Where the Desert Meets the Sea

by Werner Sonne

The mosque’s golden dome shone in the morning sun, above the rock upon which Abraham had nearly sacrificed his son. From here, tradition had it, the prophet Mohammed had ascended to heaven on his horse, accompanied by the Archangel Gabriel. After Mecca and Medina, it was the most important site of Islam, built by the Muslims right where the Temple of the Jews had once stood. When Roman legionnaires destroyed the Temple two thousand years before, they’d left the part of the foundation now known as the Wailing Wall.