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Al Masjid Al-Aqsa was founded forty (days or months or
years) next to the Ka`bah. Historians believe that Prophet Ibrahim,
peace and blessings be upon him, was the one who built or ordered
Al-Aqsa to be built. It was demolished during the conquests of
Jerusalem. `Umar Ibn Al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, is the
first one then who restored Al-Aqsa. He recognized the sight but nothing
was built. When abdul-Malik Ibn Marwan held the office in the year 66
A.H., he rebuilt Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock.
Al-Aqsa is one of the largest and most important mosques
in the Muslim world, and the earliest in Palestine.
Its construction was probably the architectural
expression of the destination of Muhammad’s Night Journey and of the
place where his ascension to heaven occurred. The mosque was beautiful
and vast twice the size of today’s structure.
The original mosque was destroyed in an earthquake in
the middle of the eighth century and restored by the Abbasids toward the
end of that century. Other than a few pieces of wood bearing carvings of
floral images, nothing remains of the decorations of the original
mosque. Most of those in today’s mosque date from medieval times.
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