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1 results

  • Why was the Dome of the Rock built? A new perspective on a long-discussed question

  • Milka Levy-Rubin
  • Journal:
    Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies / Volume 80 / Issue 3 / October 2017
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    08 November 2017, pp. 441-464
    Print publication:
    October 2017

  • The existing discussion regarding the motives for building the Dome of the Rock revolves around two suggestions: that the incentive for building was the fierce competition between ʿAbd al-Malik and ʿAbdallah b. al-Zubayr in Mecca, and that it was competition with local Christian monuments that moved ʿAbd al-Malik to building this outstanding edifice. This paper suggests that a third incentive lay in the political and ideological rivalry with Constantinople that was at its peak during that period. This rivalry drove ʿAbd al-Malik to build a monument that would outdo those of Constantinople, and especially that of the Hagia Sophia. Muslim tradition emphasized that Constantinople had contaminated the site of the Temple and had claimed to inherit its place as God's throne on earth. The building of the Dome of the Rock, the New Temple of Solomon, was thus meant to redeem the Temple of Jerusalem's honour as of old against the claims of Constantinople.