Al-Aqsa Mosque, Congregational mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem, Palestine
Al-Aqsa Mosque is a congregational mosque in Jerusalem, Palestine, covering around 144,000 square meters and including several buildings within its grounds. The main prayer hall has a silver dome and sits near the Dome of the Rock with its golden cupola, while four minarets in Mamluk style rise above the compound and over 200 monuments from different eras of Islamic architecture can be found throughout the site.
The present mosque was built on the southern wall of the Haram al-Sharif by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik or his successor al-Walid I in the late 7th or early 8th century. After earthquakes in 746 and 1033 it was rebuilt by the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur in 758 and the Fatimid caliph al-Zahir in the 11th century, whose seven-aisle outline survives. Crusaders captured it in 1099 and used it as a palace and the headquarters of the Knights Templar; Saladin restored it as a mosque after 1187.
Worshippers gather daily in the courtyards and halls to pray together and observe religious occasions. Pilgrims from many countries visit during Ramadan and other important times in the Islamic calendar, bringing a sense of devotion and community to the site.
The prayer hall stands at the southern end of the Haram al-Sharif compound in the Old City of Jerusalem, entered from the compound's plaza rather than from the street. The Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, linked to the Jordanian government, administers the building and its gates. Visitors pass the paved stone forecourt and the row of pointed arches of the facade before reaching the interior.
The grounds sit on the Temple Mount plateau, which holds religious meaning for Muslims and followers of other Abrahamic traditions. Underground structures such as cisterns and vaults from different eras lie beneath the surface, while geometric decoration on walls and ceilings was designed without figurative images and shows Islamic artistic tradition through mathematical patterns.
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