Академия Корана:Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān/Aqṣā Mosque

N.J. Johnson, "Aqṣā Mosque" in: Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, General Editor: J. D. McAuliffe, Georgetown University, Washington DC.

An early mosque located in Jerusalem on what is called in Islam «The Noble Sanctuary» (al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf, see archaeology and the qurʾān). «The farthest place of prayer» (al-masjid al-aqṣā) is attested once in the Qurʾān, in q 17:1 (see ascension): «Glory be to he who transported his servant by night from the sacred place of prayer (al-masjid al-ḥarām) to the farthest place of prayer (al-masjid al-aqṣā).» Within Muḥammad’s life-time «the sacred place of prayer» (al-masjid, the place of prayer, mosque; al-ḥarām, the sacred) was recognized as the sacred mosque at Mecca (q.v.) while «the farthest (al-aqṣā) place of prayer» might have been in heaven, in Jerusalem (q.v.) or perhaps in a locale near Mecca. Only at a later, unknown time did the topographical attribution become the proper name of the Aqṣā Mosque. In the earliest associations of al-masjid al-aqṣā with Jerusalem, it is likely that the whole of the Ḥaram was thought to be a place of prayer.

There was no mosque on al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf before Muḥammad’s death; the Herodian platform was used then as a refuse dump and it is said that the second Caliph (q.v.), ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, who accepted the surrender of Jerusalem in about 17/638, commenced clearing away the rubbish. No Muslim source records the Ḥaram’s first mosque but, in the reign of Caliph Muʿāwiya I (41/661-60/680), the Gallic pilgrim Arculf saw that the «Saracens» had a rough prayer house, unnamed, in its eastern part, built on what he understood to be the remains of the Jewish Temple. That mosque has been attributed to ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb.

The Aqṣā Mosque is situated in the southwest corner of the Ḥaram and during the repairs of 1938-42, five previous major (Aqṣā I—V), and several lesser, structural periods were identified. In period V (746-7/1345-751/1350), associated with the Mamlūk ʿIzz al-Dīn Aybak al-Miṣrī, the western vaulted aisles and the outer western porch bays were constructed. Period IV was the work of the Knights Templar who occupied the mosque (492/1099-582/1187), when some of the eastern aisles were demolished and replaced with vaulted galleries and the central porch bays built. Literary evidence credits two Umayyad caliphs, ʿAbd al-Malik (65/685-86/705) and al-Walīd I (86/705-96/715) and two ʿAbbāsids, al-Manṣūr (136/754-158/775) and al-Mahdī (158/775-169/785) with the building or restoration of the first three archaeologically distinguishable structures, which will now be discussed.

Al-Muqaddasī, who saw the Aqṣā Mosque in 374/985, Nāṣir-i Khusraw who saw it in 438-9/1047 and the eighth/fourteenth century author of Muthīr al-gharām quoted by al-Suyūṭī all say that ʿAbd al-Malik built the mosque. Remains of Aqṣā I were found in the mosque’s southern part and nineteen meters short of its present northern wall (Hamilton, Structural history, fig. 30). Archaeological evidence for Aqṣā II, which had a wide central nave, a dome before the miḥrāb (see art and architecture and the qurʾān) and the nineteen meter extension of its northern wall, included Greek graffiti found on and deemed to be contemporary with the nave timbers. On epigraphic grounds, these carpenters' notes have been given a date range from the end of the sixth century c.e. to the beginning of the second/eighth century.

For Aqṣā III the nave and aisles north of the dome were demolished and new columns installed. Al-Muqaddasī wrote of these «marbled» columns which, Hamilton determined, had been specially prepared for the mosque and which remained in place until the 1938-42 repairs, when they were transferred to the Ḥaram museum. The Muthīr, written at Jerusalem in 752/1351, states that the Aqṣā Mosque was rebuilt by al-Manṣūr after the earthquake of 130/747-8, and built again by al-Mahdī after a second earthquake; this second quake is unrecorded and is generally thought to duplicate the earlier one.

No contemporary Muslim reports of the building of the Aqṣā Mosque exist. Its most detailed, sometimes contradictory, descriptions are those of al-Muqaddasī, Nāṣir-i Khusraw and the author of the Muthīr al-gharām as repeated by al-Suyūṭī, while Hamilton’s study provides the most complete archaeological record. Greek papyri of ca. 90/708-96/714 found at the Egyptian village of Aphrodito mention workmen and materials having been requi- sitioned for construction of a mosque and palace at Jerusalem, but it cannot be determined if the reference is to a new mosque or to an ongoing project.

According to Creswell’s interpretation of all of the evidence, al-Walīd I built Aqṣā I, al-Mahdī Aqṣā II, and, after the 424/1033 earthquake, the Fāṭimid Caliph al-Ẓāhir constructed Aqṣā III. He believed that the Aphrodito papyri confirmed al-Walīd I as the mosque’s originator and inferred from al-Ẓāhir’s mosaic inscription (see below) that, in addition to his renovation of the dome and its supports, al-Ẓāhir rebuilt the nave and aisles. Stern understood the evidence to mean Aqṣā I and II were Umayyad and Aqṣā III ʿAbbāsid; furthermore, he believed that the Fāṭimid mosaics on the dome were modeled after those of the original Umayyad building, pointing out their resemblance to those found in the Dome of the Rock. In more recent evaluations of the literary and archaeological record summarized by Hamilton (Creswell and Allan, A short account, 79-82), Aqṣā I is credited to ʿAbd al-Malik, Aqṣā II to al-Walīd I and Aqṣā III to al-Manṣūr and al-Mahdī after the earthquake of 130/748-9. It is surmised that Aqṣā II was enlarged considerably because the original building was too small.

An extant mosaic inscription at the base of the dome recording al-Ẓāhir’s repairs of 426/1034-6 contains q 17:1 immediately following the basmala (q.v.). A second inscription of al-Ẓāhir, in the dome and now lost but recorded by ʿAlī al-Harawī in 568-9/1173, also contained q 17:1 immediately after the basmala . An inscription of part of q 17:1, dating from 583-4/1187, appears on the wall east of the miḥrāb, while the inscription of q 17:1-6 which is found at the eastern end of the transept is dated 731-2/1331.

Bibliography

Primary:

• Adamnan, De locis sanctis, ed. D. Meehan, Dublin 1958
• H.I. Bell (ed.), Greek papyri in the British Museum. iv. The Aphrodito papyri, London 1910
• G. Le Strange (ed.), Description of the noble sanctuary at Jerusalem in 1470 a.d., by Kamāl (or Shams) ad-Dīn as-Suyūṭī, in jras 19 (1887), 247—305
• al-Maqdisī al-Shāfiʿī, Shihāb al-Dīn Abū Maḥmūd Aḥmad b. Muḥammad, Muthīr al-gharām, ed. Aḥmad al-Khuṭaymī, Beirut 1994
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• Nāṣir-i Khusraw, Sefer Nameh. Relation du voyage en Syrie, en Palestine, en Égypte, en Arabie et en Perse, pendant les années de l’Hégire 437—444 (1035—1042), trans. C. Schefer, Paris 1881

Secondary

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• M. Rosen-Ayalon, The early Islamic monuments of al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf, Jerusalem 1989
• H. Stern, Recherches sur la mosquée al-Aqṣā et sur ses mosaïques, in Ars orientalis 5 (1963), 27-47
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