
erased cross or monogram, Wilkinson #42
Photograph Lawrence Nees

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Figure 5.23 Umayyad “Arab-Byzantine” imitative gold solidus with three rulers standing on
obverse and T on steps on reverse
London, British Museum 1904,0511.320; with permission

Figure 5.24
Roman altar of the 6th legion, from
Megiddo, with eagle and Nike
Jerusalem, Rockefeller Museum;
Photograph Lawrence Nees

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 Due to rights restrictions,
this illustration is not available
in the digital edition of the book.

Figure 5.25 Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, Dome of the Rock, mosaic from the drum under the dome, west side, lower register
© 1992 Saïd Nuseibeh Photography

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Figure 5.26 Resafa, al-Mundhir building, eagle capital on south side of apse
After Gunnar Brands, “Der sogenannte Audienzsaal des al-Mundhir in Resafa,” Damaszener Mitteilungen 10 (1998), 211–35,
pl. 64b; with permission

Figure 5.27
Umayyad “Arab-Byzantine” copper coin, obverse, with standing
caliph and bird
Photograph Oxford, Ashmolean Museum; with permission

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Figure 5.28 Zvart’noc’, church, eagle capital
Photograph courtesy of Christina Maranci

Figure 5.29 Chorazin, synagogue, eagles flanking wreath on lintel

Jerusalem, Israel Museum; photograph Lawrence Nees

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Figure 5.30 Silver “stand” with eagles
Photograph Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: Purchase, F1953.92

Figure 5.31 Silver censer from the Sion Treasure

Photograph Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Washington, D. C. acc. No. BZ 1965.1.5.T1993; with permission
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Figure 5.32 Bronze censer, with dome and eagles
Photograph Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: Purchase, F1952.1

Figure 5.33
Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif, al-Aqsa
mosque, capital from the mihrab of Saladin
Photograph courtesy of Jaroslav Folda

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