The elevated sanctuary known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as the Temple Mount occupies a central place in Jerusalem’s history. Jewish tradition locates the First and Second Temples on the platform, and Herod the Great enlarged its retaining walls during his reconstruction of the Second Temple. Roman forces destroyed that temple in 70 CE. The surviving Western Wall later became a major place of Jewish prayer, while the platform itself acquired new monumental buildings after Muslim armies took Jerusalem in the seventh century.

The Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik commissioned the Dome of the Rock, completed in 691 or 692. It is an octagonal shrine centered on a natural rock outcrop, not a congregational mosque. Ambulatories allowed visitors to move around the rock, while mosaics, marble, inscriptions, and a gilded dome created one of the earliest great monuments of Islamic architecture. Its inscriptions proclaim the unity of God and engage Christian beliefs about Jesus. Islamic tradition later associated the site closely with Muhammad’s Night Journey and ascent to heaven.

The nearby al-Aqsa Mosque developed as the sanctuary’s principal place of communal prayer. An early structure existed under Abd al-Malik, and his son al-Walid is commonly credited with completing or enlarging it in the early eighth century. Earthquakes repeatedly damaged the building, prompting major Abbasid and Fatimid reconstruction. Unlike the centrally planned Dome of the Rock, al-Aqsa is a longitudinal prayer hall oriented toward Mecca. Together the buildings made Jerusalem one of Islam’s three most revered cities.

Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099. They converted the Dome of the Rock into a church and used al-Aqsa as a royal residence before assigning part of it to the order known as the Knights Templar, whose name referred to the presumed Temple site. Saladin recovered the city in 1187, restored Muslim worship, and removed Christian additions. Ayyubid, Mamluk, and Ottoman patrons repaired the monuments, founded schools and arcades, supplied fountains, and renewed decorative surfaces. The Dome’s exterior tiles largely reflect Ottoman work ordered by Suleiman the Magnificent and later restorations.

The compound’s religious authority and political sensitivity intensified in the modern era. Jordan administered East Jerusalem after 1948; Israel captured it in 1967 but left day-to-day religious administration with the Islamic Waqf under Jordanian custodianship, while Israeli authorities control external security and most non-Muslim access. Conservation has included replacement of the Dome’s metal covering, restoration of mosaics and tiles, and repairs after fire and earthquake. The sanctuary remains a living place of worship whose architecture cannot be separated from competing sacred histories, legal claims, and the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict.