Dome of the Chain

Mosque Name: Dome of the Chain

Country: Israel

City: Jerusalem

Year of construction (AH): 55 AH

Year of construction (AD): 674 AD

GPS: 31.77785N 35.235808E

Gibson Classification: Petra

Rebuilt facing Mecca: Never

For a Link to the Qibla Tool Click Here

Description:

Most everyone knows about the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Many academic papers have been written about it, but few people take notice of a very similar structure right beside the Dome of the Rock. It is known as the Dome of the Chain, and it has a Mihrab niche, and directs the faithful to pray directly towards Petra.

Traditionally, it is claimed to be one of the oldest structures on the Temple Mount. It was built by the Umayyads, but later became a Christian chapel under the Crusaders, and was restored as an Islamic prayer house by the Ayyubids and has been renovated by the Mamluks and Ottomans.

Some architectural elements used as part of the structure date to pre-Islamic times, but it is widely accepted by both Arab and Western scholars that the Dome of the Chain was originally built in 691 by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik. The Umayyad design of the building has largely remained unaltered by later restorations.

Peters indicates an early date, but without being specific, possibly before 41 A.H. /661 C.E., while Nees is inclined to a date ca. 55 A.H./675 C.E. and 66A.H/685 C.E.

Peters: “… *The traditional way of approaching the (study of) the Haram al-Sharif that the early Muslims laid out atop the Herodian platform on the Temple Mount, is through an inspection of the two religious buildings that dominate the platform from at least the last decade of the seventh century the Dome of the Rock and the Aqsa Mosque. But if few turn elsewhere in that same landscape, we may have a somewhat clearer appreciation of the intentions of the early Muslim rulers of the holy city. In 1967 Benjamin Mazar began to unearth first a large building, and then an entire complex of buildings adjoining the southern side of the platform of the Haram… what has so far come to light is a large Umayyad palace with direct access to the Haram at both ground and roof level, and west of it a series of other buildings that extended both westward along the city wall and northward along the “Wailing Wall” of the haram and perhaps as far as “Wilson’s Arch” under the Haram entry known as the Gate of the Chain…This was a very large public works undertaking whose intent and function may not have been fulfilled before the Umayyad dynasty itself expired in 750 A.D. and the political fortunes of both city and empire were directed from Baghdad. What was the intent? We cannot be certain, but the complex was one of the largest, if not the largest Muslim building project undertaken in the first century of Islam … we can certainly speculate who was the mover of this vast secular initiative …the city had a new king, Mu’awiya ibn Sufyan…an anonymous and Christian but it is doubtless early attests that Mu’awiya was crowned in Jerusalem…had the emotional investment in Jerusalem and who offers himself as the most probable candidate for the ruler who initiated the grand design embodied …the two religious buildings intended to sacralize the space atop it. Mu’awiya, it appears, intended to rule the “Abode of Islam” from Jerusalem… the ideological basis lay close at hand in the obvious, Quranically certified sanctity of Jerusalem…that expression was the Dome of the Rock, a building perhaps planned and it may be already begun by Heraclius as a reproach to newly-kindled Jewish claims on the Temple Mount, taken in hand by Mu’awiya and then finally completed and signed by ‘Abd al-Malik in 692 A.D.*” Peters, 1983:130-133.

Nees says that, “*… there is a consensus dating at least the origin of the structure (Dome of the Chain) to the period between the Umayyad dynasty in 749, 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 (date) 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…*”. Nees, 2015:59. Note that this is the date we have chosen to go with, until a more specific date can be established.

There is a tradition that this dome is built on the spot where King Solomon suspended a chain, and only honest and upright people could grasp it. Thus it was used by rulers to decide cases.

While the sides of this structure are open, one side is enclosed and has a mihrab niche denoting the Qibla direction, which faces towards Petra. This can be seen in the Qibla Tool.

Bibliography

Creswell, 1969: K. A. C. Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, Umayyads A.D. 622-750, Second edition in two parts, Volume I Part One, Oxford, 1969.

Nees, 2014 Lawrence Nees, “I*nsular Latin Sources, ‘Arculf’, and Early Islamic Jerusalem*”, Where Heaven and Earth Meet, Essays on Medieval Europe in Honor of Daniel Callahan, Studies in the History of Christian Traditions, Vol. 174, Brill, 2014, 81-100.

Nees, 2015 Lawrence Nees, Perspectives on Early Islamic Art in Jerusalem, Arts and Archaeology of the Islamic World, Vol. 5, 2015

Peters, 1983 F. E. Peters, “*Who Built the Dome of the Rock*”, Graeco-Arabica, 2–3: 119–128. 1983.

Peters, 1985 F. E. Peters, Jerusalem: The Holy City in the Eyes of Chroniclers, Visitors, Pilgrims, and Prophets from the Days of Abraham to the Beginnings of Modern Times. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.