As a monument with a disputed function and iconography, the Dome of the Chain is something of an art historical conundrum. Constructed by the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwan (r. 685–705) in 692 on the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem, it reportedly commemorates a chain tethered to the heavens that aided the Prophet King David (Dāʾūd) in the dispensation of justice. By the sixteenth century, however, the Dome of the Chain became associated with other sites of Davidic commemoration such as the Qurʾanic Mihrab of David (Miḥrāb Dāʾūd) referred to in Qurʾan 38:21–26, and was believed to be located in the western citadel of Jerusalem. Through an analysis of the Arabic primary sources, this study situates the history of the Dome of the Chain and the Qurʾanic Miḥrāb Dāʾūd within the context of the Davidic repertoire and commemorative practice in Islam. By examining changing trends of Davidic commemoration in Jerusalem from the seventh to the sixteenth centuries, this study reveals trajectories of Islam’s engagement with its biblical past in relation to the localized commemoration of Davidic justice and kingship within Jerusalem.
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Gülru Necipoğlu, “The Dome of the Rock as Palimpsest: ʿAbd al-Malik’s Grand Narrative and Sultan Süleyman’s Glosses,” Muqarnas 25 (2008): 17–105, at 19.
Nasser Rabbat, “The Meaning of the Umayyad Dome of the Rock,” Muqarnas 6 (1989): 12–21, at 14, 17–18; and Necipoğlu, “Dome of the Rock as Palimpsest,” 38, 43. For a discussion of the Davidic and Solomonic evocations, see ibid., 56–57.
Ofer Livne-Kafri, “Jerusalem in Early Islam: The Eschatological Aspect,” Arabica 53, no. 3 (2006): 382–403, at 385; for the connection between the evocation of these narratives and Jewish apocalypticism, see ibid., 386.
Necipoğlu,“Dome of the Rock as Palimpsest,” 19. The pilgrim Arculf (c. 670) describes the structure as a “house of prayer” of rectangular shape, large enough to house 3,000 worshipers. For a re-evaluation of the veracity of the account of Arculf, see Lawrence Nees, Perspectives on Early Islamic Art in Jerusalem (Leiden, 2016), 33–57.
Necipoğlu, “Dome of the Rock as Palimpsest,” 38; Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Wāsiṭī, Faḍāʾil al-Bayt al-Muqaddas, ed. I. Hasson (Jerusalem, 1979), 23 no. 28; translation in Isaac Hasson, “Muslim Literature in Praise of Jerusalem: Faḍāʾil Bayt al-Maqdis,” in The Jerusalem Cathedra, ed. Lee Levine, 3 vols. (Jerusalem and Detroit, 1981–83), 1:168–84, at 181.
E. W. Brooks, “The Successors of Heraclius to 717,” in The Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 2, The Rise of the Saracens and the Foundation of the Western Empire, ed. H. M. Gwatkin and J. P. Whitney (Cambridge, 1957), 231.
Suzanne Spain Alexander, “Heraclius, Byzantine Imperial Ideology, and the David Plates,” Speculum 52, no. 2 (1977): 231.
Suzanne Spain Alexander, “Heraclius, Byzantine Imperial Ideology, and the David Plates,” Speculum 52, no. 2 (1977): 217–18.
Suzanne Spain Alexander, “Heraclius, Byzantine Imperial Ideology, and the David Plates,” Speculum 52, no. 2 (1977): 237.
See C. E. Bosworth, “Rajaʾ ibn Ḥaywa al-Kindī and the Umayyad Caliphs,” Islamic Quarterly 16 (1972): 36–79.
Rabbat, “Dome of the Rock Revisited,” 68. Moreover, specifics within the text can be independently corroborated by other sources; see ibid., 68–70.
Suleiman Ali Mourad, “The Symbolism of Jerusalem in Early Islam,” in Jerusalem: Idea and Reality, ed. Tamar Mayer and Suleiman A. Mourad (London, 2008), 86–102.
Suleiman Ali Mourad, “The Symbolism of Jerusalem in Early Islam,” in Jerusalem: Idea and Reality, ed. Tamar Mayer and Suleiman A. Mourad (London, 2008), 88–90 and 99–102. For brief discussion of the circulation of these traditions as early as the seventh and eighth century, see M. J. Kister, “A Comment on the Antiquity of Traditions Praising Jerusalem,” in Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 1:185–86.
See Guy Le Strange, “Description of the Noble Sanctuary at Jerusalem in 1470 A.D. by Kamâl (or Shams) ad Dîn as Suyûtî,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 19, no. 2 (1887): 247–305, esp. 262–63. Shams al-Din al-Suyuti goes on to associate the mihrab located on the site of the Haram al-Sharif with the caliph ʿUmar’s prayer, which was later known as the Mihrab of ʿUmar.
Gil, “Traditions Concerning the Temple Mount,” 163–64; and Necipoğlu, “Dome of the Rock as Palimpsest,” 43. See [al-Ṭabarī], The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 12, The Battle of al-Qādisiyyah and the Conquest of Syria and Palestine, trans. and annotated by Yohanan Friedmann (Albany, 1992), 194.
For the former, see Kaplony, Ḥaram of Jerusalem, 265; for the latter, see ibid., 460–61.
Kaplony, Ḥaram of Jerusalem, 308–11; and Elad, Medieval Jerusalem, 48; Necipoğlu, “Dome of the Rock as Palimpsest,” 24.
Khoury, Wahb b. Munabbih, 1:106–8. Surprisingly, Ibn al-Faqīh (d. 10th cent.) attributes this chain to Solomon rather than David (Ibn al-Faqīh, Kitāb al-Buldān, 152). For legends surrounding the chain, see Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, 151–52.
Khoury, Wahb b. Munabbih, 1:108; and Necipoğlu, “Dome of the Rock as Palimpsest,” 24.
Kaplony, Ḥaram of Jerusalem, 308–11; and Elad, Medieval Jerusalem, 48; Necipoğlu, “Dome of the Rock as Palimpsest,” 24.
See Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, al-ʿIqd al-Farīd, 148. For the supervisory role of Rajaʾ b. Haywa in the construction of the Dome of the Rock, see also Rabbat, “Dome of the Rock Revisited,” 70.
Rosen-Ayalon, Early Islamic Monuments, 46–60. Oleg Grabar agrees with this interpretation but also argues that the commemoration of the omphalos “gave way” to stronger eschatological connections; see Oleg Grabar, Shape of the Holy, 131. In an echo of this, Muslim sources refer to Jerusalem as qubbat al-arḍ or “dome of the earth”; see EI2, s.v. “al-Kubba,” by S. D. Goitein. It is important to note that this mihrab would have existed on the enclosure wall within what was believed to have been a covered prayer hall, predating the construction of the Mosque of al-Aqsa by al-Walid (although some argue for a date contemporary with the Dome of the Rock for this mosque). The mihrab of Muʿawiya located in the Mosque of al-Aqsa is also worth mentioning in this context; see Elad, Medieval Jerusalem, 71, 76–77, and 169.
Schein, “Between Mount Moriah and the Holy Sepulchre,” 188.
C. J. Sabine, “Numismatic Iconography of the Tower of David and the Holy Sepulchre: An Emergency Coinage Struck During the Siege of Jerusalem, 1187,” The Numismatic Chronicle 19 [139] (1979): 122–32, at 124.
Arnold Spaer, “A Seal of Baldwin I, King of Jerusalem,” The Numismatic Chronicle 142 (1982): 157–59.
Sabine, “Numismatic Iconography,” 127. It has also been suggested that during Saladin’s siege of Jerusalem, these coins may have been struck as an emergency issue and perhaps the imagery of the Tower of David should be seen within this context; see ibid., 132.
Pringle, Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, 3:183; see also Khālid ibn ʿĪsā al-Balawī, Tāj al-Mafriq fī Taḥliyat ʿUlamāʾ al-Mashriq, ed. al-Ḥasan al-Sāʾiḥ, 2 vols. (Rabat, 1980), 1:71.
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As a monument with a disputed function and iconography, the Dome of the Chain is something of an art historical conundrum. Constructed by the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwan (r. 685–705) in 692 on the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem, it reportedly commemorates a chain tethered to the heavens that aided the Prophet King David (Dāʾūd) in the dispensation of justice. By the sixteenth century, however, the Dome of the Chain became associated with other sites of Davidic commemoration such as the Qurʾanic Mihrab of David (Miḥrāb Dāʾūd) referred to in Qurʾan 38:21–26, and was believed to be located in the western citadel of Jerusalem. Through an analysis of the Arabic primary sources, this study situates the history of the Dome of the Chain and the Qurʾanic Miḥrāb Dāʾūd within the context of the Davidic repertoire and commemorative practice in Islam. By examining changing trends of Davidic commemoration in Jerusalem from the seventh to the sixteenth centuries, this study reveals trajectories of Islam’s engagement with its biblical past in relation to the localized commemoration of Davidic justice and kingship within Jerusalem.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 871 | 210 | 22 |
Full Text Views | 179 | 10 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 204 | 19 | 0 |