The question posed here has been discussed by many fine scholars for many years, and much ink has been spilled in attempts to reach satisfying solutions. These scholars include Goldziher, Goitein, Grabar, and Elad among others.Footnote 1 The essence of the problem has been defined by one of the leading scholars in the discussion, Oleg Grabar, in his article in the second edition of the Encyclopaedia Of Islam:Footnote 2
The Dome of the Rock has excited more scholarly concern than any other Islamic monument, and this for several reasons. It is a unique building which was rarely copied for its shape (a few later mausoleums like the Sulaybiyya in Sāmarrā or Qalāwūn's tomb in Cairo may have used it as a model), and never for its functions. It does not fit into any architectural series. Also it is located on the site of the Jewish Temple, in the holy city of Christianity, without showing obvious traces of impact from the two older monotheistic faiths. It does not look like a mosque, and the Aḳṣā nearby fulfilled the congregational needs of the Muslim community.
To what purpose and for what reasons was this architecturally unique and lavishly decorated building built? Explanations based on the sources vary a great deal: Goldziher, whose claim was recently substantiated by Elad, maintained that the wish to create an alternative centre to the Ka'aba in reaction to ʿAbdallah b. Zubayr's revolt was the central motive;Footnote 3 others assert that ʿAbd al-Malik was motivated by competition against Christianity (Goitein, Grabar based on al-Muqadassī)Footnote 4 and that in effect this splendid monument fulfilled the need to contend with the towering, glimmering crosses in Jerusalem and with theological issues such as the Trinitarian doctrine in an attempt to display victorious Islam. Grabar also pointed out the Abrahamic connection.Footnote 5 More recently, based first and foremost on the Praises of Jerusalem literature (Faḍāʾil Bayt al-Maqdis), Hasson,Footnote 6 Livne-Kafri,Footnote 7 Van Ess,Footnote 8 Elad,Footnote 9 Cook,Footnote 10 Berger,Footnote 11 and Necipoğlu,Footnote 12 emphasized the central role of traditions of Jewish origin regarding Jerusalem and the Temple which were part of Muslim lore as early as the beginning of the eighth century; these traditions concerned especially Solomon's Temple and cosmological and eschatological elements of the Temple Mount and Jerusalem. Elad maintains that ʿAbd al-Malik conceived himself as a Davidic Messiah who was rebuilding Solomon's temple. Crone and Cook believe that the Muslims originally intended to build the Jewish Temple.Footnote 13 Busse, Rabbat, Sharon and Elad have shown that in its early years the ceremonies in the monument bore many similarities to those of the Jewish temple, and that Jews were in fact involved in them.Footnote 14 As for the established tradition regarding the sanctity of the Ḥaram al-Sharīf, most scholars tend to agree that the tradition of the Isrāʾa and Miʿrāj, became established only later and in any case did not serve as the main incentive for the building of this extravagant and unique monument.Footnote 15 Robinson puts this great project into context claiming that “ʿAbd al-Malik's ambitions as a ruler were as grand and radical as the design and execution of the Dome of the Rock”,Footnote 16 and that such a project was a clear signal to the local population that “the Muslims were now laying permanent claims to the land”.Footnote 17
As Elad rightly emphasizesFootnote 18 the various motives do not contradict each other. In effect, together, they even provide added support for such a great and ambitious investment. In this paper I would like to propose an additional motive, presented from a different and hopefully somewhat fresh perspective.
The gist of my claim is that one of the main incentives for building the Dome involved an emotionally, politically and eschatologically loaded competition between the Muslim Caliphate and the Byzantine Empire, between Jerusalem and Constantinople. At the nucleus of this competition were on one hand the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim version of the Temple of Solomon, meant to reclaim the honour of the humiliated Temple in Jerusalem, and on the other, haughty Constantinople which professed to be the New Jerusalem, with the Hagia Sophia – an extraordinary church magnificently rebuilt over a century-and-a-half earlier by Justinian, which claimed to be the Byzantine heir of the temple – at its centre.
In the following discussion I will describe the position of Jerusalem in the Byzantine world in Late Antiquity and the growing competition between Jerusalem and Constantinople in the early Islamic period. I will then attempt to demonstrate how this competition may well have been one of the central motives for erecting an outstanding monument built in the Byzantine tradition that was to be as impressive as the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.
Between Jerusalem and Constantinople in Byzantine history
Jerusalem, and the Temple mount in particular, posed a difficult challenge to Christianity from the start.Footnote 19 On the one hand, the devastated city, previously the Jewish spiritual centre, and particularly the ruined temple in its heart, served as the ultimate proof of the victory of Christianity over Judaism, from which, according to Christian belief, God had turned away. This proof was reinforced by Hadrian's edict forbidding the Jews from entering Jerusalem, and reiterated probably by Constantine upon building the church of the Holy Sepulchre.Footnote 20 Eusebius in his Demonstratio Evangelica (VI, 18), advocated the idea that the sanctity had moved after the destruction to the Mount of Olives basing his claim on Zach. 14: 1–10 (a Jewish idea based Zachariah 14: 4).Footnote 21 Yet just a few years later, when Constantine decided to build the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, it became evident that the status of the city had changed.Footnote 22 True, the focus had now moved to the place of the crucifixion and the resurrection while the ruined Temple Mount continued to serve as a living proof of Christian victory of Christianity and a constant source of humiliation for the Jews.Footnote 23 Yet the revival of the city which had served as the Jewish political as well as spiritual centre regaining the old name Hierusalem was problematic even for Eusebius himself, who chose at first to declare that the Holy Sepulchre was built only in the margins of the city, later admitting that it was in fact in its centre.Footnote 24 The somewhat fragile solution to this dilemma was found in the differentiation between the Old Jerusalem and the New JerusalemFootnote 25 (just as the New Testament was differentiated from the Old Testament). From now on, the bishops of Jerusalem would invest tremendous energy in promoting the status of the city. The results would soon be evident, starting with canon 7 of the Oecumenical council in Nicaea, which approved the custom according to which the bishop of Aelia should be honoured, continuing in Constantinople I in 381, when the church of Jerusalem was declared “Mother of all Churches”,Footnote 26 and culminating in Chalcedon (451), when Jerusalem was declared the Fifth Patriarchate.Footnote 27 During these years Jerusalem would become an important centre of pilgrimage characterized by a growing number of Holy Places and by its special feast days. This special status would be reinforced by Heraclius’ triumphal entry upon returning the cross from the Persian captivity to Jerusalem.Footnote 28
Beyond the establishment of a religious and political status of this “New Jerusalem”, Christian tradition also assigned the city a special eschatological status which was clearly based on messianic expectations strongly attached to both Jewish tradition and the interpretation of Jesus’ messianic role. Already in the fourth century we find in the explanatio somnii attributed to the Tiburtine Sybil the first version of the later famous legend of the Last Emperor, relaying the following account: during the reign of the Antichrist, the King of the Romans (i.e. the Byzantine Emperor) will vanquish Gog and Magog, he will then make way to Jerusalem, “lay down his diadem and his royal garb, and will hand over the Kingdom of the Christians to God the Father and Jesus Christ his son”.Footnote 29 This same legend was to be recapitulated, possibly inspired by Heraclius’ triumphal entry to Jerusalem, sometime in the seventh century, in the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, which was distributed widely not only throughout the East but also the West.Footnote 30 Despite the impressive similarity, however, there is one noteworthy variation: while the earlier version mentions that the Emperor will give up his royal insignia in Jerusalem, the Pseudo-Methodius describes the dramatic setting of the event in the Holy Sepulchre: “The moment the Son of Perdition appears, the king of the Greeks shall go up and stand on Golgotha and the Holy Cross shall be placed on that spot where it had been fixed where it bore Christ. The king of the Greeks shall place his crown on the top of the Holy Cross, stretch out his hands towards heaven, and hand over the kingdom to God the Father. And the holy Cross upon which Christ was crucified will be raised up to heaven, together with the royal crown.”Footnote 31 This legend would continue to resonate for centuries throughout the Christian world.
Thus, despite the complexity surrounding the revival of Jerusalem as a Christian city, there is no doubt that between the fourth and seventh centuries it established for itself an influential position in the Christian world.
Between Jerusalem and Constantinople
The rising status of Jerusalem in the Byzantine world did not remain unrivalled. Constantinople was not indifferent to the growing sanctity of Jerusalem and in fact, seemed to have been somewhat threatened by it.
Unlike Jerusalem, which possessed a growing number of holy places and was a rich source of relics, Constantinople lacked these completely and strove continuously to address this deficiency by importing various relics.Footnote 32 In the mid-fifth century, when Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem and Patriarch to be, strove to upgrade the position of the city in the church hierarchy, he was pressed to relinquish Mary's coffin with its sacred remains, found in the church of the Mother of God in Gethsemane, and transfer it to Blachernae in Constantinople, where “a holy shrine to the eternal virgin, the most blessed Mary, the holy Mother of God”, was just built and beautifully decorated by the Empress Pulcheria.Footnote 33
Another incident in c. 530 is reported by the traveller Theodosius, who recounts that Urbicius, a superintendent of the Empire (praepositus imperii) who had “crowned Emperors, removed their crowns and chastised them” hewed out the stone upon which Mary sat to rest, located three miles from Jerusalem (i.e. the kathisma Footnote 34 ), shaped it into an altar and planned to send it to Constantinople. However, the stone would not move further than St Stephen's gate in Jerusalem, and was placed at the Holy Sepulchre serving thereafter for communion.Footnote 35 This episode reveals the growing tension between Constantinople and Jerusalem regarding the holy relics in possession of the latter. Another important relic which was transferred sometime in the mid-fifth century to Constantinople, perhaps by Eudokia herself, were the bones of St Stephen for whom she had built a special church in Jerusalem just a short while before.Footnote 36 From the fifth century Constantinople was in fact establishing its own status as “The New Jerusalem”.
As early as 446, the Mesopotamian monk Daniel the Stylite, on his way to the coveted Holy Land, was discouraged from proceeding by an old man, “a father and a teacher”, who told him: “Do not go to those places, but go to Byzantium and you will see a second Jerusalem (deuteran Iherusalem), namely Constantinople; there you can enjoy the martyrs’ shrines and the great houses of prayer…”.Footnote 37 It is evident here that the concept of a metaphoric and spiritual Jerusalem, the Heavenly Jerusalem,Footnote 38 which can reside in anyone's heart, expressed just a century earlier by Gregorius of Nyssa,Footnote 39 has been commandeered in favour of Constantinople – a specifically chosen earthly substitute.Footnote 40
In a key article on the subject Magdalino has shown that, following the upheavals that shook the Byzantine Empire during the sixth century, the Byzantine rulers took active steps with the aim of establishing the sanctity of the Empire in general, and specifically that of Constantinople. This was done by unprecedented investment in church building and religious endowments which sought to assimilate the earthly Empire with the Kingdom of Heaven. The idea of Constantinople as Nea Iherusalem holds an important place in this process and becomes a standard topos in praise of Constantinople.Footnote 41
A prominent manifestation of the growing competition between Constantinople and Jerusalem is found in Theodore the Syncellus’ homily on the Avar siege of Constantinople in 626 ce.Footnote 42 Throughout this homily Theodore juxtaposes Jerusalem and Constantinople as the “Old Jerusalem” versus the “New Jerusalem”. The Avar siege is presented as a realization of the prefiguration found in Kings II 16 (Isaiah's prophecy to Ahaz, King of Judaea regarding the alliance between Aram and Israel against Assyria) (ch. 2), the Avar leader wishing to destroy “this Jerusalem” (ch. 8). Like Jerusalem, Constantinople is protected by God and the Virgin, but “how could our city not obtain help and divine support more than the other Jerusalem”, he remarks, having received from God such an Emperor, with another Isaiah beside him? (ch. 3).
The Jews are also introduced into this equation. On the same day upon which they mourn the devastation of their city, says Theodore, our city was saved from the Avars; and just as Zachariah (8: 19) had predicted, we, unlike the Jews, protected by divine love and the Virgin, were brought happiness and joy (ch. 26).
The most significant part is found towards the end of the homily: here Theodore interprets Ezekiel 38–9, the prophecy of Gog and Magog, explaining that these in fact are the current events which are taking place in Constantinople and its environs.Footnote 43 Gog and Magog are the Avars, and the Holy Land they are attacking is in fact Byzantium. If anyone doubts the fact that Byzantium is in fact the Holy Land, Theodore retorts by saying that the goal of war is in general the hope of material gain. Yet “in the land of Israel there is nothing of any sort, neither today nor in the future, that could be such a cause of war”. He continues to say that no other city but Constantinople, the present “navel of the earth”, which serves God and glorifies his name, could fulfil the role of the Land of Israel; its Emperor and his co-reigning son, Heraclius and Constantine III, are indeed the living David and Salomon (ch. 43). It is indeed quite ironic that less than a decade before the Arab conquest, Palestine is presented as a land that is not worth fighting for!
Byzantine attitude towards the Temple Mount and the Temple
I would now like to concentrate especially on one site in Jerusalem which, although far from holy, had become the subject of fierce competition between Constantinople and Jerusalem in the sixth century. This was the site of the historic Temple. As mentioned above, the devastation of the Temple Mount was the living proof of the fulfilment that “not one stone here will be left on another” (Matt. 25: 35–6; Mark 12: 2; Luke 19: 44), serving as living proof of the victory of Christianity over Judaism. Jerome's humiliating description of the Jews mourning over the ruined Temple is a noted case in point.Footnote 44 Consequently the Mount was turned during the Byzantine period into a dung heap (sterquilinium), the dwelling place of nocturnal demons,Footnote 45 intentionally desecrated by the Christians.Footnote 46
Constant Jewish attempts to rebuild the Temple were seen as threats to Christian rule,Footnote 47 and prophecies regarding the rebuilding of the Temple by the Messiah were interpreted contrarily by the Christians as the doings of Antichrist, based on Daniel (9: 27; 11: 1–31; 12: 11) and on II Thess. 2: 4. Such is Cyril of Alexandria's reaction to Julian the Apostate's scheme,Footnote 48 and Theophanes’ description of ʿUmar's plan to build on the Temple Mount which will be discussed below.Footnote 49
Despite this, the inherent historical sanctity of the Temple, deeply anchored in the Scriptures, made it a challenging goal for Christianity. As has been noted by Averil Cameron, Dagron and recently in an exhaustive and excellent article by Ousterhout, Solomon's Temple was used as a metaphor of the Christian church from the beginning of Christian rule, when churches started to be constructed.Footnote 50 When consecrating Paulinus’ church in Tyre, Eusebius in fact follows the descriptions of the Temple in detail.Footnote 51 He called Paulinus a new Bezaleel – a Solomon, king of a new and far better Jerusalem, or even a new Zerubbabel, who bestowed far greater glory than the former on the Temple of God.Footnote 52
The church of the Holy Sepulchre was the object of similar metaphors. The tomb was called the Holy of Holies, and the day of the consecration of the Holy Sepulchre (Encaenia)Footnote 53 is described by the pilgrim Egeria towards the end of the fourth century as “a feast of special magnificence … when the house of God was consecrated, and Solomon stood in prayer before God's altar, as we read in the book of Chronicles”.Footnote 54 Additional metaphorical references abound.Footnote 55 The Church of the Holy Sepulchre also saw itself as the heir of Temple relics such as the anointing horn, Solomon's ring and Abraham's altar, which implied the transition of the site of Isaac's sacrifice from the Temple Mount to the church of the Holy Sepulchre.Footnote 56
In the sixth century, however, this position of the church of the Holy Sepulchre as the “New Temple” was threatened when Constantinople tried to expropriate it and transfer it to the Byzantine capital, thus giving it new life detached from its original physical location in the Old Jerusalem.
In 527 an impressive church, built by a powerful noblewoman by the name of Anicia Iuliana and dedicated to St Polyeuktos, was consecrated in Constantinople. The dedicatory inscription of the church, whose remains were discovered in 1960, praises Juliana for “having surpassed the wisdom of the celebrated Solomon, raising a temple to receive God” and the measurements of the church seem to have been those of the Temple.Footnote 57 Just a few years later the Emperor Justinian rebuilt the Hagia Sophia; his church was to surpass in size and beauty all others. Describing the Hagia Sophia in his De Aedificiis Procopius says that: “God cannot be far away, but must especially love to dwell in this place, which he has chosen”,Footnote 58 a reference no doubt to Solomon's Temple. In a poem by Corippus written in 568 we find the following: “Let the description of Solomon's Temple now be stilled”.Footnote 59 This claim will appear again in a much cruder description written in the ninth century, which cites Justinian as saying: “Enikesa se Solomon” (Solomon, I have vanquished thee).Footnote 60
Both Dagron and Ousterhout, who have discussed this subject in detail, have raised the question of the relationship between Solomon's Temple and the Hagia Sophia, and have noted that they are contrasted rather than compared.Footnote 61 In fact, the texts are unanimous in the message that there is no need to imitate or compare, since the Hagia Sophia (in fact Anicia Iuliana's S. Polyeuktos already) surpasses Solomon's Temple by far.
This is quite a different phenomenon to that which took place in the West during the Carolingian renaissance, when Jerusalem and its Temple serve as the ideal prototype that is the subject of imitation, glorification, at times perhaps also a representation of the Heavenly Jerusalem. Thus, for example, Alcuin, in a letter written in 798, adduces Jerusalem and its Temple as a metaphor to Aachen and the church of St. Mary which was being built at that time, and the dome of the Germigny-des-Prés church from 806 in which the Ark and the Cherubim are depicted.Footnote 62
The pretension of surpassing Jerusalem and taking its place is underscored in a hymn written by the most celebrated poet Romanos Melodos who had served for most of his life as sacristan in the Hagia Sophia. Melodos’ hymn 54, written on the occasion of the reconstruction of the Hagia Sophia, notes that while the magnificent temple in Jerusalem “that all-wise Solomon … raised up … was given over to pride and destroyed, it still remains fallen, it was not restored”, one can “see the grace of this church that offers eternal life”. He then continues and says that “The people of Israel were deprived of their Temple / but we instead of that, / now have the Holy Anastasis and Sion / which Constantine and the faithful Helena / ave to the world / two hundred and fifty years after the fall. / But in our case, just one day after the disaster / work was begun on having the church restored. / It was brilliantly decorated and brought to completion.” He then goes on to say that “the very structure of the church / was erected with such excellence / That it imitated Heaven, the divine throne”.Footnote 63 Note that there is a clear hierarchy here: the Jewish Temple at the bottom, then the Holy Sepulchre, and on the highest level the Hagia Sophia – an imitation of God's throne.Footnote 64 A later report recounts that a statue of Solomon, having been vanquished, and therefore holding his cheek in sorrow, was placed in the Basilica overlooking the Hagia Sophia.Footnote 65
Ousterhout makes one vital distinction between the general “Solomonic” references to churches wherever they may be, starting with Eusebius, and those relating to the Hagia Sophia. This is the first time, he notes, that the Solomonic reference serves a political objective, turning Constantinople with the Hagia Sophia in its centre into the New Earthly Jerusalem, thus founding Justianian's imperial authority in the divinely sanctioned kingship of the Old Testament.Footnote 66
It is thus quite evident that not only was the Heavenly Jerusalem commandeered to Constantinople during the fifth century, but that in the sixth a new political ideology had been instated according to which earthly Jerusalem with a new and improved Solomonic temple, in fact a representation of God's throne itself, was now to be found in Constantinople! This special status would be further enhanced when Heraclius will at first bring a relic of the Cross to Constantinople, and a few years later, following the Arab conquest, will bring the Cross itself to the New Jerusalem.
Muslim reactions to Byzantine political ideology
Muslim sanctification of the Temple Mount
Most scholars now agree that the initial motivation behind the Muslim sanctification of the Temple Mount and the building of the Muslim religious monuments on it was the return to the sanctified place of the Jewish Temple.Footnote 67 Hence the use of terms such as Bayt al-Maqdis (Hebrew Beit Ha-Miqdash), a term used for both the temple itselfFootnote 68 and the city of Jerusalem, and Haykal (Hebrew – Heykhal), the search for the Rock of Bayt al-Maqdis and its sanctificationFootnote 69 and the Muslim tradition regarding the active participation of the Jewish convert Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, or, in a later Jewish tradition, the Jews themselves, in locating the sacred spot.Footnote 70 The fact that they were building “The Temple of God” (naos Theou) is mentioned also by Anastasius the Sinaite, a contemporary Christian source writing at the time of the building of the Dome.Footnote 71
More importantly, in ʿAbd al-Malik's Dome of the Rock the rituals themselves seem initially to have been related to Jewish Temple rituals, including the special attire worn by the performers of the ceremonies, the assignment of a special status to Mondays and Thursdays, days of special importance in Jewish liturgy, purification before the rituals, the mode in which incense was used, the call for prayer and more.Footnote 72 Although this was short-lived, it was nonetheless the obvious reason for choosing this site.Footnote 73 Based on artistic features corroborated by Islamic sources, some scholars, such as Soucek and Shani, claim in fact that it is specifically the Solomonic temple that was being reconstructed in the building of the Dome of the Rock.Footnote 74
As noted by Livne-Kafri, Muslim sources convey the pain of the Jews over the destruction of the Temple and hopes for its resurrection by Muslims.Footnote 75 Many of these are found especially in the Faḍāʾīl Bayt al-Maqdis (Praises of Jerusalem) literature, now recognized as representing early traditions from the second half of the seventh and the eighth century ce. While these traditions have been preserved only in the compilations of al-Wāsiṭi (d. 1019) and al-Musharraf b. al-Murajjā (d. c. 1055), Kister discovered that many of them are found in the commentary on the Quran by Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. 768). Moreover, both were careful to note the chain of transmission of the traditions, choosing also to include in their collections Isrāʾīliyyāt, i.e. traditions received from Jews and converts, which were often criticized and omitted in other sources.Footnote 76
Muslim identification with the Jews regarding the Temple Mount is manifest in a rare tradition, which divulges the initial ties to Jewish sentiment, before its dissociation:Footnote 77
From Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, it is written in one of the holy books: “Ayr ū shal āyi m, which means Jerusalem (Bayt al-Maqdis), and the Rock which is called the Temple (al-haykal). I shall send to you my servant ʿAbd al-Malik, who will build you and adorn you. I shall surely restore to Bayt al-Maqdis its first kingdom, and I shall crown it with gold and silver and gems. And I shall surely send to you my creatures. And I shall surely place my throne of glory on the Rock, since I am the sovereign God, and David is the King of the Children of Israel”.Footnote 78
Note the use of the name Ayrūshalayim in its Biblical form, with a translation of the name, and the lām and nūn al-taʾākīd, laying stress on the verbs, and giving it a prophetic aura. The last sentence has clear Jewish connotations. In fact, according to this tradition the temple will be reinstated by ʿAbd al-Malik after which God will once again place his throne of glory there.Footnote 79 The mention of David, the king of the children of Israel here, leaves no doubt that the aim is to restore the ancient Jewish Temple. This rare tradition exposing the initial connection to Jewish tradition, which was identified as one of the Isrāʾīliyyāt, was later adapted and censured, leaving out David and the Children of Israel.Footnote 80
The idea that God's throne was located on the rock is an ancient Jewish idea. The Ark of the Covenant was conceived as God's throne or footstool and Jeremiah prophesies that the whole of Jerusalem will replace the ark as God's throne (Jer. 3: 16–7). Jewish legend speaks about the “lower throne” which is found underneath the “heavenly throne” and in fact reaches all the way up to it.Footnote 81 This tradition resonates in Muslim literature as well. Ibn al-Murajjā cites the convert Kaʿb al-Aḥbār: “It is said in the Torah that [Allah] said to the Rock of Bayt al-Maqdis: you are my lowest throne and from you I ascended to heaven…”.Footnote 82 Rosen-Ayalon and Shani claim that the inside of the Dome itself in fact attempts to portray the setting of God's throne.Footnote 83 This idea goes hand-in-hand with many other features attributed to the ṣakhra or to bayt al-maqdis in Muslim tradition which originate in Jewish tradition.Footnote 84
Christian reactions to Muslim activity
Christian reactions to building projects on the Temple Mount were soon to follow. Sebeos, writing in the mid-seventh century, reports on “the rebellious Jews, who after gaining some help from the Hagarenes for a brief while, decided to rebuild the Temple of Solomon. Finding a spot called Holy of the Holies they rebuilt it with base and construction as a place for their prayers. But the Ishmaelites, being envious of them, expelled them from that place and called the same house of prayer their own”.Footnote 85 Anastasius the Sinaite, writing c. 690, reports that in c. 660 he heard the demons who participated at night in the clearing work of the Temple mount done by the MuslimsFootnote 86 and the appendix to the Pratum Spirituale of John Moschos, compiled according to Hoyland c. 670, reports that the Muslims took men, some by force and some by their own will, “to clean that place and to build that cursed thing intended for their prayer and which they call a mosque (midzgitha)”.Footnote 87 Later Christian reports on Muslim activities on the Temple Mount expressed much disdain, employing the traditional Christian interpretation that the rebuilder of the Temple is actually “the abomination of desolation standing in a holy place” mentioned in the book of Daniel (9: 27, 11: 31, and 12: 11) and in the Gospel (Matt. 24: 15; Mark 13: 14) – the embodiment of the Antichrist.Footnote 88 ʿUmar himself is conceived as the “abomination of desolation”; having appeared in Jerusalem showing a “devilish pretense” and “seeking the Temple of the Jews – the one built by Solomon – so that he might make it a place of worship for his own blasphemous religion”.Footnote 89 This report is adduced by Theophanes Confessor writing in the late eighth–early ninth century. Although the attribution to ʿUmar may be mythical, the attitude exhibited here is nevertheless quite clear. Later sources including Theophanes, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Ch. Ad 1234 all relying on the Common Source alias Theophilus,Footnote 90 report that at the time of the building, in 642–3 ce according to this story, the structure would not stand and began to fall (or kept falling down) and was only stabilized after the Muslims followed the advice of the Jews and ordered the Christians to take down the Cross from the church (of the Ascension)Footnote 91 on the Mount of Olives. Though this tradition may be an expression of the negative attitude of Theophilus towards the Jews, it may in fact reflect the reality of the co-operation between the Jews and the Muslims in the early part of this venture.Footnote 92
Muslim attitude towards Byzantine activity on the Temple Mount
As has been noted by Livne-Kafri, when one reads the Muslim sources carefully it becomes quite clear that according to various traditions the Muslims are driven by a desire to settle the scores of the Jews with the Christians. It also becomes apparent that the culprits in this story are the Roman rulers and their Byzantine successors.Footnote 93 Thus, the Christians helped Nebuchadnezzar destroy the (first) Temple (sic.), and were therefore punished by humiliation under Muslim rule.Footnote 94 But the blame is placed principally upon the Roman/Byzantine Empire. According to one tradition, Titus son of Vespasian (Ṭaṭarā b. Ashimanus) attacked the sons of Israel, took them captive, and carried the vessels of the Temple in 1,900 ships to Rome, and the Prophet said that the Mahdī will return them to Jerusalem in 1,700 ships which will moor in Jaffa.Footnote 95 Al-Ṭabarī relates that: “He [Constantine] banished the remaining Children of Israel from Filsaṭīn and al-Urdunn, because as he asserted, they had killed Jesus”.Footnote 96
The fact that the Romans had not only destroyed the Temple, but had also made a point of desecrating it is emphasized here.Footnote 97 The intentional humiliation of the Holy site, which had greatly pained the Jews, is put forth in Islamic tradition.Footnote 98 Al-Ṭabarī describes, in the name of Rajāʾ b. Ḥaywa who was in charge of the building of the Dome, how ʿUmar cleared the rubbish (kunāsa) on the Temple Mount using the edges of his mantle.Footnote 99 Al-Wāsiṭī adduces several Faḍāʾil traditions regarding the clearing of what he terms “the dung-heap” (mazbala) by ʿUmar, one of which, going back to Shaddād b. Aws (d. c. 58–64 h)Footnote 100 grandfather, recounts that “when ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb conquered Bayt al-Maqdis he found on the ṣakhra much dung which the Romans (Rūm) had thrown there in order to infuriate the Children of Israel”.Footnote 101 Note here the blame, which is clearly directed at the Roman Empire (Rūm) rather than the Christians (Naṣārā). Even if the attribution of this act to ʿUmar himself is legendary, and it should be attributed to ʿAbd al-Malik, the hostility and the blame directed at the Romans is nevertheless genuine.
The targetting of the Roman Empire, as opposed to the local Christians, is made quite evident in an even more extreme version of this same story, adduced in two parallel traditions by Ibn al-Murajjā: in the first,Footnote 102 Heraclius,Footnote 103 during his visit in Jerusalem, sees “the mazbala covering miḥrāb daʾūd which the Christians (Naṣārā) had thrown there in order to offend the Jews; (the offence is) such that the women would send their menstrual rags from Rūmiyya to be thrown there”.Footnote 104 Heraclius writing a letter reprimands the Romans for having desecrated the holy place, saying: “Oh, men of Rome (Rhomaioi), you should be killed on this mazbala because you violated the sanctity of this temple (masjid) just as the Children of Israel were killed over the blood of Yaḥyā b. Zakariyyāʾ”. He orders that it be cleaned up but only a third is cleaned by the time of ʿUmar's arrival. The parallel tradition relates the same mode of desecration by the Christians, in the context of their uprooting of the Ṣakhra, and the looting of the stones of the Temple Mount for the purpose of building the church of the Holy Sepulchre. When the job is completed, the Temple Mount is desecrated “to the extent that the women would send their menstrual rags to be thrown on it from Constantinople (qusṭanṭiniya)”.Footnote 105 It should be stressed here that the heroines of this story are the women of Constantinople rather than the local Christian women or the Christians in general. In all of these traditions, and especially in the latter two, the villain is clearly defined: it is the Roman Empire and its people, and specifically Constantinople, rather than just the Christians.
The blame thrown at Constantinople is stated clearly in a tradition cited by al-Ṭabarī. The isnād of this tradition goes back to the famous scholar Rajāʾ b. Ḥaywa (d. 112/730) from Baysān (present Beit She'an, Byzantine Scythopolis), who was actually in charge of the construction of the Dome of the Rock, and whose report originates in those who took part in the Conquest of Jerusalem.Footnote 106 The tradition dovetails with the story of the cleaning of the Mount by ʿUmar, put in the mouth of Kaʿb al-Aḥbār.
The Romans (Rūm) attacked the sons of Israel, were given victory over them, and buried the Temple. Then they were given another victory, but they did not attend to the Temple until the Persians attacked them. The Persians oppressed the Sons of Israel. Later the Romans (Rūm) were given victory over the Persians. Then you came to rule. God sent a prophet to the [city buried in] rubbish and said: “Rejoice O Jerusalem (Urī shalam)!Footnote 107 Al-Farūq will come to you and cleanse you”. Another prophet was sent to Constantinople. He stood on a hill belonging to the city and said: “O Constantinople, what did your people do to My House?Footnote 108 They ruined it, presented you as if you were similar to My Throne and made interpretations contrary to My purpose. I have determined to make you one day unfortified (and defenceless)Footnote 109 (jalḥāʾ). Nobody will seek shelter from you, nor rest in your shade. [I shall make you unfortified] at the hands of Banū al-Qādhir, Sabā and Waddān”.Footnote 110
Al-Ṭabarī then adds a parallel tradition: “al-Farūq (ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb) came to you with my obedient army. They will take revenge upon the Byzantines on behalf of your people (wa-yudrikūna li-ahlikī bi-thaʾriki) (i.e. the people of Jerusalem). Regarding Constantinople he said: I shall leave you unfortified and exposed to the sun; nobody will seek shelter from you, and you will not cast your shade on anyone”.Footnote 111
These two traditions reveal a close connection between the desecration of the Temple Mount by the Byzantines, the motivation to cleanse it and rebuild the Temple, and the need to take revenge upon the Byzantines on behalf of its people.
This prophecy, styled like a Biblical prophecy, is put in the mouth of the Jewish convert to Islam, Kaʿb al-Aḥbār. It makes it evident that the Muslims, most probably via the Jews and/or converts from Judaism who co-operated with them, were well aware of the fact that Constantinople claimed to be New Jerusalem, and its people the New Israel; and that Constantinople, referring most probably specifically to the Hagia Sophia as noted in Romanos Melodos’ hymn (above), was conceived as a representation of God's Throne. This is accentuated in the sentence: “O Constantinople, what did your people do to My House? They ruined it, presented you as if you were similar to My Throne and made interpretations contrary to My purpose”. It is for this haughtiness and hubris, for thinking that it can actually replace Jerusalem, the temple and its people, that Constantinople shall be punished according to this tradition. This conclusion is greatly strengthened by the tradition that is yet to be adduced below.
The end of the prophecy “[I shall make you unfortified] at the hands of Banū al-Qādhir, Sabā and Waddān” cites the names of three peoples from Arabia mentioned in Ezekiel 27: 19–22,Footnote 112 referring to the rich and proud metropolis Tyre. It has already been noted by Uri Rubin that the prophecy on Tyre, beginning in Ezekiel 26, which will be demolished for gloating over the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, is analogous here to Constantinople who will be punished for glorying over Jerusalem.Footnote 113 Rubin notes in fact that the analogy between Tyre and Constantinople is made outright by Nuʿaym b. Hammād (d. 229 h/844ce) in kitāb al-fitan.Footnote 114 There are in fact two traits mentioned in Ezekiel's prophecy which make Tyre a suitable model for Constantinople. The first is its pride and haughtiness: “In the eleventh of the month the word of the Lord came to me: O mortal, because Tyre gloated over Jerusalem, Aha! The gateway of the peoples is broken, it has become mine; I shall be filled now that it is laid in ruin” (Ezek. 26: 1–2); “Oh Tyre, you boasted ‘I am perfect in beauty’. Your domain was on the high seas; your builders brought your beauty to perfection” (Ezek. 27: 3).
A still more revealing passage is found in the next chapter, addressed to the prince of Tyre: “Because you have been so haughty and have said, ‘I am a god; I sit enthroned like a god in the heart of the seas’” (Ezek. 28: 2). Constantinople, like Tyre, believes that it is God's throne. This last passage also refers to the fact that Tyre, like Constantinople, sits in “the heart of the seas”. In the prophecy regarding Tyre brought by Nuʿaym b. Ḥammād, Tyre, which is called outrightly madīnat al-Rūm, is blamed for likening its sky to “My Throne” (tamthulīna falakakī bi-ʿarshī).Footnote 115
I would not have elaborated on this prophecy so much, were it not for the following tradition regarding Constantinople brought by Nuʿaym b. Ḥammād also in the name of Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, which has several other versions in other sources. The isnād of this tradition goes back to Sharīḥ b. ʿUbayd al-Ḥimṣī.Footnote 116
Constantinople heard of the destruction of Bayt al-Maqdis, and she became proud and insolent and so was called the haughty. She said: the throne of my Lord is built upon the waters, and she was (or: and I am) built upon the waters. God promised punishment [for it] on the Day of Resurrection and said: “I will tear away your decoration, and your silk, and your veil, and I will leave you when there is [not even] a rooster crowing in you, and I will make you uninhabited except for foxes, and unplanted except for mallows, and the thorny carob, and I will cause to rain down upon you three [types] of fire: fire of pitch, fire of Sulphur, and fire of naphta, and I will leave you bald and bare, with nothing between you and the heavens. Your voice and your smoke will reach me in heavens. Because you have for such a long time associated other deities with God and worshipped other than Him. Girls who will have never seen the sun because of their beauty will be deflowered, and none of you who arrive will be able to walk to the palace (balāṭ) of their king [because of the amount of loot] – you will find in it the treasure of twelve kings of theirs, each of them more and none less than it [the one before], in the form of statues of cows or horses of bronze, with water flowing on their heads – dividing up their treasures, weighing them in shield and cutting them with axes. This will be because of the fire promised by God that makes you hurry, and you will carry what of their treasures you can so you can divide them up in al-Qarqadūna (Chalcedon).”
According to early Muslim tradition, crystallized before the mid-eighth century, it was to be the role of al-Fārūq, that is ʿUmar, to cleanse the Mount, and ʿAbd al-Malik's to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem and thus to turn the wheel back and put things right again. The tradition cited above regarding ʿAbd al-Malik: “I shall send to you my servant ʿAbd al-Malik, who will build you and adorn you. I shall surely restore to Bayt al-Maqdis its first kingdom … And I shall surely place my throne of glory on the Rock” should be placed side-by-side with the tradition regarding Constantinople's claim to this same throne. In fact, ʿAbd al-Malik's building inscription dated 692 ce, consisting mainly of Quranic quotations, quotes twice the beginning of the Throne verse (Aayat al-kursī, Sura 2: 255f.) which states that “His Kursi (throne) extends over the heavens and the earth, and their preservation tires Him not”.Footnote 117
These events are portrayed as part of the events of the end of time, which are already occurring. Rosen-Ayalon, Elad, and other scholars, have already stressed the centrality of the Last Days, the Day of Judgement, and Paradise both in the iconography and in the inscriptions of the Dome of the Rock as well as in various other monuments and features in the area of the Ḥaram.Footnote 118
The fall of Constantinople and its destruction is a central part of the scheme of the Last Days. As such it plays a major part in Muslim apocalyptic literature and is considered one of ashraṭ al-saʿa, the six portents of the hour.Footnote 119 The dramatic events that were taking place were in fact being interpreted as a link in this eschatological chain of events. Bayt al-Maqdis will vanquish Constantinople and its newly rebuilt Temple will replace the Hagia Sophia.Footnote 120
Conclusion
In this paper I have surveyed the formation of Byzantine ideology according to which Constantinople is the New Jerusalem and its church, the Hagia Sophia is God's Throne as well as the central place of the Jewish Temple and the need to redeem its dignity which, according to Muslim tradition, was violated by the Byzantines. The rebuilding of the “Temple of Solomon” fulfilled the need of the Muslims for a significant holy place of their own in the newly conquered lands: this place could both compete successfully with the revered Kaʿba in Mecca, controlled in those years by the rebellious ʿAbdallah b. al-Zubayr, and could at the same time be a monument to challenge the sanctity of Constantinople and its outstanding church which claimed to have surpassed in beauty Solomon's temple.
The competition over the location of “God's Throne” should be seen against the background of continuous Muslim attacks and raids on Byzantium, as well as two sieges on Constantinople during the reigns of Muʿāwiya, ʿAbd al-Malik and his sons al-Walīd, Sulaymān, Hishām, and most famously Maslama, who led many expeditions against the Byzantines, climaxing in the second siege on Constantinople (717–718).Footnote 121 In fact, 691/2, the year in which the Dome of the Rock was either begun or completed,Footnote 122 was the same year in which ʿAbd al-Malik defeated Justinian II at Sebastopolis, and freed himself from the annual tribute to the Byzantines. The Muslims who had admired Byzantine art and architecture, imitating it in various places,Footnote 123 now harnessed its architectural and artistic tradition to its service,Footnote 124 in order to obtain superiority over Constantinople. They chose to build this stunning monument in the tradition of the classical Roman–Byzantine commemoratoria, and to embellish it with the finest mosaics in the best style of Byzantine artistic tradition.
Muslim competition with Constantinople through architectural and iconographic mimesis in the Mosque of Damascus as well as in the Dome of the Rock, has been demonstrated by Flood in his book on the Damascus Mosque.Footnote 125 Flood notes that these extravagant elements in the Damascus Mosque were later to be rejected and criticized by the Muslims. Al-Walīd was in fact blamed for building church-like mosques, a claim which, in Flood's words, reveals the “translational character of his experiment”.Footnote 126 Milwright demonstrates architectural influence of Late Antique monuments in the Dome of the Rock's inscriptional pattern.Footnote 127
The restitution of “God's Throne” in Jerusalem by ʿAbd al-Malik is thus motivated not only by inner political and religious considerations such as his competition with ʿAbdallah b. al-Zubayr, but also by a political ideology which complements the ambitious military goals of the Umayyad rulers until the devastation which followed the siege of Constantinople. The Dome of the Rock is therefore also the answer to the haughty and presumptuous Constantinople and its church the Hagia Sophia, whose builder had actually purported to have vanquished Solomon's temple. ʿAbd al-Malik's target was to be the new Solomon, to rebuild a Temple that will equal, if not outdo, the church and its city which insolently claimed to have inherited God's Throne.
