Bridgewater Review Volume 36 | Issue 1 Article 8 May-2017 Discovering Jerusalem’s First Mosque on the Haram al-Sharif and Capitalizing Jerusalem in the Seventh Century Beatrice St. Laurent Bridgewater State University,
[email protected] Recommended Citation St. Laurent, Beatrice (2017). Discovering Jerusalem’s First Mosque on the Haram al-Sharif and Capitalizing Jerusalem in the Seventh Century. Bridgewater Review, 36(1), 23-28. Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/br_rev/vol36/iss1/8 This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. who have suggested that the first Discovering Jerusalem’s First mosque does not survive. It has also prompted us to revisit commonly held Mosque on the Haram al-Sharif views on the patronage and dating of other Early Islamic structures on and Capitalizing Jerusalem in the the Haram, including the Dome of the Rock and the multiple entry Seventh Century gates of the sanctuary’s northern and western perimeters, as well as the Early Beatrice St Laurent Umayyad “palatial” and administrative n 2013, along with my colleague Isam Awwad structures south of the Haram. (Chief Architect and Conservator of the Haram The building known in English as Solomon’s Stables was, until recently, Ial-Sharif 1972-2004 for the government of a much understudied monumental Jordan), I proposed that the first mosque of Jerusalem structure that earlier scholars consid- ered an underground building. built between 638 and 660 is the structure known It obtained the name of Solomon’s as Solomon’s Stables (today the Marwani Musalla) Stables from European scholars because located in the southeast corner of the lower platform it did indeed serve the function of a stable during the 11th-century Crusader of the Haram al-Sharif, known by many as the period.