Jerusalem's picturesque mosques
There is a spot in Jerusalem, slightly below and to the southeast of
the Temple Mount, a lip of land overlooking the excavations of the City
of David, the Kidron Valley and the village of Silwan, from which one
can see the spires of half a dozen mosques thrusting heavenward. Five
times a day, the call to prayer is broadcast to Jerusalem's Muslim
faithful from this profusion of minarets, randomly staggered, the sound
of so many unsynchronized adhans creating an eerie and strangely
beautiful drone that cannot help but remind one of Jerusalem's
importance to Islam.
There are dozens upon dozens of mosques
throughout east Jerusalem, the Arab Muslim neighborhoods of west
Jerusalem, and the villages that ring the city. Most, of course, are
modest neighborhood mosques, places for prayer and community and little
else. But in the Old City, the mosques are architecturally striking and
impressively ancient - in the Old City, a newer mosque is one
that dates back to the Crusader era. The domes and minarets of the Old
City hearken back to the time of ascendant Islam in the Middle East,
testaments to an era when caliphs and kings reigned over the center of
art and learning in the known world.
The most important mosque in
Jerusalem, and the heart of its Muslim community, is the Al-Aqsa
Mosque, built soon after the Islamic conquest of Palestine atop the
Temple Mount, site of Muhammad's ascent to heaven. On Fridays, the
entire Temple Mount plaza is filled shoulder-to-shoulder with prostrated
worshipers spilling out from the mosque's interior, offering thanks to
Allah in unison as Muslims have in Jerusalem for 1400 years - proof,
along with the many other mosques pictured in the following photospread,
that the Islamic faith remains vibrant in the Holy City.
Images courtesy of redranch, cyphunk, ChrisYunker, delayed gratification, goldberg, Esme_Vos, and mitopencourseware from Flickr under a Creative Commons license, and from Flash90 for GoJerusalem.com.
2000+ tips and recommendations
Alright, we'll be the first to admit it. Jerusalem's often chilly and often damp winters don't exactly exude...
In a region known for being one of the first in which early humans settled after leaving Africa, and in a city populated...
Looking for a place to begin your morning in luxury and style? Look no further than the American Colony Hotel, which offers...
Jerusalem, the city where kings ruled and sultans sat is no stranger to luxury. Today, even the visiting yeoman can find...
Jewish tradition holds that in the times of the First and Second Temples, all the Jewish people would gather in Jerusalem...
Technically, it's possible to visit Jerusalem without going to the Old City, but it would be hard to say you'd...
Looking for a place to begin your morning in luxury and style? Look no further than the American Colony Hotel, which offers...
The faithful may rhapsodize about the spiritual highs to be reached in the Old City; culture cognoscenti groove on the...
Once upon a time, options for eating out in Jerusalem were limited to local common phenomena such as falafel and schwarma,...
No results to show
|
Text text text
|
||
