Al-Aqsa Mosque

About Al-Aqsa Mosque

The main prayer hall of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem

The Qibli Mosque (al-Jami' al-Qibli) is the large roofed prayer hall with the lead-grey dome at the southern end of the Al-Aqsa compound (Al-Haram al-Sharif) in the Old City of Al-Quds. It takes its name from the qibla, the direction of prayer, because it stands on the compound's southern wall facing Makkah. This is where Friday prayers and the largest congregations are held: the hall is about 80 metres long and 55 metres wide, rests on 53 marble columns and 49 square piers, has eleven doors and holds roughly 5,500 worshippers today. Islamic tradition traces the first small prayer hall here to the caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab. The Umayyad caliphs Abd al-Malik and al-Walid built the great congregational mosque on the same axis as the Dome of the Rock; after earthquakes it was rebuilt by the Abbasid caliphs al-Mansur and al-Mahdi, and again by the Fatimid caliph al-Zahir in the eleventh century, who gave it the seven-aisle plan it keeps today and the richly decorated central arch with its vegetal mosaics. Visitors should know that the name "Al-Aqsa Mosque" properly refers to the entire walled compound of some 144,000 square metres, including the open courtyards, the Dome of the Rock, the Marwani prayer hall, the arcades, domes and fountains, not only this building. Prayer anywhere inside the walls carries the merit of praying at Al-Aqsa; the Qibli hall is its congregational heart.

Where:

Jerusalem, Palestine