Jerusalem

by Simon Sebag Montefiore

After it was finished in 691/2, Jerusalem was never the same again: Abd al-Malik’s astonishing vision seized the skyline of Jerusalem for Islam by building on the mountain, disdained by the Byzantines, which ruled the city. Physically the Dome dominated Jerusalem and overshadowed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – and that was Abd al-Malik’s purpose, believed later Jerusalemites such as the writer al-Muqaddasi. It worked: henceforth right up into the twenty-first century, the Muslims mocked the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – the Kayamah in Arabic – calling it the Kumamah – the Dungheap. The Dome both complemented and vanquished the rival yet related claims of Jews and Christians, so Abd al-Malik confronted both with the superior novelty of Islam. Circling the building, he placed 800 feet of inscriptions that denounce the idea of the divinity of Jesus with a directness that hints at the close relationship between the two faiths of monotheists: they shared much but not the Trinity. The inscriptions are fascinating because they are our first glimpse at the text of the Koran which Abd al-Malik was having collated into its final form.