DOME OF
THE ROCK
It is worth
considering a few facts. Gibbs’s Encyclopaedia of Islam states
that “it is almost certain that the Dome’s builders and planners were
Christians from Syria and Palestine” (p.298).
It was built on Mount Moriah, which Israelite tradition (2 Chronicles
3:1) identifies as the future Temple site in Jerusalem.
The Dome of
the Rock gets its name from the fact that it is built over the highest part, or
dome of Mount Moriah, which is where Jews and Christians believe Abraham was
prepared to offer his son, Isaac, in sacrifice (Gen. 22:1-14). It is also considered to be the location of
the threshing floor of Araunah, the Jebusite, where David built an altar to the
Lord. (2 Sam. 24:18). All this predates the rise of Islam in the
seventh century A.D.
The Dome and
cylinder on which the building sat replicated almost exactly the dome over the
high altar of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The gold on
the dome was donated by the Jordanian King Hussein, who was kind to Christians
and had his children sent to a Christian school, and his father, King Abdullah,
was also favourable to Christians and donated Mount Nebo, where Moses died, to
the Franciscans of the Holy Land in 1932.
The
victorious Muslim army that invaded Jerusalem in 638 A.D. had an ex-Rabbi,
converted to Islam, at its head: Ka’ab
al-Ahbar, and it was he who pointed out the site of Mount Moriah to the
ignorant Arab invaders as it was then unrecognizable, covered by rubble and debris.
He also
suggested that the prophet, Mohammad’s “night journey” or astral travel to “the
furthest mosque” was to that pile of rubble.
Jesus prayed at the Temple, even though built by a murderous tyrant,
Herod, and Mount Moriah, was in the middle of that ancient temple platform.
