Function & Meaning of the Dome of the Rock

Islamic architecture is frequently noted for the splendor of the mosaics and tiles that ornament mosques, mausoleums and palaces. It is fitting, therefore, that the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the earliest surviving example of Muslim building, is as beautifully adorned as any. Yet, although it stands at the head of a long tradition of such elaborate decorative schemes, the Dome of the Rock is atypical in most other ways: the borrowed building type is not one of the characteristic forms later developed by Islamic culture; its intended use is uncertain, unlike most later Islamic architecture where function is unambiguous; and the decorative mosaics inside the dome not only reflect the cultures from which the styles were derived but also constitute an iconographic program whose meaning has been obscured by time. In one important respect, however, the building is typically Islamic. For, in addition to the somewhat obscure representations of vegetation and jewels in the mosaics, there is also a band of Quranic inscriptions, also in mosaic, that runs around the lower edge of the interior of the dome. There, for the first time, it is possible to see how the beauty of the calligraphy serves as a complement to the divine words and fulfills a function that could be called 'decorative' but is far more profound than that. In the Dome of the Rock, however, the quotations from the Quran also provide essential clues to the building's function and the meaning of the rest of the mos

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on camel-back." But, on the other hand, even greater debate exists over why the caliph wished to attract pilgrims. Some argue that he merely hoped to mitigate the situation of the faithful who found themselves unable to make the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. But there are those who hold that, "knowing that Jerusalem was already a place of pilgrimage for Christians and Jews, he calculated the financial profit he could make from pilgrims of all three great religions of the Book." Yet another interpretation of the caliph's actions was that he hoped that his new center for pilgrimage would replace the holy sites in Arabia. Grabar notes that the accounts of Abd al-Malik's motives in some historians do not occur in other, more reliable, sources and that "as momentous an attempt as that of changing the site of the hajj could not have been overlooked," nor would such heterodox behavior have been wise policy for the young ruler whose position was being challenged on strong traditional grounds. The answer may lie in some more moderate combination of aspects of these tales. As Hillenbrand suggests, it may be the case that the Dome of the Rock was intended to be "a place of worldwide Muslim pilgrimage to supplement" Mecca and Medi

Category: Arts - F