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Essay about The Dome of the Rock

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Essentially unchanged for more than thirteen centuries, the Dome of the Rock remains one of the world's most beautiful and enduring architectural treasures. Adorned with its magnificent gold dome and elaborate quranic inscriptions, the structure intimately represents the world's second largest religion in a city historically associated with the three Semitic faiths. Representation, however, is not the only effect of this site. Despite its intended purpose, the Dome of the Rock inherently stands as the focal center of a millennium-old religious controversy. Located on what is essentially the world's holiest site (obviously a speculative assertion) and inscribed with proclamations of Islamic religious superiority, the Dome symbolizes far …show more content…

Cyril Glasse discusses such in her work:
"In the case of the Dome of the Rock, the symbolism of its Quranic forms echoes the significance of the Temple Mount as the site of the Temple of Solomon. It is the culmination of the revelations of Moses and Jesus in the restoration of the primordial Abrahamic unity which is Islam…the calligraphic inscriptions recall the relationship between Jerusalem and Jesus, and the apocalypse to come."

In addition to the structure's architectural composition, elaborate Quranic inscriptions further elaborate this message of religious superiority. Carole Hillenbrand alludes to such:
"The Dome of the Rock, which had been built in 72/691 as a triumphant statement of the superiority of Islam over other faiths, especially Christianity, displays a careful selection of Quranic inscriptions which tilt at the Trinity and the Incarnation. Islam's uncompromising monotheism is emphasized in a long band of inscriptions measuring around 240 metres in length: the message is unambiguous: ‘There is no god but the One God and He has no partner.'"

Artfully constructed and etched in Quranic verse, the Dome sits upon its ominous perch and serves as the center of Jerusalem. Regardless of one's religious or political slant, the sheer magnificence of the building cannot be ignored – nor can its intrinsic message. From an uninfluenced perspective, one cannot help but observe the Dome as an attempt to

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