قبة الصخرة

قبة الصخرة

القدس

The Dome of the Rock in the Aqsa's court as al-Muqaddasi saw it c. 375 AH: an octagon of four gilded doors facing the stairways — Qibli, Israfil, al-Sur, al-Nisa' — ringed by arcades on piers 'nobler than marble, peerless', a hundred-cubit dome sheathed in gilded brass built in three shells (painted boards, an iron lattice against the wind, timber plate), so that sunrise made it blaze; 'I saw nothing like this dome in all the East' ¹. In the Mamluk age Ibn Fadl Allah al-Umari measured it again door by door — the eastern gate doubled with a gilded arch between, the northern called Bab al-Janna, the western like it, each leaf sheathed in chased yellow brass, with the cubit-survey of dome, drum and court ².