Masjid Qubbat as-Sakhrah

One of my classes this quarter is Islamic Art and Architecture, 650-1100, which is a focus on the very early Islamic art and architecture (no duh). Currently I'm supposed to be writing 800 words about two different scholarly articles on the Dome of the Rock (in transliterated Arabic, according to Wikipedia, it is Masjid Qubbat as-Sakhrah--literally something like "the dome mosque of the rock") in Jerusalem. Interestingly, the Dome of the Rock isn't a mosque at all, just a ginormous octagonal domed structure built over a rock with some bizarre religious associations to Jews, Muslims, etc. The area of Jerusalem it sits on, the Haram al-Sharif, is almost empty aside from the Dome of the Rock, so of course this is a monument meant to be overwhelming, visible from afar, etc.

It was built in about 691 or 692 and seems to be the first serious, monumental piece of so-called Islamic (the "Islamic" tradition is not so unified as other traditions, since it spans centuries and all sorts of different sub-cultures) architecture. Why exactly it was built remains something of a mystery; most of the mythological explanations ascribed to it (that it was the site of a "Night Journey" to Heaven that Muhammad made, etc) were done so several centuries after the fact. The articles I've been reading and analyzing about it in the past few weeks basically suggest that it's something of a statement to the new Islamic power in the region, drawing on some Byzantine/Sasanian (Persian) tradition but also, as the second article I'm reading asserts, some pre-Islamic Arab mytho-historical aesthetics. Yeah.

Still, it is a glorious-looking building.

Very nice.