Editing Temple Mount (section)

=== Early Muslim period ===
[[File:SWqanatirTempleMount.JPG|thumbnail|The Southwest ''[[Al-Mawazin|qanatir]]'' (arches) of the Haram al Sharif; Qubat al-Nahawiyya is also partially visible to the right.]]
In 637, Arabs [[Siege of Jerusalem (637)|besieged]] and captured the city from the Byzantine Empire, which had defeated the Persian forces and their allies, and reconquered the city. There are no contemporary records, but many traditions, about the origin of the main Islamic buildings on the mount.<ref name="BahatAtlas">{{cite book |author=Bahat |first=Dan |title=The Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=1990 |pages=81–82 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Kaplony |first=Andreas |title=Where Heaven and Earth Meet: Jerusalem's Sacred Esplanade |publisher=Yad Ben-Zvi Press |year=2009 |editor=Grabar |editor-first=Oleg |editor-link=Oleg Grabar |pages=100–31 |chapter=635/638–1099: The Mosque of Jerusalem (Masjid Bayt al-Maqdis) |editor-last2=Kedar |editor-first2=Benjamin Z. |editor-link2=Benjamin Z. Kedar}}</ref> A popular account from later centuries is that the [[Rashidun Caliphate|Rashidun]] [[Caliph]] [[Umar]] was led to the place reluctantly by the Christian patriarch [[Sophronius of Jerusalem|Sophronius]].<ref name="PetersJ">{{cite book |author=Peters |first=F.E. |url=https://archive.org/details/jerusalemholycit00pete |title=Jerusalem |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1985 |isbn=978-0-691-07300-2 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/jerusalemholycit00pete/page/186 186–192] |language=en-us |url-access=registration}}</ref> He found it covered with rubbish, but the sacred Rock was found with the help of a converted Jew, [[Ka'b al-Ahbar]].<ref name = PetersJ/> Al-Ahbar advised Umar to build a mosque to the north of the rock, so that worshippers would face both the rock and Mecca, but instead Umar chose to build it to the south of the rock.<ref name = PetersJ/> It became known as al-Aqsa Mosque. According to Muslim sources, Jews participated in the construction of the haram, laying the groundwork for both al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock mosques.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Meddeb |first1=Abdelwahab |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wbg1AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA108 |title=A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations: From the Origins to the Present Day |last2=Stora |first2=Benjamin |date=2013 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-4913-0 |page=108 |language=fr}}</ref> The first known eyewitness testimony is that of the pilgrim [[Arculf]] who visited about 670. According to Arculf's account as recorded by [[Adomnán]], he saw a rectangular wooden house of prayer built over some ruins, large enough to hold 3,000 people.<ref name=BahatAtlas/><ref>{{cite book |author=Wilkinson |first=John |title=Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades |year=2002 |page=170}}</ref>

In 691, an octagonal Islamic building topped by a dome was built by the Caliph [[Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan|Abd al-Malik]] around the rock, for a myriad of political, dynastic and religious reasons, built on local and Quranic traditions articulating the site's holiness, a process in which textual and architectural narratives reinforced one another.<ref>''The Dome of the Rock as Palimpsest'', Necipoglu, Muqarnas, 2008.</ref> The shrine became known as the [[Dome of the Rock]] ({{lang|ar|قبة الصخرة}}, ''[[Qubbat]] as-Sakhra''). (The dome itself was covered in gold in 1920.) In 715, the Umayyads, led by the Caliph [[al-Walid I]], built al-Aqsa Mosque ({{lang|ar|المسجد الأقصى}}, ''al-Masjid al-'Aqṣā'', {{abbr|lit.|literally}}&nbsp;"Furthest Mosque"), corresponding to the Islamic belief of Muhammad's miraculous [[Isra and Mi'raj|nocturnal journey]] as recounted in the [[Quran]] and [[hadith]]. The term "Noble Sanctuary" or "Haram al-Sharif", as it was called later by the [[Mamluks]] and [[Ottoman Turks|Ottomans]], refers to the entirer area that surrounds that Rock.<ref>Oleg Grabar, [http://www.riifs.org/journal/essy_v2no2_grbar.htm ''The Haram ak-Sharif: An essay in interpretation'', BRIIFS vol. 2, no. 2 (Autumn 2000)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121004035552/http://www.riifs.org/journal/essy_v2no2_grbar.htm|date=2012-10-04}}.</ref>